Crown lands were sold or mortgaged.

The last and most disastrous expedient was the debasement of the coinage, the old equivalent of the modern issue of irredeemable paper.

As a consequence of this prices rose enormously.
[1] The metaphor came from Erasmus, _De lingua_, 1525, _Opera_, iv, 682, where the words are attributed to Caecilius Metellus.
{310} SECTION 2.

THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.

1547-1553 [Sidenote: Accession of Edward VI, January 28, 1547] The real test of the popularity of Henry's double revolution, constitutional and religious, came when England was no longer guided by his strong personality, but was ruled by a child and governed by a weak and shifting regency.