The leading nobles, like the Earl of Warwick (SS296, 303), were, with few exceptions, dead. Their estates were confiscated, their thousands of followers either buried on the battlefield or dispersed throughout the land (S316). The small number of titled families remaining was no longer to be feared. The nation itself, though it had taken comparatively little part in the war, was weary of bloodshed, and ready for peace on any terms. The accession of the Welsh house of Tudor (S39) marks the beginning of a long period of almost absolute royal power. The nobility were too weak to place any check on the King. The clergy, who had not recovered from their dread of Lollardism (SS255, 283) and its attacks on their wealth and influence, were anxious for a strong conservative government such as Henry promised. The House of Commons had no clear united policy, and though the first Parliament put certain restrainst on the Crown, yet they were never really enforced.[1] The truth is, that the new King was both too prudent and too crafty to give them an opportunity. By avoiding foreign wars he dispensed with the necessity of summoning frequent Parliaments, and with demanding large sums of money from them. [1] At the accession of Henry VII, Parliament imposed the following checks on the power of the King: (1) No new tax to be levied without consent of Parliament; (2) No new law to be made without the same consent; (3) No committal to prison without a warrant specifying the offense, and the trial to be speedy; (4) Criminal charges and questions of fact in civil cases to be decided by jury; (5) The King's officers to be held responsible to the nation. By thus ruling alone for a large part of the time, Henry got the management of affairs into his own hands, and transmitted the power to those who came after him. In this way the Tudors with their successors, the Stuarts, built up a system of "personal sovereignty"-- or "one-man power"--unchecked by constitutional restraints. It continued for a hundred and fifty years, when the outbreak of the great Civil War brought it to an end forever. 329. Growth of a Stronger Feeling of Nationality. It would be an error, however, to consider this absolutism of the Crown as an unmitigated evil. On the contrary, it was in one important direction an advantage. There are times when the great need of a people is not more individual liberty, but greater national unity. Spain and France were two countries consisting of a collection of petty feudla states. Their nobility were always trying to steal each other's possessions and cut each other's throats. But the rise in each country of a royal despotism forced the turbulent barons to make peace, and to obey a common central law. By this means both realms ultimately developed into great and powerful kingdoms.