rapacity? Both views are mere praejudicia, reasonable perhaps, and
possible: but why is not a praejudicium of the opposite kind as
rational and as possible? Why has not a historian a right to start,
as Mr. Froude does, by taking for granted that both parties may have
been on the whole right; that the Parliament granted certain sums
because Henry was right in asking for them; refused others because
Henry was wrong; even that, in some cases, Henry may have been right
in asking, the Parliament wrong in refusing; and that in such a case,
under the pressure of critical times, Henry was forced to get as he
could the money which he saw that the national cause required? Let
it be as folks will. Let Henry be sometimes right, and the
Parliament sometimes likewise; or the Parliament always right, or
Henry always right; or anything else, save this strange diseased
theory that both must have been always wrong, and that, evidence to
that effect failing, motives must be insinuated, or openly asserted,
from the writer's mere imagination. This may be a dream: but it is
as easy to imagine as the other, and more pleasant also. It will
probably be answered (though not by Mr. Hallam himself) by a sneer:
'You do not seem to know much of the world, sir.' But so would
Figaro and Gil Blas have said, and on exactly the same grounds.

Let us examine a stock instance of Henry's 'rapacity' and his
Parliament's servility, namely, the exactions in 1524 and 1525, and
the subsequent 'release of the King's debts.' What are the facts of
the case? France and Scotland had attacked England in 1514. The
Scotch were beaten at Flodden. The French lost Tournay and
Therouenne, and, when peace was made, agreed to pay the expenses of
the war. Times changed, and the expenses were not paid.

A similar war arose in 1524, and cost England immense sums. A large