greatly strengthened by the removal from France of large numbers of
workmen in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
These prosperous tradespeople became landowners by purchase, and
thus tended to replace the LIBERI HOMINES, or FREEMEN, who had been
destroyed under the wars of the nobles, which effaced the landmarks
of English society. The liberated serfs attained the position of
paid farm-laborers; had the policy of Elizabeth, who enacted that
each of their cottages should have an allotment of four acres of
land, been carried out, it would have been most beneficial to the
state.

The reign of this family embraced one hundred and eighteen years,
during which the increase of the population was about twenty-five
per cent. When Henry VII. ascended the throne in 1485 it was
4,000,000, and on the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 it had
reached 5,000,000, the average increase being about 8000 per annum.
The changes effected in the condition of the farmers' class left
the mass of the people in a far worse state at the close than at
the commencement of their rule.





VII. THE STUARTS.


The accession of the Stuarts to the throne of England took place
under peculiar circumstances. The nation had just passed through
two very serious struggles--one political, the other religious. The