The decay of the feudal system and the gradual abolition of villenage went hand in hand, as we have seen, with the rise of the merchant and the artisan; as trade increased and as the skilled workman became a recognized power in the state, the police horizon widened, new interests needed protection, new laws and regulations had to be made and enforced. The supreme direction of commercial police rested with the Crown; and, as long as the sovereign's prerogative was confined to the control of fairs and ports, to the granting or withholding of monopolies, and to the regulating of weights and measures, the services of the Justices of the Peace, assisted by their constables, had been found sufficient for all practical purposes. But when questions arose, touching our trade with foreign merchants or demanding a technical knowledge of native manufactures, it became necessary to submit these difficult problems to some more expert authority than the ordinary executive officer. This want was supplied, to a great extent, by the above-mentioned police development of the Trade-Guilds or Livery Companies, which, recently deprived of much of their former political influence, now for the first time seriously began to devote themselves to the special interests of their several trades, by properly confining their energies to channels more legitimate than state-craft, such as the protection and control of the various markets, manufactures, and handicrafts. In the early stages of its development in this country, commerce stood on a very different footing from that upon which it rests to-day: skilled artizans came and settled in England from all parts of the continent, bringing their laws and customs with them; arrived here, they not only competed with the native manufacturer, but beat him at all points of the game. In the absence of any preventive police worth mentioning, the position of these aliens would have been an impossible one, except for two considerations; in the first place they thoroughly recognised the value of combination and acted upon it, and in the second place the very considerable revenue that their activities brought to the royal coffers, secured for them the king's protection and support.[83] This incursion of foreigners was not without its effect on our craftsmen, who saw, that to command success, they too must combine, organize, and regulate. The result was that nearly every trade and industry soon had its guild organized on the continental model, the object of which (unlike the modern trades-unions that exist mainly to prevent the power of the capitalist over his employées from becoming absolute), was to create a monopoly, and hedge it round so that no outsider could enter the exclusive circle without being properly initiated and regularly admitted to craft-membership.