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The reign of our Henry VII. affords a field of more doubtful speculation. Every one who takes a retrospective view of the wars of York and Lancaster, and attends to the regulations effected by the policy of that prince, must see they would necessarily lead to great and important changes in the government; but what the tendency of such changes would be, and much more, in what manner they would be produced, might be a question of great difficulty. It is now the generally received opinion, and I think a probable opinion, that to the provisions of that reign we are to refer the origin, both of the unlimited power of the Tudors and of the liberties wrested by our ancestors from the Stuarts; that tyranny was their immediate, and liberty their remote, consequence; but he must have great confidence in his own sagacity who can satisfy himself that, unaided by the knowledge of subsequent events, he could, from a consideration of the causes, have foreseen the succession of effects so different.