408 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



party : save also, that the council-table intermeddled 

 too much with &quot; meum&quot; and &quot; tuum.&quot; For it was a 

 very court of justice during his time, especially in 

 the beginning ; but in that part both of justice and 

 policy, which is the durable part, and cut, as it were, 

 in brass or marble, which is the making of good 

 laws, he did excel. And with his justice, he was 

 also a merciful prince : as in whose time, there were 

 but three of the nobility that suffered ; the Earl of 

 Warwick, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Lord 

 Audley : though the first two were instead of num 

 bers, in the dislike and obloquy of the people. But 

 there were never so great rebellions, expiated with 

 so little blood, drawn by the hand of justice, as the 

 two rebellions of Blackheath and Exeter. As for 

 the severity used upon those which were taken in 

 Kent, it was but upon a scum of people. His par 

 dons went ever both before and after his sword. But 

 then he had withal a strange kind of interchanging 

 of large and unexpected pardons, with severe execu 

 tions ; which, his wisdom considered, could not be 

 imputed to any inconstancy or inequality ; but either 

 to some reason which we do not now know, or to a 

 principle he had set unto himself, that he would vary, 

 and try both ways in turn. But the less blood he 

 drew, the more he took of treasure. And, as some 

 construed it, he was the more sparing in the one, 

 that he might be the more pressing in the other ; for 

 both would have been intolerable. Of nature as 

 suredly he coveted to accumulate treasure, and was 

 a little poor in admiring riches. The people, into 



