The legislative powers of the two Houses were usurped by the royal Council.

Arbitrary taxation reappeared in benevolences and forced loans.

Personal liberty was almost extinguished by a formidable spy-system and by the constant practice of arbitrary imprisonment.

Justice was degraded by the prodigal use of bills of attainder, by a wide extension of the judicial power of the royal Council, by the servility of judges, by the coercion of juries.

So vast and sweeping was the change that to careless observers of a later day the constitutional monarchy of the Edwards and the Henries seemed suddenly to have transformed itself under the Tudors into a despotism as complete as the despotism of the Turk.