BIBLIOGRAPHICA

MODERN HISTORY

 

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027958879

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HENRY VII

BY

GLADYS TEMPERLEY

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

A history of England through the biographies of her kings naturally suggests something vastly different from the contents of these volumes. It brings up visions of the pageantry of courts and the pomp and circumstance of royalty. It recalls those well-worn classics of an earlier generation which fed our youth with the romance of the unreal part of reality. But there is little here of Miss Strickland or the mere gossip of courtly circles. There is romance still, but its charm is of another kind, the charm of discovery mainly; for the theme of these biographies is royalty at work rather than on display. This is a side of kingly life which seldom is mentioned in the courtly chronicle, and when told from the outside is too likely to come from unsympathetic hands, so that the monarch generally stands out in our histories as either a do-nothing king leading a life of vast self-indulgence, or as a meddler with a bent toward tyranny. Both pictures are false, as are all general categories in the portrayal of life, but of the two the former is most misleading. Kings have been more than masters of idleness. Few careers have been more strenuous than theirs. One can pick out the idle kings throughout the centuries; they are notorious in any monarchy. Whenever the king is weak the fact is attested before the whole world, either by the rise of a great vizier, a Richelieu or a Walpole, or by the vicious intrigues of the courtesan and the anarchy of state and government. A king is born to his title; but he must work to make the title real. The court of Louis XIV was the model to Europe for the display of idleness, and yet the king worked secretly, behind the scenes, like any impressario, rising early, so it was said, for the transaction of pressing business of state with his ministers, and then retiring for the formal ceremony of a royal levée, so that he might pass the day with the becoming semblance of a roi fainéant. The palace of his more magnificent successor Napoleon was merely a workshop furnished with imperial elegance. Of course he, as an adventurer, had to work for his living; but the cost of power has always been its constant exercise, and no legitimist who lays it by can rely upon the deeds of his ancestors to secure recognition for himself in the page of history.

The story of the kings at work is novel. The result is a new appreciation both of the kings and of the institution of royalty. Take for instance Henry VII. What a colorless figure he used to be in the older histories! His victory over the shrewd Richard III was a foregone conclusion to those who knew of Gloucester only through the plays of Shakespeare or the haunting juvenile stories of the princes murdered in the tower. His marriage with the Yorkist princess placed the crown easily within his reach, and once the king­dom was his, he developed a most unlovely character, jealous of his wife and miserly in money matters. His reign was presented as one of practical stagnation, like a quiet interval before the stir and movement of Henry VIII. Such was the view of Henry VII so long as royalty was judged by the superficial standards of the courtly or constitutional historian. A king who suppressed retainers and led the sober life of a hard-headed practical man, cut a poor figure, considering his achievements, in the story of England. More recently, however, historical research has gone beneath the surface and revealed the strong, if sober, character of the first of the Tudors. The unlovely elemeuts are still there, but we realize now that the miserly hoarding was directed towards statesman-like ends, in accordance with the ideas of his time; that the transformation of England under his reign was one of the most vital changes in its whole history, and that the strong hand of the monarch kept the nation on the lines of a national policy which made possible the great age of Elizabeth. In short, historians are coming to recognize in this stern, unsympa­thetic and apparently timidly conservative King a telling force in the creation of modern England.

But, it will be objected, this is a false “interpretation” of history. An attempt to read the story of a nation’s evolution through the biographies of its kings, is something we have long since given up. It helongs to the days of Carlyle’s hero worship, and, farther back, to the philosophy of a Bossuet and the foolish talk of a James I on the divine kingship. This biographical survey is a strange enterprise in an era of democracy when history is written in terms of “the sovereign people,” and the world of business arranges the fate of nations on an impersonal basis. Royalty seems to us a shadow or an ornament in a world where shadows and ornaments count for little. The occupant of a throne seems to us—in theory—almost a grotesque character, and in our happy confidence in the efficiency of republican institutions, those of us who have not married into the European nobility or have not been presented at court, are properly scornful of such an outworn symbol of tyranny as kings or queens. And as our histories always tend to reflect our major interests, we have been remaking the story of an undemocratic past to correspond with our outlook into the present. In the latter half of the nineteenth century when the mass of the nation was winning the victory for constitutional government, Stubbs supplied the story of that framework of courts and parliament which was the nation’s heritage, and Freeman and Green traced the human story of the nation itself. In the opening of the twentieth century the new democracy has come to that self-consciousness which the middle class achieved a century or so before, and now it is looking back to the history of village laborers, of peasant insurrections, enclosures of common lands, and all the homely and intimate detail of daily life. The movement, just setting in, is of vast significance and mag­nificent possibilities. No one to whom the word “history” has any real meaning, whose imagination stirs at its suggestions of tales yet untold as well as at its achievements in its joint field of art and science, can fail to extend a welcome to the new histories of democracy, and the exploration of the economics and industries of the past. But it is easy, in our enthusiastic approval of the new arrivals, to lose our own perspective, and to imagine that the obscure paths of social movement which they trace in distant centuries were the only roads that lead to modern times. In short, the Zeitgeist is upon us; the spirit of our time distorts the view of any other.

There is something, after all, in heroes. Carlyle’s gospel, preached to unheeding ears, had more truth in it than we like to admit. The strong man, or the man who holds the post of power, is more than a single unit in the great multiples of society. This is still the case in our democracies; we know it and are glad to recognize it to the full in the laudation of our candidates for public office as well as in our laws to curb the activity of unscrupulous “captains of industry. Half the problems of democracy are due to the need of vigilance against the possible agression of those “in power”. It was in this connection that Mr. Bryce, in an address delivered at Washington a few years ago, uttered a significant warning to political theorists. Speaking from the full experience of along life in public affairs, he said that he had never known a country that was not really governed by a little group of some half-dozen men, adding, though in guarded phrase, that few people even in a democracy, had any idea of how completely this small group of men were dominating the country.

If such is the case in a democracy and in a country of general enlightenment, how much more has it been true of all the past. The pomp of royalty is not something merely extraneous to society, but the outward sign of its most definite and lasting seat of power. One does not need to go back to anthropology, and follow the rich fields of scholarship opened up by Dr. Frazer, as he traces the kingship back to its priestly and then its divine prototypes, in order to realize the dominant role of royalty in the past. For the king has been warrior as well as priest, and has laid the basis for the national state by conquest and the rule of the sword. So, the Conqueror re-made England, and the Capetians welded together France. It would be an absurd distortion of history which would eliminate these master forces from its processes because their power is now transferred to other hands. A history of the past with the kings suppressed would be not less false and more grotesque than one in which the kings alone receive the credit for the joint work of king and people. His­tory must be written historically and not as a pamphlet to justify the present by the past.

We are accustomed to think of the King of England as being shorn of all authority. And recent events in the English Parliament tend to impress this view still more upon us. But in the theoretical powers which are his still, one may catch the reflection even in this present age of the vast scope of his office in the centuries when the king ruled as well as reigned. It may be fitting to sum these up in the words of Mr. Gladstone, written to present to American readers some idea of the machinery of the British Constitution. After speaking of the functions of the ministry, Mr. Gladstone thus summarizes the position of the Crown in the nineteenth century:—

“The sovereign in England is the symbol of the nation’s unity, and the apex of the social structure; the maker (with advice) of the laws; the supreme governor of the Church; the fountain of justice; the sole source of honor; the person to whom all military, all naval, all civil service is rendered. The sovereign owns very large properties; receives and holds, in law, the entire revenue of the state; appoints and dismisses ministers; makes treaties; pardons crime, or abates its punishment; wages war, or concludes peace; summons and dissolves the Parliament; exercises these vast powers for the most part without any specified restraint of law; and yet enjoys, in regard to these and every other function, an absolute immunity from consequences. There is no provision in the law of the United Empire, or in the machinery of the Constitution, for calling the sovereign to account; and only in one solitary and improbable but perfectly defined case—that of his submitting to the jurisdiction of the Pope—is he deprived by statute of the throne. Setting aside that peculiar exception, the offspring of a necessity still freshly felt when it was made, the Constitution might seem to be founded on the belief of a real infallibility of its head. Less, at any rate, cannot be said than this. Regal right has, since the Revolution of 1688, been expressly founded upon contract; and the breach of that contract destroys the title to the allegiance of the subject. But no provision, other than the general rule of hereditary succession, is made to meet either this case or any other form of political miscarriage or misdeed. It seems as though the genius of the nation would not stain its lips by so much as the mere utterance of such a word; nor can we put this state of facts into language more justly than by saying that the Constitution would regard the default of the monarch with his heirs as the chaos of the state, and would simply trust to the inherent energies of the several orders of society for its legal reconstruction”.

This is, in theory, the position of kingship as it stands at present in the British Constitution. The theory, of course, is nullified by the single fact that Parliament holds the power of the purse—the final sovereign power in any land. But the theory of the British Constitution is not like most other political theories; it is not a creation of theorists but the embodiment of history. Every power of royalty in this tremendous total was once exercised by English kings. The story of how those powers were won, used— and lost, is more than the incidental side of history; and, since democracy aspires less to destroy than to appropriate the attributes of sovereignty, it can find in the biographies of these kings, whose power it now assumes, a chapter of its own adoptive past!

Of the powers of the Crown of England, only a shadow is left. But the kingship itself is much more than a shadow. Such is the force of long tradition, the reverence for the past, the love of pageantry and — not least—the pride in a royal and imperial name, that the king still remains, in spite of all the age-long struggle against his claims, the living sign of the nation’s unity. No bald words or abstract phrases such as love of country, liberty, equality, fraternity, can quite match, in a genuine British breast, the appeal to loyalty for the sovereign. Kipling has given expression to this feeling with especial force, and however much a lover of peace may object to its possibilities of insular belligerency, it must be reckoned with as a vital element in the maintenance not only of the Crown, but of the empire itself. For, whether it is the “Widow at Windsor” or the “Sailor King,” the British soldier and sailor will give their lives as readily now for the exalted head of the empire, as when the monarch really ruled. It is not power but sentiment which holds the allegiance of the nation to-day; but the sentiment thrills with the sense of all the glory of England’s past and with the common consciousness of a world-empire concentrating its attention upon the symbol of its own greatness.

J. T. Shotwell.

 

 

CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE

 

Henry Tudor was born at Pembroke Castle on 28th January 1456-7. England was still torn by the last violent years of the Wars of the Roses, and Margaret, widow of Edmund Tudor, was living at Pembroke Castle under the protection of her brother-in-law, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke. There, three months after her husband’s death, she gave birth to her son Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. A small room in the east end of a tower on the northern wall of the fortress, which in Leland’s time contained a “chymmeney new made with the arms and badges of King Henry VII,” is still shown as Henry’s birthplace. The babe came of an illustrious race. His mother was of the House of Plantagenet, by descent from John of Gaunt through his union with Katherine Swynford, whose descendants the Beauforts had been declared legitimate by Act of Parliament in the reign of Richard II. On the death of her father, the Duke of Somerset, in 1444, she had inherited a share in the vast lands of the Beauforts. She had married Edmund Tudor at a very early age, and at the time of her son’s birth was not quite fourteen years old. Edmund, Earl of Richmond, traced his descent, on his father’s side, back to Cadwallader and the ancient kings of Britain, and through his mother Katherine, widow of Henry V, was allied to the royal blood of France. The young Earl of Richmond inherited, therefore, a threefold claim to royal descent.

Henry’s first years were spent at Pembroke Castle under his uncle’s care. Before he was four years old his mother had married, as her second husband, Henry, Lord Stafford, a younger son of the Duke of Buckingham. At the accession of Edward IV, Henry Tudor was attainted, the honour of Richmond being granted to the king’s brother George, Duke of Clarence. The Earl of Pembroke was attainted at the same time, but in spite of this the boy remained for a while in safety at Pembroke Castle, which stood for the House of Lancaster long after the rest of England had submitted to Edward IV, and, on its fall, was transferred to Harlech Castle. His education was begun by Andreas Scotus, and Hasely, Dean of Warwick. Owing to his delicacy he was taken about from place to place for change of air, but Bernard Andre later declared, in his courtly way, that the boy showed himself remarkably quick and brilliant. This comparatively peaceful time was interrupted by the capture of Harlech Castle by William, Lord Herbert, in 1466. Henry fell into the hands of the victor, who was rewarded with the title of the Earl of Pembroke and given the wardship of the young Earl of Richmond. He intended to marry the latter to his daughter Maud, but a year later he was killed at Banbury. A brief gleam of Lancastrian success followed. Richmond was restored to the keeping of the Earl of Pembroke, who was one of the first to welcome Henry VI at his restoration. He presented his young kinsman to the king, this being the occasion of the frequently repeated though probably apocryphal prophecy concerning the boy’s future, which appears in Henry VI:—

 

“His looks are full of peaceful majesty,

His head by nature framed to wear a crown,

His hand to wield a sceptre, and himself

Likely in time to bless a regal throne.”

 

According to Bernard André, the king advised that the boy should be sent abroad to escape the malice of his enemies. The defeat of the Lancastrians at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, followed by the deaths of the Prince of Wales and of Henry VI, made the Lancastrian cause seem hopeless. Even Wales was no longer safe. Earl Jasper, at the request of the boy’s mother, embarked with his nephew on a vessel bound for France. The ship was driven out of its course by storms, and the fugitives were landed on the coast of Brittany, which was then ruled by Duke Francis. He received them hospitably, policy suggesting that he had in his hands a possible means of buying the alliance of England against his threatening neighbour Franco. Bernard André, however, puts into the duke’s mouth a speech which suggests that he was induced to help by the boy’s appearance and “evident good qualities”. The duke certainly made good his promises of protection, and Henry remained in safety in Brittany in spite of the untiring efforts of Edward IV to obtain his surrender. At one time he was in very great danger. An embassy from Edward IV persuaded Duke Francis that the king intended to marry the young earl to one of his own daughters. He surrendered Henry to the envoys, who had rcached St. Malo, en route for England, when they were detained there by a force sent by the duke, which conveyed Henry into sanctuary and refused to give him up. He remained in Brittany more closely guarded until the death of Edward IV. His mother remained in England, and in 1482, on the death of Henry Stafford, had married, as her third husband, Thomas, Lord Stanley, a prominent Yorkist and the steward of King Edward’s household. He gained the favour of Richard III, and his wife enjoyed a position of security and was even prominent at Court.

