6 INTRODUCTORY. 



tempt to secure the crown of Naples for his son Edmund, and 

 the enormous indebtedness which he incurred, are the greatest 

 errors in his public policy. But he was, in the language of 

 the age, the feudal dependent of the pope, by an arrange- 

 ment, extorted perhaps in the first instance from the fears of 

 John, but ratified afterwards by the policy of Pembroke. The 

 error of Henry's attempt seems to me, judging from the 

 general way in which such matters are interpreted, to have 

 consisted in its failure. 



It does not seem, therefore, that Henry was a monarch to 

 whom Mr. Hallam's epithet c worthless' is fairly applicable, if 

 we judge his administration by its effects. His private cha- 

 racter is untarnished, and he seems to have been easy, open, 

 and kind. He was, it appears, passionate, but easily appeased, 

 and his memory is not stained by cruelty. The heaviest 

 charges on his management of domestic affairs are his ne- 

 potism towards his half-brothers and his wife's relations; his 

 straining the rights of the crown during the vacancy of abbeys 

 and bishoprics, by committing waste on the ecclesiastical de- 

 mesnes; and his practice of heaping prodigal grants on his 

 favourite clerks. But during his long reign England grew 

 greatly in opulence, in public spirit, and in practical freedom, 

 and became the home of a nation, while before it was a battle- 

 field for hostile races and a scene of atrocious oppression. 



The reign of Edward the First presents few exceptional 

 facts to the historian of prices. The period was disturbed 

 by no important social change, although it was marked by 

 many legal innovations, and by the developement of that poli- 

 tical system which has, though t modified by time, remained 

 to the present day. The new method of entails, and the 

 abolition of the right of subinfeudation, originally enacted, it 

 would seem, in order to secure certain privileges which were 

 being imperilled by the subdivision of land in fee, have had 

 a lasting effect on the social system of this country. But it 

 does not appear that entails were general before the fifteenth 

 century; and it cannot be doubted that the check to the 



