236 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



been held by the general opinion of men of best 

 judgement in the wars, howsoever some few have 

 varied, and that it may receive some distinction of 

 case, that the principal strength of an army con- 

 sisteth in the infantry or foot. And to make good 

 infantry, it requireth men bred, not in a servile or 

 indigent fashion, but in some free and plentiful man 

 ner. Therefore if a state run most to noblemen and 

 gentlemen, and that the husbandmen and plough 

 men be but as their workfolks and labourers, or else 

 mere cottagers, which are but housed beggars, you 

 may have a good cavalry but never good stable bands 

 of foot ; like to coppice woods, that if you leave 

 in them staddles too thick, they will run to bushes 

 and briars, and have little clean underwood. And 

 this is to be seen in France and Italy, and some 

 other parts abroad, where in effect all is noblesse or 

 peasantry. I speak of people out of towns, and no 

 middle people, and therefore no good forces of foot ; 

 insomuch as they are enforced to employ mercenary 

 bands of Switzers, and the like, for their battalions 

 of foot. Whereby also it comes to pass, that those 

 nations have much people and few soldiers. Whereas 

 the king saw, that contrariwise it would follow, that 

 England, though much less in territory, yet would 

 have infinitely more soldiers of their native forces than 

 those other nations have. Thus did the king secretly 

 sow Hydra s teeth ; whereupon, according to the 

 poet s fiction, should rise up armed men for the ser 

 vice of this kingdom. 



The king also, having care to make his realm 

 jpotent, as well by sea as by land, for the better 



