One of the most deeply-rooted feudal theories was that “the King should live of his own,” that is, that the ordinary revenues derived from the crown lands, the customs and feudal dues, should serve for the ordinary needs of the government, and that taxes should be levied only in time of war, or to meet extraordinary need. This theory had seldom corresponded to facts, and it was now quite untenable, but the tax-payer naturally cherished it. Henry’s taxation had already aroused great discontent, but the need for a sufficient revenue did not grow less, and the King could not afford to give up the money which, as supreme head of the Church of England, he diverted from the Pope, or the still more considerable sum that he hoped to derive from the suppression of the monasteries. But while the great mass of the nation desired nothing so much as the remission of all taxes, the educated classes were beginning to realise that this would not be such a very desirable state of affairs. The idea was just beginning to emerge that if the King did not need money he would never call a parliament, and that the liberties of the nation depended on its control of taxation. When the King declared that if only the wealth of the monasteries were in his hands he would never ask his people for money again, there were a few who saw that the King’s wealth was a much more serious danger than the King’s poverty[6]. The state of affairs on the continent permitted Henry to do as he pleased, for Francis I had again attacked Charles V, and the Pope could do nothing while his two champions were cutting each other’s throats. Henry therefore continued to carry out the policy expressed in the acts of his two last parliaments, the long parliament which met in December 1529 and was dissolved in March 1536, and its brief successor which met in June and was dissolved in July 1536.