Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/464

 33(5 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. d veller; and the proportion of land for occupa tion being kept up, did of necessity enforce that dweller not to be a beggar or cottager, but a man of some substance, that might keep hinds and servants, and set the plough on going. This did wonderfully concern the might and mannerhood of the kingdom, to have farms as it were of a standard, sufficient to maintain an able body out of penury, and did in effect amortise a great part of the lands of the kingdom unto the hold and occupation of the yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between gentlemen and cottagers or peasants. Now, how much this did advance the military power of the kingdom is apparent by the true principles of war and the examples of other kingdoms. For it hath been held by the general opinion of men of best judgment in the wars, howsoever some few have varied, and that it may receive some distinction of case, that the principal strength of an army consisteth in the infantry or foot. And to make good infantry, it requireth men bred, not in the servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and plentiful manner. Therefore if a state run most to noblemen and gentlemen, and that the husbandmen and ploughmen be but as their workfolks and labourers, or else mere cottagers, which are but housed beggars, you may have a good cavalry, but never good stable bands of foot; like to coppice woods, that if you leave in them staddles too thick, they will run to bushes and briars, and have little clean under wood. And this is to be seen in France and Italy, and some other parts abroad, where in effect all is noblesse or peasantry, (I speak of people out of towns,) and no middle people, and therefore no good forces of foot; insomuch as they are enforced to employ mercenary bands of Switzers, and the like, for their battalions of foot. Whereby also it comes to pass, that those nations have much people and few soldiers. Whereas the king saw, that contrariwise it would follow, that England, though much less in territory, yet would have infinitely more soldiers of their na tive forces than those other nations have. Thus did the king secretly sow Hydra s teeth ; where upon, according to the poet s fiction, should rise up armed men for the service of this kingdom. The king also, having care to make his realm potent, as well by sea as by land, for the better maintenance of the navy, ordained ; &quot; That wines and woods from the parts of Gascoign and Lan- guedoc, should not be brought but in English bottoms;&quot; bowing the ancient policy of this estate, from consideration of plenty to considera tion of power. For that almost all the ancient statutes incite by all means merchant-strangers, to bring in all sorts of commodities; having for end cheapness, and not looking to the point of Ktate concerning the naval power. The king also made a statute in that parliament, monitory and minatory towards justices of peace, that they should duly execute their office, invninff complaints against them, first to their fellow-jus tices, then to the justices of assize, then to the king or chancellor, that a proclamation which h had published of that tenor, should be read in open sessions four times a year, to keep them awake. Meaning also to have his laws executed, and thereby to reap either obedience or forfeitures, wherein towards his latter times he did decline too much to the left hand, he did ordain remedy against the practice that was grown in use, to stop and damp informations upon penal laws, by procuring informations by collusion, to be put in by the confederates of the delinquents, to be faintly prosecuted, and let fall at pleasure; and pleading them in bar of the informations, which were prosecuted with effeot. He made also laws for the correction of the mint, and counterfeiting of foreign coin current. And that no payment in gold should be made to any merchant-stranger, the better to keep treasure within the realm, for that gold was the metal that lay in least room. He made also statutes for the maintenance of drapery, and the keeping of wools within the realm; and not only so, but for stinting and limiting the prices of cloth, one for the finer, and another for the coarser sort. Which I note, both because it was a rare thing to set prices by sta tute, especially upon our home commodities; and because of the wise model of this act, not pre scribing prices, but stinting them not to exceed a rate; that the clothier might drape accordingly as he might afford. Divers other good statutes were made that parliament, but these were the principal. And here I do desire those into whose hands this work shall fall, that they do take in good part my long insisting upon the laws that were made in this king s reign. Whereof I have these reasons; both because it was the pre-eminent virtue and merit of this king, to whose memory I do honour; and because it hath seme correspondence to my person; but chiefly because, in my judgment, it is some defect even in the best writers of history, that they do not often enough summarily deliver and set down the most memorable laws that passed in the times whereof they writ, being ndeed the principal acts of peace. For though they may be had in original books of law them selves; yet that informeth not the judgment of kings and counsellors, and persons of estate, so well as to see them described, and entered in the table and portrait of the times. About the same time the king had a loan from the city, of four thousand pounds; which was double to that they lent before, and was duly and derly paid back at the day, as the former like wise had been ; the king ever choosing rather tc sorrow too soon than to pay too late, and so keeping up his credit.