to Magna Carta in the proceedings against Wolsey
for _Praemunire_ (Fox, vi., 43).]

[Footnote 70: _Ven Cal._, ii., 336.]

Such were the tendencies which Henry VII. and Henry VIII. crystallised
into practical weapons of absolute government. Few kings have attained
a greater measure of permanent success than the first of the Tudors;
it was he who laid the unseen foundations upon which Henry VIII.
erected the imposing edifice of his personal authority. An orphan from
birth and an exile from childhood, he stood near enough to the throne
to invite Yorkist proscription, but too far off to unite in his favour
Lancastrian support. He owed his elevation to the mistakes of his
enemies and to the cool, calculating craft which enabled him to use
those mistakes without making mistakes of his own. He ran the great
risk of his life in his invasion of England, but henceforth he left
nothing to chance. He was never betrayed by passion or enthusiasm into
rash adventures, and he loved the substance, rather than the pomp and
circumstance of power. Untrammelled by scruples, unimpeded by principles,
he pursued with constant fidelity the task of his life, to secure the
throne for himself and his children, to pacify his country, and to
repair the waste of the civil wars. Folly easily glides into war, but
to establish a permanent peace required all Henry's patience, clear
sight and far sight, caution and tenacity. A full exchequer, not empty
glory, was his first requisite, and he found in his foreign wars a
mine of money. Treason at home was turned to like profit, and the
forfeited estates of rebellious lords accumulated in the hands of the
royal family and filled the national coffers. Attainder, the
characteristic instrument of Tudor policy, was employed to (p. 037)
complete the ruin of the old English peerage which the Wars of the
Roses began: and by 1509 there was only one duke and one marquis left
in the whole of England.[71] Attainder not only removed the particular
traitor, but disqualified his family for place and power; and the process
of eliminating feudalism from the region of government, started by
Edward I., was finished by Henry VII. Feudal society has been described
as a pyramid; the upper slopes were now washed away leaving an
impassable precipice, with the Tudor monarch alone in his glory at its
summit. Royalty had become a caste apart. Marriages between royal
children and Engl