Meanwhile many Lancastrian exiles, driven from England by the tyranny of Richard III, began to gather round Richmond, who was released from restraint on the death of Edward IV. Even in England a party was being formed in his favour. The Duke of Buckingham, though mainly instrumental in gaining the throne for Richard III, had retired in dissatisfaction from the Court. The cause of his defection is uncertain, but it may well have been disgust at the king’s violence, working upon thwarted ambition. Some very curious stories are told of the way in which he was induced to give up his design of winning the throne for himself for a plan which involved the elevation of the exiled earl. According to the chroniclers, Hall and Grafton, the duke discussed his plans fully with the Lancastrian John Morton, Bishop of Ely, then a prisoner in the duke’s custody, who cleverly inflamed his discontent. The story goes that the duke had quite forgotten the superior claims of the Countess of Richmond and her son, until, riding between Worcester and Bridgnorth, he met the former, and it flashed into his mind that “she and her son, the Earl of Richmond, be bothe bulwarcke and portecolice betwene me and the gate to entre into the majestie royall and gettynge of the crowne”. The Countess of Richmond sounded Buckingham with regard to her son’s claims, and mentioned the fact that a marriage between the latter and one of the daughters of Edward IV had been proposed. Though the duke returned an evasive answer at the time, he subsequently told Morton that if Richmond bound himself to such a marriage, he would be prepared to help him to the crown of England as heir of the House of Lancaster. This was a great triumph. By the advice of Morton, whose influence seems to have settled many of the details of the conspiracy, Richard Bray (steward of the household to the Countess of Richmond) was summoned to Wales, and despatched thence with orders to advise his mistress to gain the consent of Elizabeth, the queen-dowager, widow of Edward IV, to the proposed alliance, and then to communicate the plan to Richmond in Brittany.

Bray started on his mission but found that part of the scheme was already accomplished, the Countess of Richmond having approached Elizabeth in the matter. The queen-dowager was then in sanctuary at Westminster with her daughter, surrounded by the king’s guards. The disappearance of her two sons was still a mystery and their tragic fate unknown, but her position seemed hopeless. Elizabeth was a fickle, wayward woman, ever ready to dabble in conspiracy, and the countess’s emissary Lewis easily won her over to a plan which offered a hope of Richard’s overthrow. They were about to send news of the scheme to Brittany when Bray arrived with proofs that the Duke of Buckingham was considering a similar plan. Two messengers, Hugh Conway and Thomas Ramme, were sent to Henry by different routes, with orders to acquaint him with the conspiracy, supply him with funds, and advise him to return as soon as possible and land in Wales, “where he shoulde not doubte to fynde both aide and comforte and frendes.”

The messengers arrived in Brittany on the same day, and the news they brought was the turning point in the young earl’s career. His ambition had not yet turned in the direction of the English crown, and it is quite possible that he was unaware of the strength of his hereditary title. He was in great favour with the Duke of Brittany, and there were rumours of negotiations for his marriage with the duke’s daughter and heiress Anne. Though the duke was reluctant to defy Richard III openly, he constantly evaded his requests for the earl’s surrender. Richard’s ambassador Hutton reached Brittany in the summer of 1483, and in August the duke sent a diplomatic answer, in which he mentioned that Louis XI of France was also trying to get hold of Richmond.

The project for Henry’s marriage with Anne of Brittany, however, was abandoned when Henry heard of the brilliant prospect open to him if he married Elizabeth of York. On the 24th of September, Buckingham wrote to Richmond announcing that the 18th of October was the date fixed upon for a joint movement. Richmond’s landing in Wales was to coincide with risings in all the southern counties from Kent to Devon. Henry matured his plans, and succeeded in obtaining help from Duke Francis, who seems to have had great faith in the success of the conspiracy. Unfortunately in England things were moving too fast. Popular excitement, which may have been due to the murder of the princes in the Tower becoming known about this date, led to a premature rising in Kent early in October, the news of which had reached Richard by the 11th of the month. Richard does not seem to have suspected Buckingham and was taken completely by surprise, but his measures were prompt and effective. On 15th October a proclamation was issued against Buckingham, and troops were immediately raised. Three days later, according to the plan, Richmond’s adherents in the southern counties rose, and on the same day Buckingham raised his standard at Brecknock. But the disaffection of some of the Welsh leaders, a violent storm which, by making the Severn impassable, prevented a junction with Henry’s Devonshire supporters, and the prompt action of the king sealed the fate of the rising. Many of the Welshmen deserted; Buckingham fled from his troops, but was betrayed to King Richard and beheaded at Salisbury on November 2nd. With him perished the hopes of the rising.

Meanwhile Richmond, by the help of Duke Francis, had collected a fleet of fifteen ships and 5000 mercenaries and embarked on 12th October. Dispersed by a storm, most of the ships were driven back upon the coast of Brittany. Only Richmond’s ship and one other crossed the Channel. Finding the coast at Poole well guarded, he sailed westward to Plymouth. But Devon and Cornwall were in arms against him; he had to give up hope of landing, and set sail for Normandy. In spite of the failure of his enterprise, he obtained the passport he asked for from the young king Charles VIII, who also provided him with money. He stayed for a short time in Normandy, passing thence to Brittany, which he reached by 30th October. There he heard of the failure of the rising and of Buckingham’s fate, and was joined by a crowd of refugees implicated in the rising, among whom were the Marquis of Dorset, the Bishops of Salisbury and Exeter, John, Lord Wells, Sir Edward Courtenay, Sir Giles Daubeney, Sir John Bourchier, Sir Richard Edgecombe, Sir Edward Poynings, and many others, who later obtained the reward of their devotion. Morton, who had escaped from Buckingham’s keeping to Flanders just before the rising, was working with the aid of Christopher Urswiek in Henry’s interests, “sending preuie letters and cloked messengers” to stir up hostility to King Richard. Sir Edward Woodvile, with his naval experience, had been a member of Henry’s growing court since July 1483. The Duke of Brittany still remained his friend and protector, and upon his return lent him 10,000 golden crowns. The scattered fleet had escaped Richard’s warships and returned again to Brittany. Henry seems to have resolved upon a further attempt without delay, and summoned a council of the refugees to meet at Rennes. The conspiracy this time was inaugurated with some pomp and ceremony in Rennes Cathedral on Christmas Day, 1484. Henry was now the only leader of the opposition to Richard. He took a solemn oath in the cathedral that he would marry Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, as soon as he obtained the crown of England, while the assembled company swore fealty to him and did homage “as though he had bene that tyme the crowned kynge and anointed prince.” The scheme was communicated to the duke, who lent a large sum of money for arming and fitting out ships, on the security of Henry’s word as a prince to repay it as soon as his scheme succeeded.

In England the failure of the rising had brought punishment. The Earl of Richmond and many of his adherents were outlawed by the Parliament of January 1484, but in consideration of the support Lord Stanley had given to the king against his step­son’s adherents, Henry’s mother was committed to her husband’s custody. Worst of all, King Richard had won over the queen-dowager. She lacked the courage to continue faithful to a design which had received such a severe check, and was prevailed upon by Richard, in spite of the grave reasons she had for doubting him, to leave sanctuary, and trust herself and her daughters to him, upon his taking an oath before Parliament to protect them. Richard, with Richmond’s destined bride in his power, “thought the erle’s chiefe combe had ben clerely cut,” and troops were levied and arrangements made for the defence of the coast against the threatened invasion from Brittany. At the same time Richard was ill at ease. As Vergil put it he was “continually pricked and tortured by perpetual dread of the earl’s return,” and he redoubled his efforts to obtain his surrender. An embassy was despatched to the Duke of Brittany, promising him all the revenues of the honour of Richmond, and of the estates of Richmond’s adherents, in return for the earl’s surrender. Owing to the illness of the duke, who was already showing signs of mental infirmity, the envoys were received by Pierre Landois, an upstart favourite. He resolved to give way to Richard’s demands, not (as Polydor Vergil is careful to point out) through any enmity to Henry, but in the hope of gaining powerful support against the bitterly hostile nobles of Brittany. Richmond, however, was warned in time. Nothing escaped Morton in his exile in Flanders, and he sent Christopher Urswick to warn Henry and persuade him to escape into France. The messenger found Richmond at Vannes, and was at once sent on into France to ask for passports for the earl and his followers. The long-standing jealousy between France and Brittany again served Henry’s turn. As soon as the duke’s policy of favouring the exile had been abandoned by Landois, who, with less faith in Henry’s star, preferred the substantial bribe offered by the king de facto to the problematical gratitude of an exiled pretender, it was adopted by the French court. In September 1484, Henry received a favourable answer. It only remained, then, to choose the time and means of escape. A number of Henry’s followers, under the leadership of the faithful Earl of Pembroke, rode towards the borders of Brittany, announcing that they were going to visit the invalid duke, and the earl, acting on Henry’s secret instructions, led them over the border into France. Henry remained in Vannes for a couple of days, and then started for Anjou with five servants, suspicion being averted by the fact that 500 Englishmen, who knew nothing of his purpose, remained in Vannes. Five miles from the town Henry turned into a wood, “and clothinge himselfe in the symple cote of his poor servaunte,” followed one of his men in the garb of a page, and rode without drawing rein towards the frontier. He crossed it only just in time. The horsemen sent in pursuit by Landois were barely an hour behind him, and the destinies of the Tudor dynasty hung by a slender thread. Henry made his way to the French king’s court and received a promise of help. A payment of 3000 livres was made to him in November.

The position of the English exiles who remained in Vannes was very critical, but fortunately the duke recovered his health to some extent, and showed his friendship for Henry by giving Sir Edward Woodvile and Sir Edward Poynings permission and funds to convey them to rejoin their leader, who remained at the French court, accompanying the king and the regency to Paris.

There Richmond was joined by other English refugees who had fled from Richard’s tyranny, among them being Richard Fox, afterwards one of Henry’s most trusted ministers. In addition the Earl of Oxford, the most powerful of all the Lancastrian nobles, who had been ten years a prisoner in the castle of Hammes near Calais, won over its captain, James Blount, to Henry’s cause, and prevailed on him to set him at liberty and accompany him to join Richmond in Paris. Oxford’s adherence was specially welcome to Henry, the earl being reliable as a strong Lancastrian, not a discontented Yorkist driven to him by hatred of Richard. Hall, following Vergil, writes of Henry’s joy at the earl’s arrival, “he was ravyshed with an incredibile gladnes, . . . and beganne to have a good hope of happy successe.”

About this time the queen-dowager prevailed on her son, the Marquis of Dorset, to abandon Richmond’s cause, partly through despair of the earl’s success, and “partely onerate and vanquesshed with the faire glosynge promises of Kyng Richard.” Fortunately for Henry, the deserter, who had stolen out of Paris by night, was stopped and brought back. Negotiations as to the amount of support to be given by France to Richmond’s enterprise were still going on, but were complicated and delayed by the disputes in the French council between the Regent Anne and the opposition party led by the Duke of Orleans. Henry saw that further delay would dishearten his followers, and determined to make another attempt on England. It was at this time, probably, that he wrote the letters to his supporters in England that have been preserved, asking for their support of his “ rightful claim, due and lineal inheritance of the Crown of England.” He alludes to Richard as “that homicide and unnatural tyrant,” and speaks of himself as their “poor, exiled friend.” The letters were all signed H. R. He borrowed a small sum of money from King Charles and from private friends, leaving the treacherous Dorset and Sir Charles Bourchier at Paris as hostages for its repayment, and left for Rouen, where he began to collect a fleet to sail from Harfleur.

But Henry had not come to the end of his difficulties. While at Harfleur he heard of news which threatened the basis of his enterprise. In March 1485, King Richard had been left a widower, his wife Anne having died “either of grief or by poison”, and a rumour spread rapidly that the king intended to marry his niece, Elizabeth of York. This news reaching Henry, it was “no maruell,” as the chronicler quaintly puts it, “though it nypped hym at the verie stomacke.” Further disheartening delay seemed inevitable. There was little chance of obtaining Yorkist support in England if there was no hope of Richmond marrying the daughter of Edward IV. It seemed madness to go further without trying to enlist support in some other quarter. According to Vergil, who has been followed by Hall, Henry entertained a plan for marrying the sister of Sir Walter Herbert and so gaining his alliance and influence in Wales, and actually sent messengers to the Earl of Northumberland, who had married another of Herbert’s sisters. The messengers, however, were intercepted by Richard’s spies.

Meanwhile, the king’s plan of marrying Elizabeth had raised such an outcry in England that he publicly disowned it. In June he issued a proclamation in which Richmond and his adherents were described as “open murderers, advoutrers, and extortioners,” their “ captain, . . . Henry Tydder,” being described as of bastard blood on both sides. Richmond was still looking between hope and fear at the English coasts when better news came over. A Welsh lawyer, John Morgan, reported that Rhys ap Thomas and Sir John Savage were ready to take up his cause, and that money had been collected by Reginald Bray. Rhys ap Thomas was by birth, ability, and education the leading spirit in South Wales. Wales, it appeared, would be on the side of the Tudor prince, and in Wales he was urged to land.

