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f these lands had been restored, and others lavished away in grants, but the surplus revenue must still have been considerable. Edward IV. was the first who practised a new method of taking his subjects' money without consent of parliament, under the plausible name of benevolences. These came in place of the still more plausible loans of former monarchs, and were principally levied on the wealthy traders. Though no complaint appears in the parliamentary records of his reign, which, as has been observed, complain of nothing, the illegality was undoubtedly felt and resented. In the remarkable address to Richard by that tumultuary meeting which invited him to assume the crown, we find, among general assertions of the state's decay through misgovernment, the following strong passage:--"For certainly we be determined rather to aventure and committe us to the perill of owre lyfs and jopardie of deth, than to lyve in such thraldome and bondage as we have lyved long tyme heretofore, oppressed and injured by extortions and newe impositions ayenst the lawes of God and man, and the libertie, old policie, and lawes of this realme, whereyn every Englishman is inherited."[457] Accordingly, in Richard III.'s only parliament an act was passed which, after reciting in the strongest terms the grievances lately endured, abrogates and annuls for ever all exactions under the name of benevolence.[458] The liberties of this country were at least not directly impaired by the usurpation of Richard. But from an act so deeply tainted with moral guilt, as well as so violent in all its circumstances, no substantial benefit was likely to spring. Whatever difficulty there may be in deciding upon the fate of Richard's nephews after they were immured in the Tower, the more public parts of the transaction bear unequivocal testimony to his ambitious usurpation.[459] It would therefore be foreign to the purpose of this chapter to dwell upon his assumption of the regency, or upon the sort of election, however curious and remarkable, which gave a pretended authority to his usurpation of the throne. Neither of these has ever been alleged by any party in the way of constitutional precedent. [Sidenote: Conclusion.] At this epoch I terminate these inquiries into the English constitution; a sketch very imperfect, I fear, and unsatisfactory, but which may at least answer the purpose of fixing the reader's attention on the principal objects, and of guiding h
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