new idea of property in land, which then obtained, proved too
powerful to be altered by legislation.

Another change in the system of landholding took place in those
reigns. Lord Cromwell, who succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as minister to
Henry VIII., had land in Kent, and he obtained the passing of an
act (31 Henry VIII., cap. 2) which took his land and that of other
owners therein named, out of the custom of gavelkind (gave-all-
kind), which had existed in Kent from before the Norman Conquest,
and enacted that they should descend according to common law in
like manner as lands held by knight's service.

The suppression of the RELIGIOUS HOUSES gave the Crown the control
of a vast quantity of land. It had, with the consent of the Crown,
been devoted to religion by former owners. The descendants of the
donors were equitably entitled to the land, as it ceased to be
applied to the trust for which it was given, but the power of the
Crown was too great, and their claims were refused. Had these
estates been applied to purposes of religion or education they
would have formed a valuable fund for the improvement of the
people; but the land itself, as well as the portion of tithes
belonging to the religious houses, was conferred upon favorites,
and some of the wealthiest nobles of the present day trace their
rise and importance to the rewards obtained by their ancestors out
of the spoils of these charities.

The importance of the measures of the Tudors upon the system of
land-holding can hardly be exaggerated. An impulse of self-defence
led them to lessen the physical force of the oligarchy by relieving
the land from the support of the army, and enabling them to convert