Elizabeth's reign the barons were restless. From this resulted the

tortures at Durham. Elizabeth was as a farthingale over an executioner's

block. Elizabeth assembled Parliament as seldom as possible, and reduced

the House of Lords to sixty-five members, amongst whom there was but one

marquis (Winchester), and not a single duke. In France the kings felt

the same jealousy and carried out the same elimination. Under Henry III.

there were no more than eight dukedoms in the peerage, and it was to the

great vexation of the king that the Baron de Mantes, the Baron de

Courcy, the Baron de Coulommiers, the Baron de Chateauneuf-en-Thimerais,

the Baron de la Fère-en-Lardenois, the Baron de Mortagne, and some

others besides, maintained themselves as barons--peers of France. In

England the crown saw the peerage diminish with pleasure. Under Anne, to

quote but one example, the peerages become extinct since the twelfth

century amounted to five hundred and sixty-five. The War of the Roses

had begun the extermination of dukes, which the axe of Mary Tudor

completed. This was, indeed, the decapitation of the nobility. To prune

away the dukes was to cut off its head. Good policy, perhaps; but it is

better to corrupt than to decapitate. James I. was of this opinion. He

restored dukedoms. He made a duke of his favourite Villiers, who had

made him a pig;[22] a transformation from the duke feudal to the duke

courtier. This sowing was to bring forth a rank harvest: Charles II. was

to make two of his mistresses duchesses--Barbara of Southampton, and

Louise de la Querouel of Portsmouth. Under Anne there were to be

twenty-five dukes, of whom three were to be foreigners, Cumberland,

Cambridge, and Schomberg. Did this court policy, invented by James I.,

succeed? No. The House of Peers was irritated by the effort to shackle

it by intrigue. It was irritated against James I., it was irritated

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The Man Who Laughs