can bring ourselves to understand this, we shall never understand what
England was under the reigns of the Plantagenets and Tudors. The expenses
of the court under Henry VII. were a little over £14,000 a year, out of
which were defrayed the whole cost of the king's establishment, the
expenses of entertaining foreign ambassadors, the wages and maintenance of
the yeomen of the guard, the retinues of servants, and all necessary outlay
not incurred for public business. Under Henry VIII., of whose extravagance
we have heard so much, and whose court was the most magnificent in the
world, these expenses were £19,894 16s. 8d.,[44] a small sum when compared
with the present cost of the royal establishment, even if we adopt the
relative estimate of twelve to one, and suppose it equal to £240,000 a year
of our money. But indeed it was not equal to £240,000; for, although the
proportion held in articles of common consumption, articles of luxury were
very dear indeed.[45]

Passing down from the king and his nobles, to the body of the people, we
find that the income qualifying a country gentleman to be justice of the
peace was £20 a year, [46] and if he did his duty, his office was no
sinecure. We remember Justice Shallow and his clerk Davy, with his novel
theory of magisterial law; and Shallow's broad features have so English a
cast about them, that we may believe there were many such, and that the
duty was not always very excellently done. But the Justice Shallows were
not allowed to repose upon their dignity. The justice of the peace was
required not only to take cognisance of open offences, but to keep
surveillance over all persons within his district, and over himself in his
own turn there was a surveillance no less sharp, and penalties for neglect
prompt and peremptory.[47] Four times a year he was to make proclamation of
his duty, and exhort all persons to complain against him who had occasion.

Twenty pounds a year, and heavy duties to do for it, represented the