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Excerpt from History of England, Vol. 2: From the Accession of Henry VIII to the Revolution of 1689
During the last years of the fifteenth century the dying Middle Ages Slowly wore themselves out. Even amidst the aimless con¿icts of the final stages of the Wars of the Roses, we can discern the beginnings of a brighter state of things.
The civil wars had destroyed mediaeval constitutionalism, which had fallen into ceaseless faction and the rule of the nobles and their retainers. Both the Yorkist Edward IV. And the Lancastrian Henry VII. Had agreed in up holding a strong monarchy as the best remedy against weak rule and factions strife. The son of Henry VII. And the grandson of Edward IV. Now carried out their policy to its uttermost results, and built up the Tudor despotism that was to culminate in the reign of Elizabeth. If England lost something in liberty, it gained by the setting up of peace and order, under which every man was free to work out his own life. The Tudor despotism was strong because it was both national and popular. Established on the ruins of the mediaeval church and nobility, it had as its constant allies the mass of the English people. The policy of Henry VIII. And Elizabeth was the policy of the wisest Englishmen of the time.
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