ich it had,
and promised in the King's name to redress all such so far as lay in
his power. It is affirmed that his clear-sighted and vigorous speech
made a favourable impression. Parliament in turn acceded to the
proposal, and alleged its most important grievances. They affected
both ecclesiastical and financial interests: among the latter class
that which concerned the Court of Wards is the most important
historically.

Of the institutions by which the Normans and Plantagenets held their
feudal state together, none perhaps was more effectual than the right
of guardianship over minors, whose property the kings managed for
their own advantage. They stepped as it were into the rights of
fathers; even the marriage of wards depended on their pleasure. From
the time of Henry VIII a court for the exercise of this jurisdiction
and for feudal tenures generally had existed, which instituted
enquiries into the neglect of prescriptive custom, and punished it.
One of the most important offices was that of President of the Court,
which was very lucrative, and conferred personal influence in various
ways. It had been long filled by Robert Cecil himself.

The Lower House now proposed in the first place that this right and
the machinery created to enforce it, which gave birth to various acts
of despotism, should be abolished. How often had the property of wards
been ruined by those to whom the rights of the state were transferred.
The debts which were chargeable against them were never paid.[366] The
Lower House desired that not only the royal prerogatives, but also
that the kindred rights of the great men of the kingdom over their
vassals should cease, and especially that property held on feudal
tenures should be made allodial.

It is evident what great interests were involved in this scheme, which
was thoroughly monarchical, and at the same time was opposed to
feudalism. Its execution would have put an end to the feudal tie which
now had no more vitality, and appeared nothing more than a burden; but
at the same time the crown would have been provided with a regular and
sufficient income, and, what is more, would have been tolerably
independent of the grants of Parliament, so soon as an orderly
domestic system was introduced. We can understand that in bringing
this matter to an issue a minister of monarchical views might see an
appropriate conclusion to a life or rather two lives, his father's and
his own, dedicated to the servic