of clergy. Where it was admitted, the culprit, if a layman, did not entirely escape punishment, for he was burnt with a hot iron in the brawn of the left thumb.
The statutes in this reign were drawn up in English, and printed as they came out, by De Worde, Pynson, and Faques, a signal step in progress towards a public knowledge of the laws.
Under Henry VIII. the principle of arbitrary government arrived at its culmination. The freedom from restraint which his father had prepared for him, the passionate and imperious nature of this prince led him to exercise to the utmost. By the means which we have described—the terror of death to those who offended, and the participation in the spoils of nobles and the Church, and in new honours to those who served him regardless of law or conscience—he put himself above all control of Parliament or statute, and ruled as royally, according to his own fancy, as any eastern despot. Out of this monstrous evil came, nevertheless, much good to the nation. Tyrants do that by a single volition, a single blow, which constitutional monarchs attempt in vain. By his own daring act he broke up the ancient system of the Church, with all its accumulated wealth, superstitions, and abuses, and cleared the ground for a new and more liberal state of things. By the distribution of this property he founded a new and influential class of freeholders, and enabled the affluence of trade to flow into land, and to give to the mercantile class a new status and influence. His motive was his own selfishness, but the result was the public good.
A Trial for High Treason, in Westminster Hall, during the Tudor period.
Amongst the useful statutes which he passed may be mentioned the Statute of Uses and the Statute of Bankruptcy. By the former he put an end to a most mischievous practice of conveying property for the use of certain parties or corporate bodies, which had been introduced to evade the statute of mortmain. So many secret modes of conveyance, so many legal fictions had been introduced into the transfer of this property, that it became difficult to ascertain the real owner; and creditors thus became defrauded, widows were deprived of their dowers, and husbands of their estates, by the curtesy. But above all, the great feudal lords were equally defrauded of their dues on wardships, marriages, and reliefs. By an Act of the twenty-seventh year of his reign, it was decreed that whoever was found in the possession of such property should be deemed its bonâ fide owner, and liable to the charges leviable upon it. By this means the dubious and fraudulent practice of uses was abolished, and the lawyers were compelled to resort to the simpler and more tangible theory of trusts. The nature of the tenure still remained the same, for the use was but a trust; but it was simplified and brought more into the
