After so bad an œconomist (to say no worse of William Rufus), we may hope to see a more prudent direction of the revenues of the State, and a less abandoned Retinue about the Royal Person. This is, however, no great compliment to Henry, who succeeded: for a moderate character will appear with some degree of lustre, after one so very much disfigured as that of Rufus. Henry had, without question, many good qualities. He was a wise and prudent Prince, and, as the Saxon Chronicle says, "magno honore habitus[94];" but yet, we shall discover, one of his ruling passions was avarice, when we come to look nearly into his interior conduct in life. There was a glaring inconsistency in his very outset; for, soon after his accession, we find him punishing and imprisoning the abettors of William Rufus's exactions, and, among the rest, Ranulph Bishop of Durham, the _Minister_ and instrument of all those oppressive and unwarrantable measures; and yet, very soon after, we behold Henry sequestering to his own use the revenues of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and keeping them in his hands for five years, after the example of the very man whose rapacious conduct he had, but just before, publicly condemned[95]. It is true he recalled many grants bestowed upon _creatures_ and undeserving persons in the late Reign; but whether upon motives of justice or avarice I do not determine. It will be found that he died exceedingly rich for those times (by whatever means the wealth was amassed); for he did not omit any opportunity of taxing his subjects, where he could do it with a tolerable grace, though he did it not in so bare-faced a manner as Rufus had done. Thus he availed himself of an antient Norman feudal custom, on occasion of the marrying his eldest daughter[96]. This custom was not now first established by Henry himself, as some have supposed[97]; but was one of the antient aids due to the King from his subjects, and having lain dormant many years, was now revived, but not introduced otherwise, than that Henry happened to be the first King, of the Norman race, who married his eldest daughter. In this he might be justifiable enough; but then he seems to have laid the tax at a prodigious high rate, for it is said, by some calculations, to have amounted to upwards of 800,000_l._ sterling. Among other things, Henry was very attentive to the reformation of abuses and irregularities that had crept into the _Court_ during the Reign of his Brother. [94] Saxon Chronicle, p. 237. [95] Morem fratris sui Willielmi Regis secutus. Eadmer. [96] Aide à Fille marier. [97] Polydore Vergil.