Any risk seemed preferable to further delay, and on August 1st Richmond sailed from Harfleur, having with him about 2000 men, including a French contingent supplied by King Charles, and commanded by Philibert de Shaunde, afterwards Earl of Bath. The little fleet was favoured by a following wind and smooth seas, and after seven days’ voyage reached Milford Haven without opposition. The powerful fleet got together by Richard lay inactive off Southampton. It had been prophesied that Richmond would land at Milford, and the royal fleet guarded a village of that name near Christchurch. Richmond and his followers landed near the village of Dale. The earl, we are told, knelt and kissed the ground, and after beginning the psalm Judica me Deus et decerne causam meam, he ordered his followers to advance in the name of God and of St. George. Just after landing, Henry knighted certain of his followers, exercising the attributes of the sovereignty he claimed. At sunrise he broke up his camp at Dale and advanced to Haverfordwest, ten miles away, where he was received with shouts of “King Henry, King Henry! Down with the bragging white boar!” There the had, and as it subsequently appeared untrue, news was brought him that John Savage and other prominent Welshmen had made up their minds to support King Richard; but the hopes of the adventurer’s followers were revived by a message of welcome from the town of Pembroke, Henry’s birthplace, which was prepared to support its “natural and immediate lord”. From Haverfordwest Richmond marched to Cardigan, where he was joined by Richard Griffith and John Morgan with their men, and then rapidly forward, taking the places garrisoned against him without difficulty. He sent messengers to his mother, to her husband, Lord Stanley, and to the latter’s brother, Sir Gilbert Talbot, announcing his intention of marching on London, and asking them to meet him with all the force they could muster. It was about this time, probably, that Henry wrote to his kinsman, John ap Meredith, the letter that has been preserved. The letter is headed “By the King,” and is written throughout in terms of sovereignty. The earl speaks of his “loving and true subjects” and of his realm of England, denouncing the king de facto as “the odious tyrant Richard, late Duke of Gloucester, usurper of our said right”, and commands Meredith to join him with all the force at his disposal, “as ye will avoid our grievous displeasure and answer it at your peril.” Bold language this for a proscribed exile who had only just landed, and who had but a handful of followers to match with the forces of a kingdom, but its boldness was justified by success.

The attitude of the Stanleys was of the utmost importance—one had all Lancashire at his back, the other ruled North Wales; but they preferred not committing themselves to either party until they saw how things were going. They were ready, it seemed, to betray Richard, in spite of the favour he had shown them, as soon as Henry’s success appeared probable. It soon appeared that Richmond had done well in setting up his standard in Wales. Welsh chieftains rallied to support the descendant of Welsh kings and fight under the red dragon of Cadwallader; Welsh bards and minstrels roused local feeling in his favour, and Welsh prophecies were quoted to the effect that a Welshman of. the line of Cadwallader would one day be King of England. The invader marched on to Shrewsbury, taking the long route through Wales to gain as many adherents as possible, and from Shrewsbury advanced to Newport. The force under his banner was growing daily, but still the Stanleys hesitated. Sir William Stanley had a conference with Richmond at Stafford, but nothing came of it. Stanley rejoined his troops, and Henry marched on unchecked to Lichfield.

The news of Richmond’s landing did not reach King Richard, who was at Nottingham, until 11th August, when he had already reached Shrewsbury. The king appears to have underestimated the danger, and though he summoned the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Northumberland and Surrey, and the Stanleys to join him at once, he did not move until he heard of Henry’s advance to Shrewsbury. Lord Stanley excused himself on the plea of illness, and Richard discovered from Lord Strange that he was meditating treachery. Sir William Stanley, who had allowed Henry to march through Wales unopposed, was proclaimed a traitor. In August Richard mustered a large army and set out for Leicester, which he reached on 20th August. Henry was steadily advancing into the heart of England, and marching from Lichfield to Tamworth was joined by Sir Walter Hungerford, Sir Thomas Bourchier, and other deserters, who brought the force summoned by Richard to the standard of his rival. Lord Stanley’s attitude still made Henry very anxious. He lingered in the rear of the army “as a man disconsolate, musyng and ymagenynge what was best to be done,” and so lost sight of his rearguard in the darkness, and fearing to betray himself by asking his way stayed at a small village all night. He returned to his anxious army at daybreak, rather characteristically explaining his absence as caused, “ not by mistake but by design, to receive a message from secret allies”. A little later he made another secret journey to Atherstone, where he consulted the Stanleys, and received assurances of Lord Stanley’s support.

On Sunday, 21st August, Richard marched out of Leicester, camped near the village of Market Bos- worth, and on the following day pitched his battle in the plain, his army being so large that his front was extraordinarily long. The vanguard was composed of archers, under the Duke of Norfolk, and King Richard, riding on a white charger, followed in command of the main body, the flower of his army. On 20th August Henry’s force had been encamped at Atherstone, near Merevale Abbey; on the following day he marched to White Moors, being then within three miles of the royal army, and in the morning led out his men and prepared for battle. The Stanleys still seemed to hold the key of the situation. The men under Lord Stanley were drawn up midway between Richmond and the king, with Sir William Stanley opposite. Henry appealed to Lord Stanley to come and help him form his men, but was put off with an evasive answer. Having hesitated so long, he had determined to be found on the winning side.

The chroniclers give an interesting description of Richmond’s appearance as he stood on a hill to address his troops on the most critical day of his adventurous life. “He was of no great stature,” we are told, “his countenance and aspecte was chereful and couragious, his heare yelow lyke the burnished golde, his eyes gray shynynge and quicke.” The orations said to have been delivered by the two leaders have been handed down to us, but Henry’s appeal and the speech of the fiery Richard rest on the same slender foundations. Henry’s speech seems to have contained the same bold claim to sovereignty he had made on landing and continued ever since. He asserted that Richard usurped his lawful patrimony and lineal inheritance, and hinted that the host ranged against him, which appears to have been at least twice as large as his own, contained soldiers “by force compelled and not with goodwill assembled.” According to Hall he inveighed against “younder tyraunt, Richard Duke of Gloucester . . . which is both Tarquine and Nero,” urged his men not to be dismayed by the disparity of numbers, and bade them advance like “trew men against traytors, pitifull persones against murtherers, trew inheritors against usurpers, ye skorges of God against tirauntes” in the name of God and of St. George. Inspired by some such stirring appeal Henry’s men advanced to the attack, their right wing being protected by marshy ground, their left and rear by a little stream, while the sun shone into the faces of the royal host. The advance, though a bold move, was well managed. The Earl of Oxford, with the archers, was in the centre; the right and left wings were led by Sir Gilbert Talbot and Sir John Savage; Henry, with the Earl of Pembroke, led the main guard. His whole force did not exceed 5000, though, strangely enough, he seems to have been considerably stronger than Richard in artillery, the new weapon of war against which the chivalry of a feudal host was powerless. As Richmond’s men were moving to the attack and had just passed the marsh, the royal army fell upon them.The Earl of Oxford, fearing to be surrounded by the overwhelming force opposed to him, paused in the attack; but, realising from the weakness of their resistance that the royal troops were fighting half­heartedly, pressed on again. At this critical moment Stanley led his 3000 men over to join Richmond. This seems to have decided the issue of the battle; but a little later Henry was singled out for personal combat by King Richard, who slew his standard- bearer, and was fighting hand to hand with his rival, when the Homeric contest was ended by Sir William Stanley, whose men, “in their coats as red as blood,” fell upon the king’s lines. Richard, with the fierce bold spirit of the Plantagenet race, refused to fly, and died fighting desperately.

 

The battle of Bosworth Field : between Richard the Third and Henry Earl of Richmond, August 22, 1485 : wherein is described the approach of both armies : with plans of the battle, its consequences, the fall, treatment, and character of Richard : to which is prefixed, by way of introduction, a history of his life till he assumed the regal power

BATTLE or BOSWORTH 22AUGUST 1485

 

In a short time the battle of Bosworth Field was over. Henry had gained a decisive victory. Though the fight only lasted two hours, the loss was heavy, especially on King Richard’s side, those slain including the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Ferrers, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, and Sir Robert Brackenbury. Lord Lovel and the Staffords fled to sanctuary at Colchester, and the Earls of Northumberland and Surrey were taken prisoners. Henry only lost about 100 men, among them being his standard-bearer, William Brandon. This was the last of the thirteen battles of the Roses, and of them all the most important.

Henry, after giving thanks for the victory “with devoute and Godly orisons,” stood on a mound, called to this day “King Harry’s Hill,” to address his victorious troops, bidding them care for the wounded and bury the slain. He was hailed with shouts of “King Henry!—King Henry!” The crown which the dead king had worn into battle was found in a hawthorn bush and brought to Lord Stanley, who set it on Richmond’s head. Henry Tudor was King of England.

 

CHAPTER II

ENGLAND AT THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VII.— SETTLEMENT IN THE KINGDOM, 1485-1487

 

Henry Tudor had been hailed as King of England by the shouts of his victorious army, but he was still far from his goal. The difficulties that faced him dwarfed his early struggles. He had might not right behind him, and a claim that rested on force invited a later trial of strength, and involved associations of tyranny and subjection. He had been raised by the result of a successful conspiracy, by an unnatural union of York and Lancaster due to a common detestation of King Richard. It was on the maintenance of this union that Henry’s hold on England depended during the first difficult months of his reign, but there was no guarantee that it would survive now that its chief object had been attained in Richard’s overthrow. The vicissitudes of the long struggle between York and Lancaster had bred in the minds of the people a familiarity with violent changes which, while it had contributed to Henry’s success, might as easily cause his fall. Loyalty to the Crown was almost extinguished, reverence for its wearer had vanished. The Crown had become the prize of private ambition. No great king had lifted it out of the arena of conflict, the wearers of it had frequently been overthrown and met with violent deaths. The country that had produced Warwick the King-maker had become accustomed to sudden changes in the titular sovereignty. The York and Lancaster quarrel had been the curse of England. There were no great principles at stake. The con­flict had all the bitterness of a family feud, all the unscrupulousness of a quarrel over property, all the ruthlessness of a violent age, all the obstinacy of a struggle between evenly matched opponents, all the fanatic fierceness that fired the blood of the Angevin kings. Plantagenet had destroyed Plantagenet until the race was almost extinct, and the kings who had fought their bloodstained way to the throne had dealt out destruction with a savage hand. The nation was familiar with tyranny, usurpation, and regicide, with bitter feuds in the royal house, with wholesale slaughter in battle, with open executions, and with cold-blooded secret murders in royal palaces.

The whole country was exhausted and disorderly. The prospect of settled government, the only hope of the people, aroused no enthusiasm among the nobles, whose overgrown power was at the root of many of the evils that distracted the country. The Crown had been far too weak to keep in subjection men who were almost kings in their own castles, and in whose veins ran royal blood. Ever since the loss of the French possessions had removed an outlet for their tempestuous energy, England had been their battleground. Rebellion had become a habit, treason an occupation. The weakness of the government of Henry VI removed the only check on anarchy, and England had been plunged into a struggle of unprecedented bitterness. Each great noble had his retinue, fed, lodged, and armed at his expense, clothed in his livery, and obeying his orders blindly. Six oxen were killed to provide one meal for the Earl of Warwick’s household, and even the neighbour­ing taverns were supplied with his meat. More than four hundred and fifty persons dined and supped in one day at the table of the Duke of Buckingham. There are constant references in the Paston Letters and other collections to the prevalence of a custom so dangerous to the central government. Again, the custom of placing the sons of the gentry in the households of the great nobles to be brought up extended the influence of the feudal nobility and added to the number of the families personally involved in quarrels between them.

Another part of the constitution from which some stability might have been hoped for had failed. Parliament, which had enjoyed a brief but promising time of development under the early Lancastrians, failed when the sheltering hand of a strong king was removed. The House of Commons fell under the influence of the great nobles, became a mere tool and echo of the Upper House, and slavishly reflected the vicissitudes of the Civil War, proscribing attainders as ordered and reversing them when required.

The lower ranks of society, though not involved to the same extent in the dynastic struggle, had not escaped the evils of civil war. Roughly speaking, North was fighting against South in the cause of the white and the red roses. Law and justice were paralysed, juries were overawed by open violence or unblushing bribery. Writs of all kinds were bought and sold. Gangs of outlaws and desperadoes haunted the royal forests and exterminated the deer in the royal parks. Murder had become horribly frequent, and often went not only unpunished but unprosecuted, as the coroners often failed in their duty. The custom of sanctuary had become a crying abuse. Sir Thomas More, drawing a picture of the state of England ten years after Henry’s accession, thought that few sanctuary men were driven to that refuge by necessity. “Thievis bring thither their stolen goods and live theron . . . nightly they steal out, they robbe and steale and kill and come in again as though those places gave them not only a safeguard for the harm they have done but a license to do more.” Further, he says, “ rich men run thither with poor men’s goods, there they build, there they spend and bid their creditors go whistle them.” Benefit of clergy had also been abused to such an extent that crime increased. The Italian writer said that “priests are the occasion of crimes,” and pointed out the ease with which criminals could escape punishment by pleading benefit of clergy. “Yet notwithstanding all these evasions,” he continued, “people are taken up every day by dozens, like birds in a covey, and especially in London, yet for all this they never cease to rob and murder in the streets. . . . There is no country in the world where there are so many thieves and robbers as England, insomuch that few venture to go alone in the country except in the middle of the day, and fewer still in the towns at night, and least of all in London.” Even in the walled towns, comparatively immune from the disturb­ances of the Civil War, there was poverty and decay, due to the interruption of trade and heavy taxation. The coasts were ill defended, piracy flourished unchecked. The Crown was heavily in debt, and many of the Crown jewels were in pawn. Ireland was almost independent of the English king, and was even a potential enemy of Henry VII, the dominant party among the Anglo-Irish lords being Yorkist in sympathy.

The influence of England in Europe was negligible. All the energies of the nation and of its kings had been sucked into the whirlpool of civil strife. England was even losing her foreign trade, and much of what remained was monopolised by privileged aliens. The conquests of Henry V had gone, and with them the prestige of England which, exhausted and without allies, had sunk into a mean position. But, when considering the position of England in Europe in 1485, it must not be forgotten that the country enjoyed one great advantage. It was not, like France or Spain, only lately consolidated and united by the accident of dynastic succession. Ithad longbeen a separate nation, and the people were already becoming self-conscious and proud of their nationality. “These English,” wrote an Italian observer, “are great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men but themselves, and no other world but England.” It was to this awakening patriotism that Henry VII later successfully appealed.

