"Before the end of his reign he had overhauled the whole of the machinery of financial administration, and he left it completely modernised, so much so that we may say that the main outline of our present-day system of finance was blocked out by him. He enjoyed the work, had a flair for it that was the nearest approach to genius Henry ever revealed. By close application he so equipped himself for this task that before the end of his reign he was virtually his own chief financial officer. Day by day he went carefully through his official accounts, annotating them, scrawling his big initial H in bold strokes across the pages, mastering their contents, and using that knowledge to institute reforms in financial administration. That is why experts see in his scientific reorganisation of the exchequer and the departments of the household and the chamber, the work which must stand out as the really constructive contribution Henry made to the transition from mediaeval to modern England."