INTRODUCTORY. 27 



he assisted that warlike prelate in the expulsion of the French 

 from Italy. After the death of his brother-in-law, Louis the 

 Twelfth, and the accession of Francis the First, he was courted 

 by the rival kings of France and Spain, and allied himself 

 alternately with each. The election of Charles to the imperial 

 throne, and the temporary union under the same crown of the 

 Spanish peninsula, the Low Countries, the German Empire, 

 and the New World, gave an overwhelming influence to the 

 emperor. Charles soon overran northern Italy, broke the repu- 

 tation of the Swiss, who had been the terror of European armies 

 since the days of Charles the Bold, and winning the battle of 

 Pavia, was able to dispense with the goodwill of his nephew. 

 From this time the influence of Henry in continental affairs 

 was unimportant. 



The reign of Henry is a great epoch in legislation, especially 

 on land tenures. The statute de donis was materially modi- 

 fied, a will of lands was permitted, and uses were extinguished, 

 though only to reappear under the name of trusts. These 

 changes were probably intended to assist the exchequer by 

 simplifying forms of tenure, and bringing all estates, in the 

 voluntary alienation of which considerable powers were granted, 

 within the risk of the involuntary alienation of forfeiture. The 

 king was imperious and profuse, the nobility was cowed into 

 abject submission, and the Commons, whom Henry treated 

 with much consideration, were complaisant. 



The constantly increasing expenditure of Henry would, in 

 my opinion, have led to the suppression of the monasteries, 

 even if he had not quarrelled with the pope. The religious 

 orders had long been discredited with the people, they had 

 been pointed out as the natural prey of the government 

 for more than a century, and if half of what is told about 

 them is true, many of them had become mere prostibula. Fox 

 foresaw the change, and desisted from making his college at 

 Oxford a nursery for the monks of St. Swithin, as he had first 

 intended. Wolsey foresaw it when he obtained leave of pope 

 and king in 1524 to suppress more than forty monasteries and 