It was a formidable task to face, and Henry’s right to undertake it was open to very grave objections. The principle which regulated the descent of the Crown was by no means certain. It was clear enough that the monarchy was hereditary, but whether it could be transmitted through females was not so clear. In addition there was the difficulty arising from Parliamentary acknowledgment of variations from the hereditary principle. In the confusion, both parties could claim that they had right on their side. If the Crown could be inherited like a private estate, Henry VII might claim it as nearest heir of Henry VI, who had inherited a Parliamentary title from Henry IV. If the throne of England descended like a peerage and by law of strict inheritance confined to the heirs male, it belonged to the Yorkist party, and Edward, Earl of Warwick, should have been King of England. Both claims, however, had been barred by attainder. The Lancastrian usurpation had been legalised by Act of Parliament and dignified by three generations of kingship, but Henry VII could only show a flawed descent. He was neither heir general nor heir male of Edward III; his claim to inherit from Henry IV was through the half blood, and therefore doubtful. He could claim that he was heir general of John of Gaunt, but even that was open to some dispute. The issue of John of Gaunt’s union with Katherine Swynford had been legitimised by Act of Parliament, and research has shown that the clause reserving the royal dignity contained in the later confirmation did not exist in the original Act of Richard II. It is doubtful whether such an interpolation, involving as it did an alteration in the nature of the Act it purported to confirm, was of binding force. Henry himself was probably unaware of the strength of his own claim, and Richard III had in many proclamations insisted on the bastardy of his ancestry. There was another difficulty. What claim Henry had he derived from his mother, and this recognition of the principle of descent through females involved the admission that the Yorkists descended from Lionel came before him. The fact that if Henry’s title was good his mother’s was better seems to have been completely and fortunately overlooked.

As far as hereditary right went the Yorkists undoubtedly had the stronger position. They had been very popular in London and in the north, especially in the city of York, but their prodigality and violence had brought reaction. The brilliant court of Edward IV had little influence outside a narrow area, and the failure of his attempts at foreign invasion aroused memories of the splendid achievements of Henry V. The claims of both parties had been discredited by their failures. The Yorkists could claim “the divine right of hereditary succession”, but their tyranny had alienated loyalty; the Lancastrian rule had a Parliamentary basis but had failed to provide strong government. The whole difficult question of principle was admirably summarised by the Italian observer, who noticed that though the king theoretically succeeded by hereditary right, if the succession were disputed the question was often settled by force of arms. “And heretofore it has always been an understood thing that he who lost the day, lost the kingdom also.” Technicalities of title were of little importance at a time when every member of both the royal houses had been attainted at one time or another, and when ambition and violence had proved the most successful title to the throne.

In the absence of a clearly recognised and binding principle of succession, Henry’s claim that he was the heir of the House of Lancaster was good enough to enlist the loyalty of those who had fought for the red rose. The vitality of the Lancastrian dynasty is noticeable. Its roots went deep into the soil; it was hard to upset, and revived in the face of great odds. Was there really a popular appreciation of their “politic” rule? Possibly; there certainly was a revulsion from the tyranny of the House of York. The violence of the later stages of the dynastic struggle had strengthened Henry’s position. The murders and executions that preceded and followed Richard’s coronation paved the way for the Tudor by removing his competitors. The direct line of the House of Lancaster had been wiped out, and of the House of York there remained only Edward, Earl of Warwick, and the daughters of Edward IV. Henry had enlisted the support of many of the Yorkists alienated by the brutality of Richard III, and could count on its continuance. The young Earl of Warwick, who had a hereditary claim upon their loyalty, was a feeble-minded boy, and Henry’s promise to marry Elizabeth of York presented an attractive compromise. The Yorkists who helped Henry to the throne hoped to see him reign by virtue of this marriage. From this view Henry dissented. To reign in right of a Yorkist wife was to “be but a King at courtesy, and have rather a matrimonial than a regal power”. Yorkist loyalty would be due to the queen rather than the king, and would be un­certain and undependable at best. Henry meant, if possible, to be crowned King of England in his own right alone, and to make his marriage appear a concession rather than a compromise.

From Henry’s point of view the situation was promising. The nation was weary of anarchy and looked for a strong central government as the only hope of peace. Defects of title would be ignored in a king who would govern with a strong hand and justly. The forces that had formerly acted as a check on royal power were demoralised. The Church, wrapped in a materialistic slumber, had ceased to be the guardian of popular freedom; Parliament represented only popular apathy and lack of interest in politics. There was no force in England that offered hope of salvation to society except the Crown, and no force that could resist it, if it took up the challenge. Anarchy gave birth to despotism.

Everything depended on the character and ability of the new king. He needed all his statecraft and tenacity if he was to keep his seat on the uneasy throne of the Plantagenets. One moment’s slackening of grip, the first appearance of weakness, and Henry VII would add another to the long list of deposed or murdered kings. But the hour had produced the man. The new king had given proofs of marked ability in the difficult years of exile. Some thing was due to his personal gifts, more perhaps to the teaching of adversity. All the chroniclers agree that Henry had the gift of winning friendship and retaining loyalty. The Duke of Burgundy, we are told, was won over to support him by his good looks and fine bearing, his gravity in spite of his youth, and his modesty and uprightness. A similar reason is given to explain the support he obtained from the King of France. Even allowing for the bias of the courtly narrator, it is clear that Henry was extraordinarily successful in inspiring his supporters with faith in his ultimate success. He retained the friendship of France and Burgundy in the face of Richard’s tempting offers, and the failure of his first attempt upon England was not followed by any notable secessions from his cause. Though an exile in a foreign court, dependent upon the bounty of a foreign prince, he had escaped subservience and incurred no fettering obligations. To patience in waiting he added boldness in action. He did not hesitate to land a handful of men on the English coast, and take the style and title of King of England. But to the qualities common to all adventurers, Henry added gifts of a very different calibre. Circumstances had made him subtle, tactful, secretive, had given him judgment and experience of men and their motives. Hall speaks of him as having the “ ingenious forcast of the subtyl serpent.” It needed no mean capacity to keep together his band of exiles, watch those who meditated treachery, negotiate the alliance with the queen-dowager, win over the Welsh chieftains and the wavering Stanleys. Thus it was a man who had already learnt something of the statesmanship which afterwards distinguished him as the “politic king,” who took up the task of kingship at the age of twenty-eight.

On the field of battle Henry knighted eleven of his followers, among whom were Gilbert Talbot and Rhys ap Thomas. In the evening the conqueror marched with his victorious army into Leicester. There too the body of the late king was shamefully brought, strapped on the back of a horse, “naked and despoyled to the skynne . . . and byspryncled with mire and bloude.” Bacon’s statement that the king, “of his nobleness,” ordered that his defeated rival should have honourable burial is supported by the words of André, but the king’s body seems to have been buried in the Grey Friars’ church with little cere­mony. In later years the king had a tomb raised to Richard’s memory.

It was all important for Henry to have in his power the surviving members of the Yorkist royal family, the Princess Elizabeth and the Earl of Warwick, who had been confined by Richard in the castle of Sheriff’s Hutton in Yorkshire. While Henry was still at Leicester, Sir Richard Willoughby, armed with a royal warrant, obtained the surrender of the Earl of Warwick, who was at once conveyed to London and lodged in the Tower, where he was to spend the rest of his unhappy life. In this “act of policy and power” Bacon finds Henry acting as a partizan rather than a king, but the young earl, though without character or capacity, was dangerous as the heir of the Yorkist line and of their claim upon the people’s loyalty. At the same time the Princess Elizabeth, attended by a considerable retinue, was taken to join her mother in London.

After two days in Leicester Henry advanced towards the capital, marching by easy stages along roads lined with cheering spectators. He reached London on Saturday, 27th August, being met at Hornsey by the mayor, sheriffs, and councillors in their scarlet robes, and by a great crowd of citizens, who pressed forward to kiss the hands “which had overcome so monstruous and cruell a tyrant.” André, who greeted him with an ode of welcome, records his triumphant entry into the joyful city. He rode “with greate pompe and triumphe ” to St. Paul’s, where with prayers and a Te Deum he offered up his victorious standards, the standard of St. George, a banner bearing the red fiery dragon of Cadwallader, and a yellow banner emblazoned with a dun cow.

The king took up his quarters at the Bishop of London’s palace, and summoned a council at which he renewed his promise to marry Elizabeth. According to Polydor Vergil a day was fixed for the marriage, but Henry did not abandon his intention of first being acknowledged as king in his own right. Before he had been a week in the capital he surrounded himself with the trappings of his new dignity, royal robes of cloth of gold and ermine, rich plate and jewels. “Playes, pastymes and pleasures were shewed in every part of the cytie.” On 3rd September the king paid a state visit to the city, a free gift of 1000 marks being voted to him. On 15th September writs were issued for a Parliament to meet on 5th November “to discuss pressing and weighty measures for the government and defence of the kingdom and church of England.” Henry, in the words of Bacon, “as a prudent and moderate prince, made this judgment that it was fit for him to haste to let his people see that he meant to govern by law, howsoever he came in by the sword.”

During the weeks that followed the king secured his hold on the possessions as well as the dignity of royalty, rewarding his followers, taking over the Crown lands, appropriating the confiscated property of the late king’s supporters, and getting the machinery of administration into his hands. The first weeks of his reign are a fair specimen of the occupations of his whole laborious life and of his intimate knowledge of all the details of administration. Grants of land and money were made to all the king’s faithful supporters, from the Earl of Oxford down to simple yeomen who had done service “at the late victorious felde.” No one who is known to have served the king was forgotten, and those who had suffered for the House of Lancaster in the past were rewarded. One William Stoughton, for instance, who had “ dispended his youth in the service of Henry VI.,” was made an alms-knight of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. Nearly all these grants contained a clause stating that the gift was made to the king’s servant “in consideration of his services against the king’s rivalling enemy and adversary, Richard, late Duke of Gloucester, the usurper of the king’s right and crown aforesaid.” Some such description of the late king was always inserted, in accordance with custom; in fact the shorter form, “King in dede but not in right,” became a stereotyped formula attached to any mention of Richard’s name.

Changes were made in the administrative and judicial offices. The Bishop of Exeter became Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Thomas Lovell Chancellor of the Exchequer. New judges and law officers were appointed. Many important offices were bestowed upon the king’s suite. John, Earl of Oxford, became Constable of the Tower of London for life. Sir William Berkeley became “master and operator of the king’s monies and keeper of the king’s exchange”; Sir Richard Guildford, another faithful supporter, became Master of the Ordnance and Keeper of the Armoury in the Tower of London. The king’s activity also showed itself in the disposition of church patronage all over England, from the appointment of a new Dean of the Chapel Royal at Windsor to the confirmation of the election of a new Abbess of Wilton.

All these acts of sovereignty were significant. By them Henry boldly asserted that his tenure of the Crown was independent of Parliamentary sanction. He even disposed of the estates of the rebels before they had been pronounced forfeited by Parliament, and arranged for the collection of the customs before Parliament had granted them to him.

The Patent Rolls of this year show how rapidly and firmly the once landless exile took up the duties of royalty, with quick eyes and brain restoring order and checking waste. The new arrangements made in these first weeks of the reign for the management of the Crown lands show his business-like methods and grasp of financial detail. Land was leased out at improved rents, “overseers of works and reparations” were appointed in many royal castles and lordships. He saw that the royal castles were put into the hands of faithful servants, appointed keepers of parks and forests, bailiffs of royal towns, and so on. Provision for sport was not overlooked. The king appointed foresters and masters of the game, sergeants of the hart-hounds in Somerset and Dorset, a “yeoman of the king’s buckhounds,” and a master of “the king’s dogs called harriers.” There is evidence of considerable reorganisation of the royal house­hold. By the end of September the reins of government were fairly in the king’s hands. Neither revenge nor weakness disfigured the first months of the reign. The past years of bloodthirsty violence were forgotten.

On 24th September a general pardon had been issued, from which a few only of Richard’s followers were excepted. Policy dictated the king’s attitude; there was trouble threatening in the North. Scotland was just emerging from barbarism under her chival­rous and enlightened king, James IV, who shared the traditional hostility to England. The unsettled conditions in England afforded him too tempting an opportunity to be resisted. On 25th September, the sheriffs and gentlemen of the northern counties were ordered to hold themselves in readiness to repel an anticipated Scotch invasion. The terms of the pardon proclaimed in the city of York on 8th October betrayed Henry’s dread of the Scotch danger. The proclamation stated that the men of the north “who have doone us nowe of late grete displeaser, being agenst us in the feld with the adversarye of us, enemy of nature and of all publique wele,” were pardoned owing to their repenting their “defaultes” and being descendants of those who had fought and suffered for Henry the Sixth, and—here comes the real reason —“because they ... be necessarye and according to there dutie most defend this land ayenst the Scottes.” The king was prepared to forgive them “almaner riottes, murders, tresons, felonyes, insurreccions, conspiracies ayenst there liegaunces doone and committed ” before the 22nd day of September. On 16th October a commission was issued to assemble men in the home and south-western counties. On 20th October the men of Norfolk and Suffolk were ordered to be ready at an hour’s notice. This exhibition of readiness to resist attack had the desired effect, and by 20th October the sheriffs of the northern counties were ordered to proclaim that the Scots, “understanding the king’s politique and mighty purviaunce” had “withdrawen them silf and bee severally departed sore abasshed and rebuked.” The northern gentlemen were thanked for their services and given leave to disperse. The danger was over for the time.

Henry had made up his mind to be crowned before Parliament met. He meant to meet the representatives of the people as a crowned and anointed king, who had no need to wait for their sanction and acceptance. He was busy preparing for his coronation when the “sweating sickness,” hitherto unknown in England, appeared in London. The disease was very virulent. “It was so sore peynfull and sharp that the lyke was never harde of,” but it ran its course rapidly, and the patient who survived the first twenty-four hours was almost certain to recover. It was extremely contagious and spread rapidly. According to Hall, not one among a hundred escaped, and it carried off, among other victims, two lord mayors and six aldermen. The king withdrew to his manor of Guildford to be out of danger of contagion, but before the end of October the sickness had disappeared. Many have thought that the disease was brought to the crowded streets of the capital by Henry’s foreign mercenaries. The visitation was popularly regarded as an omen of “a stern rule and a troubled reign.”

