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LETTER VI.

II. In E n G L A N D.

Though the power and influence of the nobilitysunk in the gréât change that began under Henrythe seventh in England. as they did in that whichbegan under Lewis the eleventh in France ; yetthe new constitutions that thefe changes producedwere very diffèrent. In France the lords alonelost, the king alone gained; the cl erg y held theirpoíïeffìons and their immunities, and the peopleremained in a state of mitigated flavery. But inEngland people gained as well as the crown.The communs had already a lliare in the legista-ture ; so that the power and influence of the lordsbeing broken by Henry the seventh and the pro-perty of the communs increaíìng by the sale thathis son made of church-lands , the power of thelatter increafed of course by this change in aconstitution, the forms whereot were favorableto them. The union of the roses put an endto the civil wars of York and Lancaster, thathad fucceeded thofe vve commonly call the ba-rons wars, and the humor of warring in France ,that had lasted near four hundred years underthe Normans and Piantagenets for plunder aswell as conquest, was fpent. Our temple ofJanus was fliut by Henry the seventh. Weneither laid waste our own nor other countriesanylonger : and wife laws and a wife governmentchanged infenfibly the manners , and gave a newturn to the fpirit of our people. We were no