68 DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND 



valuations 133 years asunder. Had I discovered one which 

 would have enabled me to contrast England before and after 

 the dissolution of the monasteries, before that great eco- 

 nomical convulsion had completely changed the social con- 

 ditions of England, the contrast would have been of great 

 interest and value, for as nearly a century intervened between 

 the dissolution and the first of my assessments, we may 

 conclude that the effects of the cataclysm were over by the 

 later period, and that the transference of the property of the 

 monks to the new nobility had ceased to be any disturbing 

 cause in English social life. 



Now the first of these seven assessments was made when 

 England had been for a generation in a state of profound 

 peace ; for Buckingham's expeditions were a mere diver- 

 sion. The policy of James and the perfidy of Charles had 

 effaced England in European politics, for in the great drama of 

 the Thirty Years' War England took hardly any part. Now 

 we are told that during the enforced suspension of parlia- 

 mentary action, the country greatly increased in wealth. 

 Certainly, as we shall see hereafter, the price of grain rose 

 rapidly, and the farmer must have sold what produce the 

 seasons gave him at high rates. There is reason to believe 

 too that much progress was made in foreign trade, and that 

 both in the Indian seas and in the Mediterranean, English 

 enterprise in a more or less legitimate way had superseded 

 English buccaneering. 



The ship-money assessment was levied on all counties alike, 

 upon their presumed capacity to pay, not on their power to 

 contribute in kind, for the first seven in order of the contri- 

 butions, including Middlesex with London, are inland counties. 

 Now to take the exceptional case of Middlesex first. In 1503, 

 Middlesex pays \ to every 203 acres ; the next to it being 

 Oxfordshire, with \ to every 405 acres. But in 1636 Mid- 

 dlesex pays i to every 8-629 acres; the nearest to it being 

 Herts, with \ to every 98-507 acres. In other words, in the 

 reign of Henry VII the wealth of Middlesex was not quite 



