288 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



that no payment in gold should be made to any 

 merchant-stranger, the better to keep treasure within 

 the realm, for that gold was the metal that lay in 

 least room. 



He made also statutes for the maintenance of 

 drapery, and the keeping of wools within the realm; 

 and not only so, but for stinting and limiting the 

 prices of cloth, one for the finer, and another for 

 the coarser sort. Which I note, both because it was 

 a rare thing to set prices by statute, especially upon 

 our home commodities ; and because of the wise mo 

 del of this act, not prescribing prices, but stinting 

 them not to exceed a rate ; that the clothier might 

 drape accordingly as he might afford. 



Divers other good statutes were made that par 

 liament, but these were the principal. And here I 

 do desire those into whose hands this work shall fall, 

 that they do take in good part my long insisting 

 upon the laws that were made in this king s reign. 

 Whereof I have these reasons ; both because it was 

 the pre-eminent virtue and merit of this king, to 

 whose memory I do honour ; and because it hath 

 some correspondence to my person ; but chiefly be 

 cause, in my judgement, it is some defect even in the 

 best writers of history, that they do not often enough 

 summarily deliver and set down the most memorable 

 laws that passed in the times whereof they writ, 

 being indeed the principal acts of peace. For 

 though they may be had in original books of law 

 themselves ; yet that informeth not the judgement of 



