England was by her insular location and by the nearly equal division of power on the Continent between France and the emperor, in a wonderfully safe and advantageous place.

But, so far was Henry from using this gift of fortune, that he seems to have acted only on caprice.
[Sidenote: Domestic policy] In domestic policy Henry achieved his greatest successes, in fact, very remarkable ones indeed.

Doubtless here also he was favored by fortune, in that his own ends happened in the main to coincide with the deeper current of his people's purpose, for he was supported by just that wealthy and enterprising bourgeois class that was to call itself the people and to make public opinion for the next three centuries.

In time this class would become sufficiently conscious of its own power to make Parliament supreme and to demand a reckoning even from the crown, but at first it needed the prestige of the royal name to conquer the two privileged classes, the clergy and the nobility.

The merchants and the moneyed men only too willingly became the faithful followers of a chief who lavishly tossed to them the wealth of the church and the political privileges of the barons.