public documents on a matter of which the writers of history were
ignorant. Our doubts of the amount amassed by Henry are considerably
warranted by the computation of Sir W. Petty, who, a century and a half
later, calculated the whole specie of England at only 6,000,000 l.--This
hoard, whatever may have been its precise extent, was too great to be
formed by frugality, even under the penurious and niggardly Henry. A
system of extortion was employed, which "the people, into whom there is
infused for the preservation of monarchies a natural desire to discharge
their princes, though it be with the unjust charge of their counsellors,
did impute unto Cardinal Morton and Sir Reginald Bray, who, as it after
appeared, as counsellors of ancient authority with him, did so second
his humours as nevertheless they did temper them. Whereas Empson and
Dudley, that followed, being persons that had no reputation with him,
otherwise than by the servile following of his bent, did not give way
only as the first did, but shaped his way to those extremities for which
himself was touched with remorse at his death."[4] The means of exaction
chiefly consisted in the fines incurred by slumbering laws, in commuting
for money other penalties which fell on unknown offenders, and in the
sale of pardons and amnesties. Every revolt was a fruitful source of
profit. When the great confiscations had ceased, much remained to be
gleaned by true or false imputations of participation in treason. To be
a dweller in a disaffected district, was, for the purposes of the king's
treasure, to be a rebel. No man could be sure that he had not incurred
mulcts, or other grievous penalties, by some of those numerous laws
which had so fallen into disuse by their frivolous and vexatious nature
as to strike before they warned. It was often more prudent to compound
by money, even in false accusations, than to brave the rapacity and
resentment of the king and his tools. Of his chief instruments, "Dudley
was a man of good family, eloquent, and one that could put hateful
business into good language; Empson, the son of a sieve-maker, of
Towcester, triumphed in his deeds, putting off all other respects. They
were privy counsellors and lawyers, who turned law and justice into
wormwood and rapine."[5] They threw into prison every man whom they
could indict, and confined him, without any intention to prosecute, till
he ransomed himself. They prosecuted the mayors and other magistrates