The preparations for the coronation were continued, and the capital looked forward to a spectacle which promised to be more brilliant than anything that had ever been seen before. On 19th October the office of Lord High Steward of England had been put into commission, and the elaborate preparations for the ceremony were made under the direction of the Earl of Oxford as Lord Chamberlain, Lord Stanley as Lord High Constable, and the Earl of Nottingham as Earl Marshal of England. A sparing distribution of honours signalised the coronation. On 27th October, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, was created Duke of Bedford, Lord Stanley was made Earl of Derby, and Sir Edward Courtenay was raised to the peerage as Earl of Devon. On the eve of the coronation the king held a chapter of the Bath and created twelve new knights. On the 30th of October he set out from the Tower to Westminster to be crowned. The details of the forgotten scene can be reconstructed after a lapse of four centuries. The king, still in the splendour of his youth, made a magnificent figure. Over a doublet of cloth of gold and satin in the Tudor colours of white and green the king wore a “long gowne of purpure velvet, furred with ermyns poudred, open at the side and purfiled with ermyns, laced with gold and with taselles of Venys gold, with a riche sarpe and garter.” He rode a charger with trappings of cloth of gold, and a golden canopy was held above him, “ riding opyn-heded,” by four noble knights. Seven horsemen, in crimson and gold, riding bareheaded and leading a spare charger, followed the king. His henchmen and footmen wore liveries of white and green, and there was a long line of heralds and trumpeters in their gorgeous clothing. The red rose of Lancaster and the crowned portcullis of the House of Tudor appeared everywhere. A minute description of the order to be followed at the ceremony has been preserved among the Rutland papers. The scene in the Abbey was full of colour and splendour. All the important posts at the ceremony were filled by the king’s personal friends; his sword was borne by the Earl of Derby, his crown by the Duke of Bedford, and his spurs by the Earl of Essex. He was supported on his right and left hand by the faithful Bishops of Exeter and Ely. The lost duchies of Guienne and Normandy were not forgotten, and mantles and caps of estate were borne to represent them. This brilliant scene inaugurated the era of symbolic pageantry characteristic of the House of Tudor. But the Lady Margaret “wept marvellously,” partly for joy and partly from dread of the future.

On the following day the king created Philibert Shaunde—whom Hall describes as “lord Chandew of Brittany, his especiall frende ”—Earl of Bath. At the same time Edward Stafford was restored to the rank of Duke of Buckingham, and remained throughout the reign one of the most brilliant figures of Henry’s court.

According to contemporary writers the day of the coronation was marked by the formation of a royal bodyguard of fifty archers known as the Yeomen of the Guard. There is evidence, however, that the king formed this bodyguard immediately upon his arrival in London or possibly during his exile abroad. By surrounding his person with guards, in imitation of the practice of the court of France, the king emphasised the royal dignity. Perhaps also “the crown upon his head had put perils into his thoughts.” This bodyguard, increased by Henry and maintained until his death, became a permanent appanage of English royalty, and the nucleus of the standing army.

Between the coronation and the opening of Parliament the king probably formed his council. Its composition is significant. Henry called to the council competent men of the middle class, upon whose gratitude and obedience he could rely, as a set-off against the great nobles with their traditions of aristocratic defiance. The peers summoned to the council were men who, like the Duke of Bedford, the Earls of Oxford, Derby, and Devon, Lords Willoughby de Broke, Daubeney, Dynham, and Strange, were bound to the king by ties of blood or tried loyalty. Prominent from the first among the members of the council were two great churchmen—John Morton, Bishop of Ely, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in the following year, and Richard Fox, Bishop of Exeter, “vigilant men and secret, and such as kept watch with him almost upon all men else.” Other councillors who had shared the king’s exile were Sir Richard Edge­combe, Sir Reginald Bray, who is described as “a very father of his country, a sage and grave person, and a fervent lover of justice,” Sir Edward Poynings, and Sir Richard Guildford, both of whom had led risings against Richard III. Chesney, Tunstall, and Lovell and Sir William Stanley were men of the same stamp. The king occasionally summoned outsiders to the council to give their advice on special questions. This group of “occasional councillors,” as Vergil calls them, included the Marquis of Dorset, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Thomas Earl of Ormonde, Richard ap Thomas, Morgan Kidwelly, Henry Marney, William Say, Master of the Horse, William Ody, Gilbert Talbot, William Udal, Thomas Troys, Richard Nanfan, formerly Governor of Calais, Robert Poyntz, James Hubert, Charles Somerset, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, William Blount, Lord Mohun, John Bourchier, John Fyneux, Peter Edgecombe, Hugh Conway, Thomas Tyrell, Henry Wyatt, Robert Throgmorton, Thomas Brandon, John Wingfield, Edmund Dudley, Edward Belknap, Richard Hemson, and others. Many of these men later played an important part in the events of the reign. Some of them were the founders of noble families, who served the State until the end of the Tudor dynasty.

With the exception of Morton and Fox, and possibly of Bray, the members of the king’s council were Henry’s servants and nothing more. They owed everything to Henry’s gratitude, and echoed rather than advised their master. Vergil suggests that Henry chose them in order that cases referred to them might be decided without the bitterness of conflict, or as Hall paraphrases it, “without great bearing or expense in long sute.” There is no evidence of any dispute between king and council throughout the reign. Henry could trust it to carry out his orders and reflect his personality. Lack of originality meant lack of opposition; the former the king supplied, the latter he could not tolerate. From this docility it came about that the sphere of action of the council was greatly extended during the reign. It became the apt tool of despotism.

On 7th November Parliament met. Proceedings began with an elaborate sermon by the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Alcock, Bishop of Worcester. Preaching on the text, Intende, prospers, procede et regna, he alluded to Agrippa who stilled sedition in Rome, reminded his hearers of the mutual duties of subjects and king, and spoke of Henry (who was present in person) as “a second Joshua, a strenuous and invincible fighter who was to bring in the golden age.” On the same day, following the usual custom, separate committees were appointed to receive and try petitions from England, Wales, and Scotland, and from Gascony and the lands beyond the sea. On Tuesday the Commons elected Thomas Lovell as their speaker, a choice very satisfactory to Henry, as Lovell had shared his exile, fought on Bosworth Field, was a member of the Council and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The king came down to the House on the following day, and made a short speech in which he declared that his right to the Crown and realm of England rested on “just title of inheritance and upon the true judgment of God as shown by the sword on the field of battle, giving him victory over his enemy.” At the same time he promised that all his subjects of whatever rank and condition should enjoy their lands and goods under his protection; with the significant exception of “ all such persons as had offended his sovereign majesty.” The nature of this exception soon appeared.

The Commons then granted tonnage and poundage at fixed rates, with a subsidy on wool, wool-fells, and hides, to the king for life, “for the defence of the Realm and in especiall for the saufeguard and keeping of the See,” an important proviso being added “that these Graunts be not taken in ensample to the Kinges of England in tyme to come.”

Parliament then passed to deal with another matter, which, though of vital importance, had not been mentioned in the writs of summons—the confirmation of the king’s title. Henry was reluctant to appear to owe his crown to an Act of Parliament, and the importance of the matter had been studiously mini­mised. The vexed question that had involved two generations of Englishmen in intrigue and civil war was settled, as far as Parliament could settle it, by a simple act which stated “in covert and indifferent words”, “that the inheritance of the crowns of the realms of England and France, with all the pre-emi­nence and dignity royal to the same pertaining, be, rest, remain and abide in the most royal person of our now sovereign lord King Harry the Seventh, and in the heirs of his body lawfully coming perpetually with the grace of God so to endure and in none other”. The wording of the entail was a triumph for the king . He “would not endure any mention of the Lady Elizabeth,” and succeeded in obtaining a limitation of the crown to his heirs without binding himself to marry the Yorkist princess. He escaped conditioning his kingship with an obligation which would have hinted at a crown matrimonial. An air of indifferent detachment, in which deep policy lurked, clothes the words in which Parliament recognised the pre-eminence of Henry’s doubtful claim.

The duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall were formally confirmed to the Crown, and the honour of Richmond annexed to it. An Act of Resumption restored to the Crown all lands belonging to Henry VI. on 2nd October 1455, gifts made since the beginning of the reign being excepted, and the rights of the king’s mother and of Cecily Duchess of York being saved. Vast estates were thus restored to the king. While making this generous provision, the Commons took the opportunity to draw attention to an old grievance, the abuse of purveyance for the royal household. The king responded by initiating a measure of financial reform, which separated the money required for the expenses of the royal household and wardrobe from the revenues of the State. Another Act reversed the attainders of the Lancastrians passed in the reign of Richard III, it being provided that they should not enter into possession of their property until the session was over.The Act was a pressing necessity, as many of the men returned to this Parliament had been attainted and were legally disqualified from sitting, and the judges had given the decision that they were not to serve in the House until their attainders had been reversed. The king himself was technically an outlaw, but the judges decided that the fact that he had taken upon himself the supreme authority purged him from the taint of outlawry, a decision which added to the growing theory of royal immunity.

An Act of Attainder against the late king and his adherents followed, the preamble of which is vindictive enough, mentioning as it does the “unnatural, mischievous, and great perjuries, treasons, homicides, and murders in shedding of infants’ blood, with many other wrongs, odious offences, and abominations against God and man, and in especial our said sovereign lord, committed and done by Richard, late Duke of Gloucester, calling and naming himself by usurpation King Richard the Thirde.” By this Act Henry’s reign was said by a legal fiction to begin on 21st August, the day before the battle of Bosworth, so as to bring within the net of treason all who had borne arms against him on that day. The attainted persons were therefore described in the Act as “traitourously conspiring the destruction of the king’s royal person by assembling to themselves a great host on 21st August in the first year of the reign,” a striking inversion of the real facts of the case. This expedient, though convenient at the moment, was a dangerous precedent to set. As the Monk of Croyland put it, “What security are our kings to have henceforth that in the day of battle they may not be deserted by their subjects?”. It has been described by one eminent historian as “a notorious lie and a blot upon the statute-book.” Its immorality is beyond doubt, though the casuistry dear to Henry might build an argument on the proclamations made by the king on his landing. He had boldly called himself king while his fate was still in the balance. This claim, endorsed by his victory at Bosworth, he logically continued in prosperity. His views, however, it must be confessed, underwent great modification when ten years of kingship had given him sympathy for the position of the king de facto. The statute of 1495 is the best condemnation of Henry’s earlier attitude to Richard’s adherents. Among those whose property was declared forfeited to the Crown under this Act of Attainder were the late king, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Surrey, and Lords Lovell, Ferrers, and Zouche, and about twenty knights and gentlemen. The Act did not pass without some opposition, fruitless, however, “for it was the king’s pleasure.”

A few days later, on 19th November, the king appeared in person in Parliament, and an oath “for the reform of divers crimes and enormities” was taken by certain knights and gentlemen of the royal household, then by the members of the House of Commons. On the motion of the Lord Chancellor the House of Lords, consisting of the Archbishop of York with twelve bishops, seventeen abbots and priors, two dukes, eight earls, one viscount, and seven barons took the oath, each with his left hand on his breast and his right on a copy of the gospels. By the terms of the oath they swore not to “receive, aid, or comfort murderers, felons, or outlaws, not to reteine any man by indenture or othe, not to give liverie, signe, or token contrary to law, or make, cause to be made, or assent to any maintenance, imbracerie, riotts, or unlawful assemblie, not to hinder the execution of royal writs, nor lett any known felon to bail or mainprise.”

The oath taken with such solemnity was unpalatable enough. The nobles bound themselves to abjure their cherished weapons of riot and rebellion. It struck at the source of their power, and threatened to reduce them to the despised level of the obedient small men. The king, however, had the driving power of a strong will, and the prestige of recent victory behind him. The “much runyng among the Lords,” recorded in a contemporary letter, ended in obedience.

On the 10th of December, the king being present to prorogue Parliament, a petition of the Commons was presented by the Speaker, asking the king to marry the Lady Elizabeth of York. At once the lords spiritual and temporal rose in their seats, standing before the throne, and, bowing their heads, made the same request. All reference to Henry’s earlier promise to make Elizabeth his wife was tactfully omitted, and the king briefly replied that he was willing to proceed according to their desire and request. Then, after a short speech from the Chancellor, urging them to take care in putting down violence and disorder, especially to repress the vagabonds who were “running about the country spreading discords and lies under colour of begging,” Parliament was prorogued until 23rd January.

This first session of Parliament had been an important one. Henry had clothed his conquest with the forms of law. His adherents had been rewarded, and his enemies punished under strict legal forms. Violent usurpation and tyranny seemed to have given place to a dynasty wedded by choice and necessity, as well as by Lancastrian tradition, to a Parliamentary form of government. The session had had a reassuring effect upon the popular mind. The new king had shown strength of mind and purpose; it was clear that he meant to be obeyed. Contem­porary writers were not blind to the promise of the new reign. “ The king,” wrote an Italian to the Pope in December, “shows himself very prudent and clement: all things appear disposed towards peace.”

The king spent the rest of the month in London making preparations for his marriage. In addition he had the task of paying the late king’s debts as well as his own. Among the former he redeemed a “salt of gold, a coronall of gold,” and other plate pledged by Richard. Other obligations were more pressing, and Henry had to apply to the city for a loan of 6000 marks. Part of the money was applied to the release of the Marquis of Dorset and Sir John Bourchier, who were still in Paris as sureties for the money advanced to Henry by the King of France. Debts due in respect of the pay of the Calais garrison, and for armour bought for the king during his exile in France, were paid about the same time.

