contradistinguished from leases for years, the latter being deemed
base tenures, and insufficient to qualify a man to vote; the theory
being that no man was free whose tenure could be disturbed during
his life. Though the Liberi Homines or FREEMEN were, as a class,
overborne in this struggle, and reduced to vassalage, yet their
descendants were able, under the leadership of Cromwell, to regain
some of the rights and influence of which they had been despoiled
under the Plantagenets.

Fortescue, Lord Chief-Justice to Henry VI., thus describes the
condition of the English people:

"They drunk no water, unless it be that some for devotion, and upon
a rule of penance, do abstain from other drink. They eat
plentifully of all kinds of flesh and fish. They wear woollen cloth
in all their apparel. They have abundance of bed covering in their
houses, and all other woollen stuff. They have great store of all
implements of household. They are plentifully furnished with all
instruments of husbandry, and all other things that are requisite
to the accomplishment of a great and wealthy life, according to
their estates and degrees."

This flattering picture is not supported by the existing
disaffection and the repeated applications for redress from the
serfs and the smaller farmers, "and the simple fact that the
population had increased under the Normans--a period of 88 years--
from 2,150,000 to 3,350,000, while under the Plantagenets--a period
of 300 years--it only increased to 4,000,000, the addition to the
population in that period being only 650,000. The average increase
in the former period was nearly 14,000 per annum, while in the