"They drunk no water, unless it be that some for devotion, and upon a rule of penance, do abstain from other drink. They eat plentifully of all kinds of flesh and fish. They wear woollen cloth in all their apparel. They have abundance of bed covering in their houses, and all other woollen stuff. They have great store of all implements of household. They are plentifully furnished with all instruments of husbandry, and all other things that are requisite to the accomplishment of a great and wealthy life, according to their estates and degrees." This flattering picture is not supported by the existing disaffection and the repeated applications for redress from the serfs and the smaller farmers, and the simple fact that the population had increased under the Normans--a period of 88 years--from 2,150,000 to 3,350,000, while under the Plantagenets--a period of 300 years--it only increased to 4,000,000, the addition to the population in that period being only 650,000. The average increase in the former period was nearly 14,000 per annum, while in the latter it did not much exceed 2000 per annum. This goes far to prove the evil from civil wars, and the oppression of the oligarchy. VI. THE TUDORS The protracted struggle of the Plantagenets left the nation in a state of exhaustion. The nobles had absorbed the lands of the FREEMEN, and had thus broken the backbone of society. They had then entered upon a contest with the Crown to increase their own power; and to effect their selfish objects, setup puppets, and ranged under conflicting banners, but the Nemesis followed. The Wars of the Roses destroyed their own power, and weakened their influence, by sweeping away the heads of the principal families. The ambition of the nobles failed of its object, when "the last of the barons" lay gory in his blood on the field of Tewkesbury. The wars were, however, productive of one national benefit, in virtually ending the state of serfdom to which the aborigines were reduced by the Scandinavian invasion. The exhaustion of the nation prepared the way to changes of a most radical character, and the reigns of the Tudors are characterized by greater innovations and more striking alterations than even those which followed the accession of the Normans.