Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/68



1. Henry VII.—The first king of the House of Tudor was a cautious, intelligent man, with little love for anything or anybody but himself. In France he had studied the methods of foreign kings in ruling without parliaments, and when he became king of England he tried to get as much power as he could. He saw that the best way to do this was to lessen the power and influence of the few nobles left after the Wars of the Roses, and to gather as much money as possible, so that he could do without parliaments. To break down the power of the nobles, he had a law passed against liveries and maintenance; that is, a law forbidding nobles to keep more than a certain number of men in livery or uniform. He knew that these men would, if occasion arose, take up arms against the king in the interests of their lords. The law was strictly put in force; and Henry went so far as to have his friend, the Earl of Oxford, fined £10,000, because when Henry visited him, Oxford, to do the King honor when he left his castle, drew up in line a large number of men in livery. Henry had a court formed of some of the leading men in his Privy Council, to punish powerful offenders for breaches of the law. The ordinary courts did not dare to put the law in force against great nobles, who with their retainers, overawed judges and juries. This new court was called the ‘‘Court of the Star Chamber,” because it met in a room whose ceiling had star-like decorations. For a time it did good service in punishing men for such offences as maintenance, forgery, and breach of the peace. It however, became a very tyrannical body, and took away from the ordinary courts many of their rightful duties.

Henry also revived Edward IV.’s practice of raising money by “benevolences” or forced gifts. Cardinal Morton was the chief instrument he used for this purpose. If a man made a great show of wealth, the Cardinal told him he certainly must be able to give a rich gift to the king. On the other hand, if he lived in a poor house, and kept few servants, he was told that since he lived so frugally he must be hoarding money, and therefore was well able