Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be worth mentioning, that as long ago as the year 1318[81] all public officers in city and borough were debarred from selling wine or victual during their term of office, a prohibition which some people think might with advantage be applied at the present day to such modern officials as the members of Borough Watch Committees.[82] CHAPTER V COMMERCIAL POLICE AND POLICE UNDER THE TUDORS The growth of the royal power that was so well defined a characteristic of the sixteenth century was accompanied by a general re-establishment of good order throughout the kingdom. As long as the reins of government were slackly held by feeble monarchs, the king's peace was reckoned of but little account, and in the words of the Anglo-Saxon writer already quoted, "every man that could, forthwith robbed another." Nobles surrounded by their retainers, broke the peace whenever they chose, and laid their hands on any property that they felt strong enough to hold. As long as punishment overtook the man who had offended against a great noble with more precision and with greater celerity than it did the offender who had broken the law of the land, guardians of the peace were despised, whilst peace-breakers were admired by the multitude, if not respected. When Henry VII. came to the throne he resolutely set himself to put an end to this state of affairs, and to re-assert the personal ascendancy of the sovereign, especially with regard to the maintenance of the peace. He was obviously unable to achieve this object single-handed, for he had no army with which to enforce his commands, and the mass of the people were not yet thoroughly emancipated. Something of course might be done by dividing the nobles into separate factions, and then pitting one faction against another, and these tactics he pursued with some success; the class however to which in the end the king had to look for assistance was the middle-class, which was chiefly occupied with money-making, which was inclined to resent any interference with a pursuit at once so novel and so absorbing, and which, at the same time, was beginning to cry out for increased protection for its newly acquired wealth. As it seemed worth while to purchase the goodwill of the spokesmen of this powerful class, at the cost of complying with their not unreasonable requirements, the king was ready to meet them halfway, and the police administration was modified accordingly.