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under Henry VIII in the 1530s were sold mostly to local gentry, greatly expanding the wealth of that class of gentlemen. The gentry tripled to 15,000 from 5000 in the century after 1540. Many families died out, and others moved up, so that 6 and 7of the peers in 1714 had been created by Stuart kings since 1603. Historians engaged in a lively debate--dubbed the "Storm over the gentry"--about the theory that the rising gentry class increasingly took power away from

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