resistance of those who may pretend to a better right. It was much resorted to in argument at the time of the revolution, and in the subsequent period.[10] It has been usual to speak of this reign as if it formed a great epoch in our constitution; the king having by his politic measures broken the power of the barons who had hitherto withstood the prerogative, while the commons had not yet risen from the humble station which they were supposed to have occupied. I doubt, however, whether the change was quite so precisely referable to the time of Henry VII., and whether his policy has not been somewhat over-rated. In certain respects, his reign is undoubtedly an æra in our history. It began in revolution and a change in the line of descent. It nearly coincides, which is more material, with the commencement of what is termed modern history, as distinguished from the middle ages, and with the memorable events that have led us to make that leading distinction, especially the consolidation of the great European monarchies, among which England took a conspicuous station. But, relatively to the main subject of our enquiry, it is not evident that Henry VII. carried the authority of the Crown much beyond the point at which Edward IV. had left it. The strength of the nobility had been grievously impaired by the bloodshed of the civil wars, and the attainders that followed them. From this cause, or from the general intimidation, we find, as I have observed in another place, that no laws favourable to public liberty, or remedial with respect to the aggressions of power, were enacted, or (so far as appears) even proposed in parliament, during the reign of Edward IV.; the first, since that of John, to which such a remark can be applied. The Commons, who had not always been so humble and abject as smatterers in history are apt to fancy, were by this time much degenerated from the spirit they had displayed under Edward III. and Richard II. Thus the founder of the line of Tudor came, not certainly to an absolute, but a vigorous prerogative, which his cautious dissembling temper and close attention to business were well calculated to extend.