330 History of the English Landed Interest. 



king's firing, by insolent officials under the pretences of pur- 

 veyance/ Against these customs, in spite of the glamour of 

 hereditary right, the prosaic blood of the Stuart country gentry 

 rose in revolt and found powerful expression in the Parliament 

 of 1604. It was not a time of agricultural depression — quite 

 the reverse. Corn had risen 10.s. per quarter, wools had jumped 

 from 20s. to SO*, per tod, rents had gone up in proportion to these 

 prices,- and the landowners were evincing their increased opu- 

 lence in the creation of those Jacobean country seats which are 

 still the admiration of all beholders. Nor was it the first time 

 that royal attention had been thus called to these impositions, 

 and it might have been thought that a period of prosperity 

 such as this would not have been the selected occasion for re- 

 newing the agitation. The meanness of the king afforded an 

 opportunity and proved his ruin. A flat refusal would have 

 been respected ; a gracious concession would have ensured the 

 lasting adherence of the landed interest. He did neither, but 

 stooped to unworthy attempts at bartering away these tradi- 

 tional perquisites of the Crown for a lump sum of money. His 

 terms were too hard for acceptance ; valuable time was wasted ; 

 session after session slipped by in resultless contention. The 

 commons gradually felt their way to power, while the king as 

 gradually decreased in dignity and advanced in unpopularity. 

 To their original demands the landed interest added that of 

 the abolition of aids ; the commercial interest that of prises ; 

 the two combined, that of benevolences and tonnage and 

 poundage. This action associated the two great classes of the 

 nation in a united agitation against the king. The whole feudal 

 system, including reliefs, primer seisin and wardship, as well as 

 purveyance, was now menaced by the commons, and the king's 

 sole resource was to dissolve parliament. Cut off thus from 

 his supplies, he raised a small income by the sale of peerage 

 patents and the newly created baronetcies, and when such 

 means failed, faced the two estates of the realm afresh, Thus 

 twenty years went by, prolific in nothing substantially bene- 

 ficial to either party, but fraught with danger in the near 



* Hallam, Constit. Hist, of England, ch. vi. 

 ^ Id. Ibid, vide Note on Lord Cranfield. 



