ascended the throne of a nation whose leading nobles had been swept
away. The sword had vied with the axe. Henry VII. was prudent and
cunning; and in the absence of any preponderating oligarchical
influence, planted the heel of the sovereign upon the necks of the
nobles. He succeeded where the Plantagenets had failed. His
accession became the advent of a series of measures which altered
most materially the system of landholding. The Wars of the Roses
showed that the power of the nobles was too great for the comfort
of the monarch. The decision in Taltarum's case, in the reign of
Edward IV., affected the entire system of entail. Land, partly
freed from restrictions, passed into other hands. But Henry went
further. He destroyed their physical influence by ridigly putting
down retainer; and in one of his tours, while partaking of the
hospitality of the Earl of Oxford, he fined him L15,000 for having
greeted him with 5000 of his tenants in livery. The rigid
enforcement of the laws passed against retainers in former reigns,
but now made more penal, strengthened the king and reduced the
power of the nobles. Their estates were relieved of a most onerous
charge, and the lands freed from the burden of supporting the army
of the state.

Henry VII. had thus a large fund to give away; the rent of the land
granted in knights' service virtually consisted of two separate
funds--one part went to the feudee, as officer or commmandant, the
other to the soldiery or vassals. The latter part belonged to the
state. Had Henry applied it to the reestablishment of the class of
FREEMEN (LIBERI HOMINES), as was recently done by the Emperor of
Russia when he abolished serfdom, he would have created a power on
which the Crown and the constitution could rely. This might have
been done by converting the holdings of the men-at-arms into