time by grants to the King's relatives and favourites, they were simultaneously built up via resumptions and forfeitures. On the whole, though, losses and gains were thought to be in balance by the close of the 14th century. Crown lands were, however, an inelastic form of revenue, and their great impoverishment—begun in the 15th century by the Lancastrian kings, (in particular, Henry VI)—was caused through expenditure pressures, profligacy and wholesale plunder by officials. Edward IV failed to capitalise on the many forfeited estates reverting to the crown during the Wars of the Roses of the 15th century, so that the main opportunity for aggrandizement was afforded by the dissolution of the monasteries and guilds under Henry VIII. As a result, the great mass of property passing into royal possession was in part assigned to nobles and officials, the remainder being distributed during his children's reigns. Thus, the dwindling importance of land and rents to the public revenue continued. Similarly, feudal dues also became subordinate notwithstanding occasional attempts rigorously to enforce them. The degree of personal monarchy exercised by the Tudors, depending as it did on popular support, therefore tended to encourage the collection of dues other than taxation. Similarly restrained was the use of the old right of purveyance, finally abolished in 1660. In the 16th century, the obtaining of additional revenue from crown lands and the royal prerogative was exploited to the full. These were now, however, far less profitable, the prevailing political and social conditions increasingly pointing to the need for direct taxation to become the principal source of revenue raising. Among the many calls for further revenue, the chief included the need to maintain the ever-expanding machinery of state and price rises caused by growing supplies of precious metals, the effects of which extended into the 17th century. One form of direct taxation remained from Edward III's reign. Fifteenths and tenths continued to be voted in while attempts to introduce new methods failed. In 1488 a military grant framed on the model of the abortive tax of 1472 yielded only a little over one third of the estimate (£27,000 out of £75,000), the unsatisfactory result preventing further experiments during Henry VII's reign. The foreign policy of Henry VIII, particularly his French expedition with its enormous outlay, accounts for the graduated capitation tax of 1513, which, despite anticipation, yielded even less than the tax of 1488 (£50,000 instead