nd some
of them attempted to apply their rules of trade to the management of
landed estates. While wages were rated so high, it answered better as a
speculation to convert arable land into pasture, but the law immediately
stepped in to prevent a proceeding which it regarded as petty treason
to the state. Self-protection is the first law of life, and the
country, relying for its defence on an able-bodied population, evenly
distributed, ready at any moment to be called into action, either
against foreign invasion or civil disturbance, it could not permit the
owners of land to pursue, for their own benefit, a course of action
which threatened to weaken its garrisons. It is not often that we are
able to test the wisdom of legislation by specific results so clearly
as in the present instance. The first attempts of the kind which I have
described were made in the Isle of Wight early in the reign of Henry
VII. Lying so directly exposed to attacks by France, the Isle of Wight
was a place which it was peculiarly important to keep in a state of
defence, and the 4th Henry VII., cap. 16, was passed to prevent the
depopulation of the Isle of Wight, occasioned by the system of large
farms."

The city merchants alluded to by Froude seem to have remembered that
from the times of Athelwolf, the possession of a certain quantity of
land, with gatehouse, church, and kitchen, converted the ceorl (churl)
into a thane.

It is difficult to estimate the effect which the Tudor policy had upon
the landholding of England. Under the feudal system, the land was held
in trust and burdened with the support of the soldiery. Henry VII., in
order to weaken the power of the nobles, put an end to their maintaining
independent soldiery. Thus landlords' incomes increased, though their
material power was curtailed. It would not have been difficult at this
time to have loaded these properties with annual payments equal to the
cost of the soldiers which they were bound to maintain, or to have
given each of them a farm under the Crown, and strict justice would have
prevented the landowners from putting into their pockets those revenues
which, according to the grants and patents of the Conqueror and his
successors, were specially devoted to the maintenance of the army.
Land was released from the conditions with which it was burdened when
granted. This was not done by direct legislation but by its being the
policy of the Crown to prevent "king-makers" arising fr