. And
when they saw her father and all her relations active in promoting the
success of the French, they could not be persuaded that she, who was
all-powerful in the English council, would very zealously oppose them in
their enterprises.

But the most fatal blow given to the popularity of the crown and to
the interests of the house of Lancaster, was by the assassination of the
virtuous duke of Glocester; whose character, had he been alive,
would have intimidated the partisans of York; but whose memory, being
extremely cherished by the people, served to throw an odium on all his
murderers. By this crime the reigning family suffered a double prejudice
it was deprived of its firmest support; and it was loaded with all the
infamy of that imprudent and barbarous assassination.

As the duke of Suffolk was known to have had an active hand in the
crime, he partook deeply of the hatred attending it; and the clamors
which necessarily rose against him, as prime minister and declared
favorite of the queen, were thereby augmented to a tenfold pitch, and
became absolutely uncontrollable. The great nobility could ill brook
to see a subject exalted above them; much more one who was only
great-grandson to a merchant, and who was of a birth so much inferior to
theirs. The people complained of his arbitrary measures; which were,
in some degree, a necessary consequence of the irregular power then
possessed by the prince, but which the least disaffection easily
magnified into tyranny. The great acquisitions which he daily made were
the object of envy; and as they were gained at the expense of the crown,
which was itself reduced to poverty, they appeared on that account, to
all indifferent persons, the more exceptionable and invidious.

The revenues of the crown, which had long been disproportioned to its
power and dignity, had been extremely dilapidated during the minority of
Henry;[*] both by the rapacity of the courtiers, which the king's uncles
could not control, and by the necessary expenses of the French war,
which had always been very ill supplied by the grants of parliament.

*: Cotton, p. 609.

The royal demesnes were dissipated; and at the same time the king was
loaded with a debt of three hundred and seventy-two thousand pounds, a
sum so great, that the parliament could never think of discharging
it. This unhappy situation forced the ministers upon many arbitrary
measures: the household itself could not be supported with