Messengers had been sent to Rome to obtain bulls for the marriage, but on 18th January 1485-6, before the brief arrived, the long-delayed marriage was solemnised under a dispensation obtained from the Papa] legate, James, Bishop of Imola. There is an appearance of haste about this after the long delay. Perhaps Henry, with his instinct for catching the drift of public opinion, found his Yorkist supporters chafing at the delay.¹ The marriage was received with many signs of popular approval. As Hall said, “ By reason of this marriage, peace was thought to discende oute of heaven into England.” ²

In one part of England the temper was anything but peaceful. The North, the stronghold of the Yorkist party, was restless and dissatisfied, and sedi­tion flourished dangerously near the Scotch border. In the county and city of York, the hostility to the new king was pronounced. The corporation had expressed its regret at the result of the battle of Bosworth, and had boldly resisted the king when their Recorder, one of the Yorkists exempted from the general pardon, had been deprived of office. A great agitation had been got up in his favour, which the king seems to have been either unable or un­willing to resist. He was reluctant to alienate the city, when trouble was threatening on the border.³ The state of feeling in York continued to give ground for uneasiness. On 24th December the king sent down a letter ordering a search to be made in every household in the city every night, beginning at eight o’clock, for “ vagabonds, idlers, beggars, and suspect persons.” ¹ A truce was made with Scotland on 30th January 1485-6 which removed the most pressing danger, but as soon as Henry was able to leave London, after the dissolution of Parliament, he determined to make a royal progress through the disaffected districts. He started early in March, with all the great nobles of his court in his train, and rode by way of Cambridge, where he was honour­ably received by both the town and the univer­sity, through Huntingdon and Stamford to Lincoln. There he kept Easter Day devoutly, washing the feet of twenty-nine poor men, and giving alms to the poor, to the prisoners and lepers. At Lincoln he heard that Francis, Lord Lovell, and Humphrey and Thomas Stafford had fled from Colchester, where they had remained in sanctuary since the battle of Bosworth, and that no one knew to what part of the country they had gone. Henry, however, “ lytle regardyng the tale,” continued his progress, and advanced, “ without any bay ting bycause they died at Newark,” to Nottingham, which he reached on Tuesday, 11th April.² Then he heard the news of a rising in Yorkshire. He hastily summoned the men of Lincoln to his standard, ordering them to come unarmed, evidently underrating the importance of the rising, and advanced to Doncaster, where he stayed over Sunday. Just beyond Doncaster he was joined by the Earl of Northumberland, who brought all the territorial influence of his great family to the king’s side. Henry reached Pontefract on Monday and stayed there until Thursday, 20th April, and daily large numbers of the local magnates, who had hastily armed at the news of the revolt, joined him. On his advance towards York, the king heard that Lord Lovell was about to attack the city, and that a simultaneous attack was to be made upon Worcester by the Staffords, who had got together a large force. It was a critical moment. Henry was in great danger. His men were not equipped for war, and he was close to a city which had been the heart of the Yorkist cause, and was still devoted to King Richard’s memory.¹ Henry, however, acted promptly. The Duke of Bedford was despatched at once with 3000 lightly armed men to attack Lovell. When he came upon the insurgents he proclaimed that all who laid down their arms and submitted would be pardoned. The proclamation took the heart from Lovell’s host, and, deserted by their leader, who fled in the night into Lancashire, they laid down their arms and surrendered to the duke.² At the news of Lovell’s failure, Humphrey Stafford gave up the plan of attacking Worcester, and fled with his brother to sanctuary near Abingdon. The Court of King’s Bench, however, decided that the right of sanctuary would not cover men accused of high treason. This important ruling, which deprived traitors of their chief refuge against the power of the Crown, led to the Staffords being taken out of sanctuary, and removed to the Tower. Humphrey Stafford was executed at Tyburn. His younger brother Thomas was pardoned, as it was decided that he had been led into the rebellion by his brother. Lovell remained in hiding, and early in the following year fled to Burgundy.

Henry advanced in triumph to York, which he reached on 22nd April. Five miles out of the city the mayor and aldermen rode forth to meet him, and a great crowd of citizens welcomed him with shouts of “ King Henry—King Henry ! Our Lorde preserve that swete and well faverde face.” There were many pageants in honour of his arrival, the “ King Solomon ” of one of them addressing the king as “ most prudent prince of provid provision, sovereign in sapience,” and so on. Another displayed a royal rich red rose, and a rich white rose crowned coming out of a cloud with the other flowers “ lowting low.” The city was gorgeously adorned with tapestries, and from the windows hailed down “ comfetts as it had been haylstones.” ¹ The king’s generosity in announcing that he would not expect the customary present of money from the city owing to its poverty led to a lavish present of provisions being enthusi­astically voted.² After a Te Deurn in York Minster, the king withdrew to his lodging in the archbishop’s palace. From York Henry moved through Doncaster, Nottingham, and Birmingham to Worcester, where he spent Whitsuntide, being received with the usual shows and pageants. One orator, having compared him to Noah, Jason, Julius Caesar, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Scipio, welcomed him as the lineal descendant of Cadwallader, “ the very Britain king ” ! After visiting Hereford and Gloucester, the king proceeded to Bristol, then the second or third city of the kingdom. As he rode through the city a woman threw down wheat from her window, crying, “ Welcome and good luck ! ” Again he was received with pageants, but the orators on this occasion spoke in a less heroic and more practical strain than usual, bewailing the decay of Bristol, which they thought was due specially to the decline of the navy and the decay of the cloth trade. The king showed his sympathy with their complaints and gave audience to the mayor and aldermen, encouraging them to build new ships to make up for their heavy losses during the last five years. On the following day Henry left for London, leaving behind him golden opinions, the mayor saying that “ they harde not this hundred yeres of noo king so good a comfort.”¹ On the 5th of June the king came by water from Sheen to the capital and, being welcomed home by the mayor, had a Te Deum sung in the Abbey.

About this time he received an embassy from Scotland, and after their departure the king left London. He was at Sheen on 12th August,² and afterwards went westwards to hunt in the New Forest. In September Henry was in Winchester, and there, on the 20th of the month, his son and heir was born.³ This important event was celebrated by Te Deums and processions, and by lighting bonfires in the streets. The babe was christened on the following Sunday with great pomp, receiving the name of Arthur in honour of the mythical Celtic ancestor of the House of Tudor.¹ Winchester Cathedral was hung with arras, the prince being borne to the font under a crimson canopy by the Lady Cecily, the queen’s eldest sister. The infant wore a mantle of crimson cloth of gold, trimmed with ermine, with a long train borne by Sir John Chesney and the Marchioness of Dorset.² When the queen had recovered from an attack of ague (to which she was always subject) the court moved to Greenwich and remained there over Christmas. The king’s position was infinitely stronger after the birth of an heir, who fused the claims of the rival royal houses. The new dynasty had its hand on the future.

But it was only on the surface that there was peace. The leaders of the Yorkist party were discontented; the union of the roses had brought them no profit, the chief offices of state and the king’s confidence had been bestowed upon Lancastrians, and the delay in the queen’s coronation aggravated their dissatisfaction. The country was full of strange rumours that fed the hopes of the Yorkists. The claims of the im­prisoned Earl of Warwick were a topic of discussion as early as November I486,³ and a sinister rumour spread that the king was to be another King Richard, and that he proposed to murder the boy. Another report was that one of the sons of Edward IV. was still living. “Thus,” says Bacon, “was fuel pre­pared for the spark that afterwards kindled such a fire and combustion.”

It was at Oxford that the spark of sedition was lit. The rumour that the young Duke of York still lived bred in the “ fantasticall ymagination ” of a priest named Richard Symons the idea of making one of his pupils personate him. This pupil was Lambert Simnel, “ one of gentle nature and pregnant wit,” and though of poor parentage “ not without extraordinary dignity and grace of aspect.” ¹ The later report that the young Earl of Warwick had escaped, and the rejoicings with which this rumour was received, led Simon to change the boy’s role to that of the Earl of Warwick. He suc­ceeded in instilling into the boy sufficient knowledge of “ princely behaviour, civil manners, and fruitful literature ” to deceive the important Yorkists, to whom he was afterwards presented, who were perhaps not inclined to scrutinise too closely the pretensions of a pretender who served their purpose. The priest showed great skill in the place he chose for the first appearance of his protege. The leading men in Ireland were devotedly Yorkist,² and the nobles, with Celtic enthusiasm, instantly accepted the boy on his arrival in January 1486-7 as the young Earl of War­wick. This “ feigned fable and ymagined juggling ” was passed from one to another and accepted as truth. The Earl of Kildare, who was Lord Deputy and the most powerful man in Ireland, espoused the boy’s cause and lodged him in his castle. His brother, the Chancellor, joined, and men, arms, and money poured in.³ Messengers were sent to the Yorkist party in England, and to the Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy to enlist her sympathy.

The court of the dowager-duchess had long been a refuge of fugitive Yorkists.¹ As the sister of Edward IV., she was consumed with hatred of the House of Lancaster. “ Inflamed with malyce dia- bolicall she invented and practised all mischiefes, displeasures, and dammages that she could devyse against the Kyng of England.”² She had “ the spirit of a man and the malice of a woman,” says Bacon. Wealthy and childless, she was ready to devote the whole of her very considerable ability to an attempt to overthrow Henry VII., “ against whom she bare a mortal hatred.” In her “ fury and frantike mood ” she promised to help the conspirators.

The affair had reached this point when news that a pretender had been set up against him in Ireland reached the king. Henry was then at Sheen, where on 2nd February 1486-7 he held a council to decide on the necessary measures of precaution.³ The murmuring and discontent in England had already led to a few rebels being proclaimed, among others Sir Henry Bodrugan, who had been stirring up sedition in Devon and Cornwall.⁴ On the news of Lovell’s escape, Henry decided to issue a general pardon for all offences, even for high treason, to all who submitted. There could be no greater proof of the king’s uneasi­ness. His throne was undermined by a conspiracy he was not strong enough to punish. He tried, therefore, to detach some of its supporters by this offer of a pardon. As a second measure of precaution the captive earl was to be led through London to expose the imposture of the claimant in Ireland. A third measure, an unexpected and mysterious one, was decided upon at this council. It was directed against the queen-dowager. Her jointure lands were con­fiscated, a pension of 400 marks only being allowed her, and she was assigned apartments in the abbey of Bermondsey.¹ No cause was publicly assigned for these proceedings. The vague expression, “ for various considerations,” used in the Act certainly shrouds a mystery. Various suggestions of the cause of the queen’s disgrace have been put forward. Vergil states that it was the punishment of the queen’s treachery to Henry in surrendering her daughters to King Richard. His authority, though constantly first-rate on matters of fact, is not always to be followed on the question of the king’s motives. This betrayal had been long since condoned. The queen-dowager’s estates had been restored by Henry’s first Parliament, and she had since enjoyed the king’s favour. Hatred of the House of York, the motive suggested by Bacon and those who followed him, may also be dismissed. Henry was too cautious a man to attack a prominent Yorkist at this inop­portune moment without other motive than blind hatred of a family to which he had shown honour in the person of his queen.² It is more reasonable to con­nect her disgrace with the conspiracy then on foot, and to suppose that she may have been implicated in it to some extent. She was certainly an indiscreet, capricious woman. No evidence, however, survives to connect her with the plot, and the question cannot be decided. A balancing of probabilities remains. No legal proceedings were taken against her, but the fact that no reason was assigned for her retirement and the forfeiture of her property hints at a desire to hide the fact that those near the king’s person were implicated in the plot, and perhaps to spare the queen consort the disgrace.¹

MARGARET OF YORK From the picture in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries

 

At this moment the conspirators gained over a very important convert, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. He had been chosen as his heir by Richard III., and though he had been received into favour by Henry, was ill content with the loss of his brilliant prospects. Thwarted ambition made him join the plot. For some time he wore the mask of loyalty, and was actually present at the Council held at Sheen, but a little later he, with Sir Thomas Broughton and others of less note, fled to join Lovell at the court of his aunt, the Duchess Margaret.

The king returned to London, and on the Sunday following the Earl of Warwick was taken from the Tower along the principal streets of the city to St. Paul’s, where many of the nobles suspected of com­plicity in Simnel’s conspiracy were given an oppor­tunity of talking to him. After Lincoln’s escape, the king ordered that strict watch should be kept along the east coast to prevent the escape of other traitors, and to guard against invasion from Flanders.' Commissions of array were issued on 7th April and the beacons were set in order.¹ Leaving London in the second week in Lent the king made a tour through the eastern counties that were nearest to the threatened danger. He rode through Essex to Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, and thence to Norwich, where he kept Easter.² There he heard that the Marquis of Dorset was coming to him to explain and excuse “ certeyne thynges he was suspected to have done lightely while he was in France.” Henry thought it best, however, to be on the safe side, and ordered the Earl of Oxford to conduct him to the Tower. On Easter Monday the king made a pilgrimage to the famous shrine at Walsingham, and then leaving the eastern counties rode by way of Cambridge, Hunting­don, and Northampton to Coventry, which he reached on 22nd April. On the following day he kept the Feast of St. George with great ceremony. The Papal bulls “ touching the king’s and the queen’s right ” were read, and those who resisted Henry were cursed with bell, book, and candle.

Meanwhile in Flanders the conspirators were ready for action. Lincoln and Lovell appear to have decided that it would be wise to support the Irish rebellion. Lincoln’s attitude in taking up the cause of a boy whom he must have known to be a pretender, has been explained by the theory that he meant to use Simnel as a catspaw, and if the revolt succeeded to remove him to make way for a new Plantagenet. Two thousand German mercenaries had been got together by the help of the duchess, and early in May the whole force sailed for Ireland under the command of one Martin Swart, landing on 5th May. Practi­cally the whole country, with the important exception of Waterford, which remained loyal to Henry, had espoused the cause of the pretender, and on 24th May Lambert Simnel was crowned King of England in Dublin Cathedral under the title of Edward VI. He was afterwards taken in procession through the streets of Dublin and received with great enthusiasm. The bishops and nobles took an oath of allegiance to him. Writs were issued for a Parliament in the name of the crowned adventurer, and new coin, struck in June, bore the name of Edward VI. Con­fident of success, Simnel and his supporters were eager to try their fortune in England. In June the pretender, “ with a great multitude of beggerly Irishmen allmost all naked and unarmed savynge skaynes and man- telles,” under Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, sailed for England. They landed on the coast of Lancashire —near Furness Fells—on 4th June, hoping to join forces with Sir Thomas Broughton.

