Dr Elton has now written at length (Historical J. I (1958), 21–39) to support his view that Henry VII's reputation for rapacity was undeserved, while the idea that this ‘policy turned from just to unjust exactions was based only on insufficient knowledge of the facts’. He may have shown that Henry's actions were legal; he has not shown that they were just.What is unpopular is not necessarily unjust, but the opinions of subjects merit as full and sympathetic treatment as the policies of kings. Dr Elton's argument is of a type with those which claimed that, since Hitler's was a legally constituted government, it was sentimental to complain that its persecution of the Jews was unjust.