Attainder, the characteristic instrument of Tudor policy, was employed to (p.

037) complete the ruin of the old English peerage which the Wars of the Roses began: and by 1509 there was only one duke and one marquis left in the whole of England.[71] Attainder not only removed the particular traitor, but disqualified his family for place and power; and the process of eliminating feudalism from the region of government, started by Edward I., was finished by Henry VII.

Feudal society has been described as a pyramid; the upper slopes were now washed away leaving an impassable precipice, with the Tudor monarch alone in his glory at its summit.

Royalty had become a caste apart.

Marriages between royal children and English peers had hitherto been no uncommon thing; since Henry VII.'s accession there have been but four, two of them in our own day.