The king was at Kenilworth when he heard—from a loyal Irishman, the lord of Howth—that Lincoln and Lovell had landed in Ireland.¹ He at once sent some of his nobles to raise troops in their own counties, thinking “ he should be well enough able to scatter the Irish as a flight of birds, and rattle away this swarm of bees with their king.” ² At Kenilworth he was joined by the queen, the Countess of Richmond, and the Earl of Ormond, and there the landing in Lancashire was reported to him by one of the horsemen he had sent to watch the western coast. The Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Oxford were given command of the royal forces. Very stringent proclamations were made to secure good order among the troops. Sacrilege and violence were forbidden on pain of death, there was to be no forcible levy of provisions, no fighting or quarrelling in the host, no shouting or blowing of horns after the watch was set, and so on. At the same time no one was to be molested on the pretext of any offence formerly committed against the king.¹ From Kenilworth Henry returned to Coventry, where he was joined by a large force under the Earl of Devon. Thence he marched to Leicester and Lough­borough, where the “stokkes and prisones were reasonabley filled” with offenders against the pro­clamations. Meanwhile Lincoln had led his men into Yorkshire and “ passed softely on his journey without the spoilyng or hurtyng of any man.” He did not meet with the increase of strength he had hoped for, and continued his advance towards Newark. Henry had marched to Nottingham, where he was joined by a large force “ inow to have beten all the king’s enemies.” Thursday and Friday nights were en­livened by “a great skrye or false alarm which caused many cowards to flee.” On Saturday morning, 16th June, the king rose early and, after hearing two Masses, led his host to cut off the foe on the road to Newark. Before nine o’clock he had reached Stoke, a village a mile out of the town, where he met the rebel army. The battle was fiercely contested; the German veterans under their experienced leader and the half savage, rudely armed Irishmen, fought desperately. For three hours the issue of the fight was doubtful, but rebel valour was no match for the royal artillery and the victory lay with the king.¹

The desperate nature of the struggle appears from the fact that nearly all the rebel leaders—Lincoln, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, Sir Thomas Broughton, and Martin Schwartz—with about four thousand of the rank and file, perished. Lovell disappeared after the battle and his fate is a mystery.² The loss on the king’s side was not nearly so heavy. His victory was signalised by the creation of thirteen knights banneret and fifty-two other knights, among them being Sir John Paston of the Paston Letters. Lambert Simnel and the priest, Richard Symons, were both captured during the battle. The latter passed from the page of history into lifelong captivity, but his tool was treated by Henry with contemptuous lenience. The boy who had been crowned with great pomp as Edward VI. of England became a scullion in the king’s kitchen and afterwards one of the royal falconers. It was novel treatment for a defeated pretender. Henry’s scornful clemency was judicious, and the presence of Simnel in the royal household kept alive a “ continual spectacle ” and galling reminder of the fate of unsuccessful imposture. Once again, many years later, the boy is heard of, when he appeared as cup­bearer to a party of Irish lords. The king, with one of his occasional flashes of ironic humour, sent a message that “ their new king, Lambarte Simnel, brought them wine to drink and drank to them all.” All shrank from the cup except the loyal lord of Howth.¹

A report of the king’s defeat had been carried to London, and so great was the panic that the Lieu­tenant of the Tower offered the keys of his prison to the Earl of Surrey, who, however, chivalrously refused to accept his liberty from any but the king himself. Henry appreciated his fine spirit, released him soon after the rebellion, and later sent him north against the Earl of Northumberland. Surrey repaid the king’s confidence by his subsequent devotion to his cause.² There had been disorderly scenes in the capital, the sanctuary men committing many out­rages.³ This brought into prominence a great abuse, and in a letter dated July 5, Henry appealed to the Pope to limit the right of sanctuary. His letter quoted the appalling fate of a man who had scoffed at Papal edicts and immediately fell dead, “ his face and his whole body became blacker than soot.” He also asked for a bull of excommunication against the Irish prelates who had supported the pretender.

Henry’s uneasy mind seems to have been bent on discovering the truth about the late rebellion. He knew that the ground was mined beneath him. A few months of apparent respite had been followed by a plot which grew so swiftly and dangerously that it had forced him to fight for his crown on the field of battle. The death of the Earl of Lincoln, from whom he hoped to have discovered the details of the conspiracy, left him in the dark. After three days at Lincoln, he set out on a progress through York­shire, making searching inquiries and sending out spies in an attempt “ to purge his land of all sedicious seede and double-hearted fruit.” Many executions followed, those less deeply involved being punished by heavy fines. After visiting York, he continued his progress or judicial circuit northwards as far as Newcastle. He reached Newcastle in August, and remained there for a time, despatching an embassy into Scotland. He returned south in the autumn, again visiting York and receiving a French embassy at Leicester.¹ On 4th November he entered London in triumph, and rode through the city to St. Paul’s to give thanks for his victory. His wife and mother, “being secretly in a house by Bishopsgate,” watched the king pass in triumph and then retired to Greenwich.

On 9th November 1487 the king met his second Parliament, which had been summoned by writs issued on 1st September. Proceedings began with a speech from Morton, now Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, on the text, Declina a malo, et fac bonum, inquire pacem et prosequere earn. On the following Monday the king confirmed the election of John Mordaunt as Speaker.

The Act of Attainder against those implicated in the rebellion was a long one. The preamble recited the treachery of John, Earl of Lincoln, dating its commencement from 19th March 1485-6. Twenty- eight other persons, of whom the most important were Sir Henry Bodrugan, Sir Thomas Broughton, Thomas and James Harington, and John Beaumont, were attainted of high treason and their lands and goods forfeited.¹ The legislation of this Parliament, which included the famous Star Chamber Act, will be considered below.² Early in the session Parlia­ment had granted the king two fifteenths and tenths, and a subsidy from aliens resident in England. The object of the grant was stated to be “ the hasty and necessarie defence of this youre Realme ” ; foreign difficulties had arisen.

Before the end of the year the long-delayed corona­tion of the queen took place. Henry’s position was now so secure that the coronation would not appear to be a necessity forced upon him by Yorkist dis­content. As an act of grace there was no reason for further delay, and the date was fixed for 25th November. Henry’s young and lovely queen was the central figure in a succession of brilliant scenes. On Friday the queen came from Greenwich by water, followed by the mayor and liverymen in gaily deco­rated barges, the one attracting most notice being the “ Bacheler’s barge ” with its great red dragon “ spowting flamys of fyer into Temmys.” Elizabeth landed at the Tower, where she was welcomed by the king in a way that Was “ right joyous and comfortable to behold.” There is a contemporary word picture of the young queen being borne through the streets of the city in a litter covered with cloth of gold, reclining on “ pillowes of Downe covered with like Clothe of golde,” royally apparelled in robes of white and gold, furred with ermine, “ fastened with a great lace curiously wrought of golde and silke and riche knoppes of gold at the end tasselled . . . her faire yelow hair hanging down pleyne behynd her bak with a caul of pipes over it,” and a circlet of gold, richly garnished with precious stones, on her head. Singing children, arrayed like angels and virgins, greeted her as she passed on her way to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. A banquet in West­minster Hall followed the ceremony, and the gorgeous attire of the nobles is enthusiastically described by the herald. Two of the queen’s ladies, we are told, “ went under the table, wher they satt on ether side the queene’s fete al the diner time.” The king and his mother “ sat priveley ” on a stage built outside one of the windows of the Hall to watch the pro­ceedings. At the end the queen departed “ with Godd’s blessing and to the rejoysing pf many a true Englishe mannes hert.” The “ great besynesse ” of Parliament put a stop to further celebrations.¹

 

 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS: 1485-1492

 

Henry was now to be faced with difficulties from outside, hitherto fortunately absent. England for a long time had played no important part in foreign affairs, prestige had gone with the French conquests, and the Wars of the Roses had absorbed all the fighting strength of the country. The nice balance of affairs in Europe, however, and the activity of national rivalries gave Henry an opportunity of proving the recovered strength of his country, and regaining the influence that waits on power. The theory of the universal rule of Pope and Emperor over the whole of Christendom was exploded, and escaping from the bonds of Papacy and Empire, the separate states of Europe pursued their individual ambitions. Many of them had just fused their elements into unity, rulers and kings were fired by dynastic ambi­tions. At no time did personality count for more in diplomacy. The personal characters of the kings who ruled the striving powers influenced the whole course of history. It was an age when the whims of the ruler were of more account in negotiation than the wishes of a people, when marriage alliances and dynastic considerations overruled international hatreds and the traditions of history. This or that ambitious prince set himself to modify the map of Europe. Territorial ambitions were extraordinarily keen.

It was an atmosphere which suited Henry ad­mirably, and in which he proved himself no mean match for his dexterous opponents—Ferdinand, King of Spain, and Maximilian, King of the Romans. Ferdinand of Aragon was undoubtedly one of the ablest men of the time. He had great ambitions and took a wide and general view of the course of European politics, using his unmatched diplomatic skill to play upon international rivalries for his own purposes. He was constitutionally inclined to crooked methods and was incurably suspicious. In his ambitions he was ably seconded by his wife, Isabella of Castile, who showed the curious union of a narrow and rigid piety with considerable statesmanship.

Maximilian was the stormy petrel of Europe. He was a man of restless ambition, always bent on sacri­ficing substance for shadow, the prosaic reality of authority in Germany for glittering dreams of uni­versal rule. Though not personally base, he was utterly unreliable; he was volatile and mercurial, incurably hopeful and incessantly active; he took up giants’ tasks only to throw them down like a light-hearted child.¹ To the steady, cautious, tena­cious Henry, with whom fate frequently threw him into contact, he makes the most extraordinary con­trast, and this perhaps embittered the undercurrent of mutual hostility. Maximilian was typical of an age which is the blurred boundary line between modern and medieval Europe. “ Just as from him the Austrian monarchy begins, so with him the Holy Empire in its old meaning ends.” ¹ He was the heir of the Empire, and the founder of the mighty house of Hapsburg.

Forces in Europe were very evenly balanced, and several foreign princes showed considerable anxiety to secure Henry’s friendship. Other foreign powers were marking time, waiting to see whether Henry was strong enough to keep the crown he had won. France had from the first shown her friendly intentions, and within a few days of Bosworth field a truce for one year between England and France had been signed. At the moment Brittany focussed the eyes of Europe. French ambition was awake. The terrible struggle with England and the foresight of Louis XI. had called a nation out of chaos. The borders of France had been extended and the great vassals subdued. Brittany alone held out, and upon Brittany, Anne of France, the capable, energetic regent, had set covetous eyes. A pretext for interference was the shelter given by Duke Francis to the Duke of Orleans, the discredited leader of the French opposition. A French invasion was threatened, and it was clear that Brittany alone could not hope to resist her formidable neighbour. The old duke, casting about for an ally, baited his hook with the hand of his elder daughter and heiress, Anne. Already the bait had attracted the needy and adventurous Maximilian. At the moment he was hopelessly involved; he had only just forced the reluctant Flemish states to recognise him as ruler of Burgundy in the right of his young son Philip, and in the spring of 1486 he had been elected to the lofty claims and empty honours of the King of the Romans. In March 1486, he, however, concluded a treaty in which he guaranteed the independence of the duchy in exchange for the hand of its heiress, while his son Philip was to marry her younger sister. Two other suitors for the duke’s young heiress were also in the field —the Duke of Orleans, and Lord D’Albret, a powerful Gascon noble. They were included in this league.¹

In 1487 a French army invaded Brittany and be­sieged Nantes. The town held out stoutly, and in August the French were compelled to raise the siege and make a treaty of peace. Maximilian as usual had done little to help, owing to renewed difficulties in Flanders, where resistance to him was encouraged by France; but his alliance, though a thing of little practical value to Brittany, had made France anxious to find a makeweight, and in September an embassy was despatched into England, which met the king at Leicester on his return after his stay in the north. The ambassadors explained that their king was making war against the Duke of Brittany on account of the help given by him to the rebel Duke of Orleans. They pointed out the danger of neighbouring princes being allowed to succour each other’s rebels—an obvious truth of which Henry had just had ample evidence—and asked Henry to join France in the war, or at least to preserve a strict neutrality. As to the question of the annexation of Brittany, the ambassadors tactfully “ bare aloof from it as from a rock.”

Henry’s position was rather delicate; he owed a debt of gratitude to both France and Brittany, and his per­sonal history had emancipated him from the century- old tradition of hostility to the former. One of the first acts of his reign had been the arrangement of a truce with his “ most derest cousyn Charles of France,” on 12th October 1485, replaced on 17th January 1485-6 by a three years’ treaty, negotiated by Oliver King, which ensured freedom of intercourse.¹ The natural bent of the king’s mind was peaceful. “ A fame of war he liked well,” says Bacon, “ but not an achievement.” He preferred the arts of diplomacy, in which he was conscious that he excelled. Further, his position in England made the preservation of peace more than desirable. The nation craved for rest, the old martial spirit of the country was suffering an eclipse after two generations of civil war. Time was healing the smarting sore of the loss of the French conquests, and the traditional hatred of the old enemy France had been merged in the bitterness of civil strife. Thus many things seemed to force the king’s hand, and to point to a favourable reception of the proposals of the French ambassadors. But, on the other hand, it was difficult to ignore the tradition of alliance with Brittany, and the claims her sovereign had on his gratitude. The treaty signed on 22nd July 1487, a long and detailed document, which provided for peace and complete commercial inter­course during the lives of the duke and King Henry, and for one year afterwards, bore a much more permanent air than the French treaty.² Moreover, it was obvious that the alleged cause of the attack on Brittany was but a cloak for French ambition. Though the old hostility to France slumbered it was not dead, and no English king, however enlightened, could afford to ignore it and acquiesce in the disap­pearance of Brittany, and a menacing addition to the power of France.

After a long consultation in search of a conclusion “that coulde satysfye or pleas hys doubtfull mynde and gentle harte, lothe to offende anye of them, of whom he had receaved eyther benefite or friendship,” ¹ Henry found a loophole of escape from a difficult position in the suggestion that he might promise to remain neutral, and thus perhaps exercise considerable influence without offending either party.² His almoner, Christopher Urswick, who knew something of both countries, was sent to France in May. His offer was accepted in France but rejected in Brittany, where, owing to the duke’s illness, he was received by the Duke of Orleans. The latter “ made an answer in somewhat high terms,” refused the offer of mediation, and appealed to the king, “ for his safety and re­putation,” not to allow Brittany to be swallowed up by France, and “ his continuell enemyes to be next to the gate of his realme.” The embassy left the duchy without accomplishing much, and the French again laid siege to Nantes.³ Henry continued his efforts to mediate, and sent a second embassy, consisting of the Abbot of Abingdon, Sir Richard Edgecombe, and Christopher Urswick, through Brittany into France.

