Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3their vitality under most adverse circumstances, from generation to generation; and the more uncivilised they are, the more apt they are to reappear when supposed to be extinct. It has already been shown that craft and treachery accompanied violence among the knights of old, as craft and among the savages of modern times. During treachery still, ., .,, ..... accompanied the reigns of the Tudors, men in the highest violence; in- ..'... . 1-1 stances. positions still resorted to those mean arts which have now, at any rate, descended to a lower grade of society. Lord Seymour of Sudley, who was Lord High Admiral under Edward VI., entered into a conspiracy with Sir William Sharington, Vice-Treasurer of the Mint at Bristol, to obtain supplies for the execution of his ambitious projects by clipping and counterfeiting coin on a great scale. Offences against the coinage had long been, and still were, very common; but what is most remarkable in Lord Seymour's case is the tone of morals which it indicates. If it stood by itself, it would be insufficient to prove that noblemen and gentlemen saw no dishonour in dishonesty. But Seymour and Sharington were by no means exceptionally unscrupulous. The maxim that all is fair in war is not one of modern origin; and, as men had in previous generations been continually waging little private wars, or plotting insurrections, the maxim was nearly equivalent to the proposition that all is fair at all times. In the reign of Henry VIII. Sir Robert Wingfield has not the slightest shame, but rather takes credit to himself, in acknowledging that he has opened and read a letter addressed to Pace. When he wishes to obtain payment of a sum of money for which acquittances signed both by himself and by Pace are necessary, he counterfeits Pace's seal and signature.All t...