Meanwhile the king was employed in preparing a fleet under Sir Charles Somerset, in which many Spanish vessels were included, and for which supplies had been voted by Parliament, to proceed against “ the king’s enemies then congregating on the sea.” ¹ The object presumably was to give weight to his self-suggested position as mediator, but at this moment his carefully guarded neutrality was im­perilled by the hasty action of some of his subjects. The anti-French and warlike feeling ran high in the council, and Lord Woodville, the queen’s uncle and governor of the Isle of Wight, suggested that he should be allowed to take a force over to the assistance of the duke. “ The kinge,” we are told, “ woulde in nowise geve the brydle to hys hote, hasty and wilde desire,” ² but, in spite of his express prohibition, Woodville raised a force of 400 men in the Isle of Wight, and secretly embarked at Southampton in a Breton ship. He captured a French merchantman on the way across the Channel, and placed himself as a “ valyaunt captaine and bolde champion ” in the service of the duke. There was naturally a great outcry in France at Henry’s apparent treachery, and feeling reached such a pitch that Christopher Urswick was in personal danger.³ Lord Woodville’s indiscre­tion therefore drove Henry from his neutral position and made it necessary for him to conciliate France. He offered the most ample apology for Woodville’s exploit, and on 14th July 1488 accepted his ambassador’s action in renewing the treaty with France until January 1491-2.¹ Thus Henry was forced against his will to commit himself to France.² The ambassadors returned by way of Brittany, where they made another fruitless effort to bring about a settle­ment, hostilities being suspended from the 1st to the 26th of June. Before the end of the month, however, events took place abroad which roused English feeling by threatening the immediate ab­sorption of the duchy. On 28th July ³ the French troops utterly defeated the Bretons at the battle of St. Aubin. Woodville and most of his Englishmen fell, the Duke of Orleans was taken prisoner, and on 31st August Duke Francis was forced to sign a most disadvantageous treaty, by which he surrendered several important towns as pledges and agreed not to give his daughter in marriage without the consent of “ his sovereign lord the King of France.” He promised to expel the foreign troops and not to harbour the enemies of France.

Nine days later he died, leaving his daughter Anne, then aged twelve, as heiress of the distracted duchy.⁴ The French at once claimed the wardship, but their claim was resisted, the Marshal de Rieux acting as the young duchess’s guardian. War therefore began again in Brittany. It was obvious that the end of it all would be the conquest of Brittany unless the young duchess could find help outside. It was useless to expect assistance from Maximilian. He had been a captive in the hands of the rebel Flemings from February until May, when he was released under humiliating conditions which outraged the feeling of Europe. To avenge his treatment he was now engaged with his father’s assistance in a war of retaliation. Henry of England had just committed himself to a French treaty, the Duke of Orleans was a prisoner. The duchess’s fortunes were at a low ebb, when the whole situation was changed by the entrance of another power into the struggle.

This power was Spain, which was then first be­ginning to rise to the position of one of the great powers of Europe. Under the strong rule of Fer­dinand the recently united kingdoms of Aragon and Castile had been consolidated and their turbulent nobility reduced to obedience. The monarchy was established upon a sound financial basis, and strengthened by the monarchical tendencies of the Inquisition, which began its reign of terror in 1481. It is a tribute to Henry’s sagacity that he realised the potential strength of the Spanish monarchy, and made immediate efforts to win its alliance. He was both conscious of the comparative unimportance of his country in Europe, and personally anxious to secure his dynasty by an alliance with one of the royal houses of Europe. There was no bitter legacy of mutual hatred and rivalry between England and Spain, and there was the link of friendly commercial intercourse. To Spain therefore the king turned in the hope of finding an ally who would neutralise the effect of the French successes in Brittany. In March 1488 an embassy, consisting of Christopher Urswick, Savage, and Aynsworth, set out for Spain with powers to conclude a treaty of peace and commerce. The reception of the embassy was extremely encouraging, and shortly after they arrived in Spain we hear for the first time of the marriage project which was to absorb many years of diplomacy.

The suggestion of a marriage between the infant Prince of Wales and Ferdinand’s youngest daughter Katherine probably originated with Henry. It is first mentioned in the commission given to de Puebla, the Spanish ambassador, on 30th April 1488, but Henry’s envoys must have received verbal instruc­tions to make such a proposal, as de Puebla speaks of them as having been the first to solicit the marriage, and Henry was obviously very keen on it. Thus opened the long diplomatic duel between Henry and Ferdinand, in which both parties used the sordid weapons of cunning and chicanery and spent them­selves in mercenary hagglings over marriage portion and dowry. The preliminary negotiations offered delusive hopes of a speedy settlement of the question. The principle of a matrimonial alliance was accepted, and a Spanish envoy was sent to England on 30th April 1488 to discuss details. “ Te Deum Laudamus! ” exclaimed Henry, hearing that the envoy had power to conclude a treaty and a marriage alliance; but he soon discovered that he would have to pay a formidable price for the alliance. The course of these early negotiations brings out the inferiority of Henry’s posi­tion. The Spanish ambassadors allowed themselves a sinister hint as to the instability of Henry’s throne. “ Bearing in mind what happens every day to the Kings of England, it is surprising that Ferdinand and Isabella should dare to give their daughter at all.” De Puebla’s vivid account preserves the bar­gaining between the commissioners as to the amount of the dowry. Henry tried in vain to induce the Spanish merchants in London to become security for the payment, and Ferdinand to provide her with her trousseau and jewels. Henry’s anxiety for the con­clusion of the treaty appeared from the practical sacrifices he was willing to make for it, though re­luctant to let his inferior position appear. He showed special favour to the ambassadors, said the most flattering things of Ferdinand and Isabella, “ every time he pronounced their names taking the measure of his bonnet,” and granted licenses to Spaniards at the request of his “ beloved Doctor de Puebla.” ² The ambassadors, on Henry’s suggestion, made a journey to see the baby Prince of Wales and discovered in him “ such excellent qualities as are quite incredible.” Beyond these courtesies, however, the king was un­willing to go. The draft of the treaty and alliance drawn up on the 8th of July, which provided that the princess was to receive a dowry of 200,000 gold scudos and be endowed with one-third of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester, contained no promise of Henry’s to make war on France at the bidding of Spain. The special envoy left for Spain to obtain his master’s ratification, which was of course withheld, and an embassy from England to settle the details of the alliance followed.

Ferdinand was bent upon recovering the two provinces of Rousillon and Cerdagne ceded to France in 1462, and Henry was to be his cat’s-paw in this attempt. The critical situation in Brittany opened up a prospect of succeeding in this aim, without diverting his forces from the Moorish war in Granada. The Spanish plenipotentiaries stipulated that Henry should promise to join Spain in a war against France, and not to make peace without the inclusion of Spain. Spain in return promised to include England in any peace she made. These terms were so ob­viously unfavourable to England that Henry’s agents hesitated to agree to them, and were not daunted by hints that the Spanish alliance was much more important to the King of England than the latter’s was to Spain. Their national pride seems to have been roused to protest against embodying in writing an arrangement so derogatory to their sovereign’s dignity. “ It was not permissible, just, or honest,” they said; “ the King of England had received many services from the King of France.” They suggested, however, that their master might be willing to agree to these terms, if they were made the subject of a verbal agreement and not set down in writing. “ Such things were more justifiable and honest when done than when written,” they said.¹ This sophistry alarmed the Spaniards, and the English agents had to reassure them by taking a solemn oath before the crucifix that it was Henry’s intention to conclude the alliance and marriage, and then make war upon France for the recovery of Rousillon and Cerdagne, “ according to the King of Spain’s bidding.” Then followed weary months of negotiation, when disputes about the princess’s dowry, trousseau, and travelling expenses were used by each power to veil attempts to get the other committed to its own view. In fact the interests of the would-be allies were prac­tically conflicting. Ferdinand wished to push the peaceful Henry into war for the recovery of his lost provinces; Henry hoped to gain the prestige of the Spanish alliance without venturing on a war with France, or, if he found that impossible, to bind down Ferdinand to give Brittany some substantial help.

In October, when negotiations in Spain were still in progress and there seemed little hope of an alliance, Henry made overtures to the Duchess Anne, the basis of the proposal being that the duchess should marry the Duke of Buckingham. It may be that the sug­gestion alarmed Ferdinand, at all events it was obvious that the limits of Henry’s concessions had been reached, and the Spanish offers were slightly modified. To counterbalance the claim of the King of Spain to retreat from the war as soon as his two provinces were restored, the English were offered a similar right of withdrawal on the cession of Guienne and Normandy. But this modification brought no real equality in the terms ; France might possibly restore Rousillon and Cerdagne to Spain, the state to which they originally belonged, but the cession of Normandy and Guienne to her old enemy involved a surrender of French pride to which nothing short of absolute conquest would drive her. These altered instructions were sent to de Puebla on the 17th of December. At the same time he was ordered to dissuade Henry from the Brittany marriage scheme, and to point out that it would alienate two of the duchess’s most powerful supporters, Orleans and D’Albret. The king seems to have thought that the Spanish alliance was worth the price he had to pay for it, but he did not disguise his irritation from de Puebla. He spoke of his obligations to the King of France, and of the many friends he was losing by not acting in concert with France, but expressed his intention of sacrificing them in order to come to an understanding with Spain. The overtures to the duchess were abandoned. On the 11th of December Thomas Savage and Richard Nanfan were despatched to Spain, with power to conclude a marriage alliance. Ambassadors from Maximilian, offering to make a treaty with Henry on any terms provided he promised to help the duchess with a powerful army, had been in England some time. On the same 11th of December another embassy left England to try and bring about the better understanding with Maximilian which Ferdinand had advised. In the first year of his reign (2nd January 1485-6) the treaty of Edward IV. with Burgundy had been renewed for a year, but the depredations of Flemish pirates con­tinued to be a source of complaint, and the shelter and assistance given to Yorkist conspirators by the Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy gave Henry just ground for hostility, which he only abandoned under pressure from Ferdinand. The embassy despatched to Maximilian in December concluded a defensive alliance on 14th February 1488-9. The embassy which left England for Spain on 11th of December was directed to go on to Portugal to revive the ancient treaty made by Richard II. in 1387, and bestow the Order of the Garter upon the king. Little came of this at the moment beyond the confirmation, on 18th August 1489, of the treaty, but it initiated the policy of playing off Portugal against Spain, which Henry in later and stronger days pursued with some success.

On the same 11th of December Christopher Urs- wick, at the head of another embassy, was despatched to Charles VIII. to ask him to desist from the war in Brittany and to make another offer of English media­tion. He was instructed to warn him that if he persisted in his designs, Henry was going to send troops to support Brittany, which had formerly been a subject and vassal of England and had always been friendly to England, “which message,” we are told, King Charles “ dissimuled as little to regarde as the by ting of a flee.”

The ambassadors, Sir Richard Edgecombe and Henry Ainsworth, sent into Brittany on 11th of December, took advantage of the duchess’s necessities to drive a very hard bargain. Henry had hoped at first to save the duchy by negotiation; but, though driven by self-interest to take up arms in her de­fence, he was not the man to champion the duchess without receiving the market value of his services. He promised to send a force of 6000 men from Portsmouth in February to protect the duchy until the following feast of All Saints, but re­quired and obtained the surrender of two towns with their castles as securities for the repayment of the expenses he had incurred. Further, the duchess agreed, after the expiration of the Anglo-French truce, to help Henry, if called upon, to recover Nor­mandy, Gascony, or even the crown of France. No treaty was to be made by Anne without Henry’s approval except treaties with Maximilian or Ferdinand, and the duchess was to swear not to marry without Henry’s consent.¹ These terms were agreed to on 10th February 1489, and four days later the treaty with Maximilian was signed. Thus the foundations of a great anti-French coalition were laid. It was a recognition of the value of the balance of power and an attempt to maintain it by a league of European powers against any nation that threatened to disturb the status quo, which anticipated the principle under­lying diplomacy from the sixteenth century until the present day.

The king had spent the summer and autumn hunting in comparative tranquillity which was dis­turbed by the unexpected turn of events in Brittany. In November a Great Council had been summoned to consider measures for securing the safety of the duchy, and Henry began to push on preparations for war. In December 1488 commissions of array were issued for troops to be sent to the assistance of Brittany, and all through this month and in January musters were being taken. Men were being im­pressed in London to make bows and arrows for the king’s service, and Henry announced to the Papal collector, Gigli, in January his intention of defending the “ orphan duchess ” with all his might.

On 13th January Parliament met. Henry found that there was a strong feeling in favour of supporting Brittany, and that the deep-seated hostility to France could be profitably played upon. Bacon manu­factures a speech for Morton which speaks of the vanished greatness of England, of the once dependent confederates, Burgundy and Brittany, already partly lost, of the danger that the island would be “ confined in effect within the salt waters,” a prospect galling enough to the minds of those who hankered after the lost conquests of Henry V. As the peroration of the speech expressed it, “You know well how the kingdoms about you grow more and more in great­ness, and the times are stirring and therefore not fit to find the king with an empty purse.”

On 3rd February Parliament granted the king a subsidy of £75,000 towards the £100,000 required to provide an army of 10,000 men for a year, “ ayenst the auntient enymies of this Realme and for the defence of the same,” and authorised a similar levy for the two following years if the war still continued. This was an enormous grant, nearly three times as large as a fifteenth and a tenth, and forty-one days were spent in deliberations before the Commons could screw themselves up to the vote. The exceptional nature of the grant was emphasised. It was not to be taken as a precedent, as it had been made owing to the great necessity of the time in order to accelerate the payment. The money was to be raised by a levy of one-tenth on all incomes and a tax of 8d. on every ten marks of personalty. After a long discussion it was agreed that the balance of the £100,000 was to be contributed by the clergy.

On 27th February Parliament was prorogued until October 14th. Henry continued his preparations for the assistance of Brittany, collecting a force to sail in the spring. Some of his subjects, not willing to wait, went on at once to Brittany, throwing themselves into Morlaix, which was being besieged.¹

Henry’s lack of enthusiasm for the war was justified by a sudden revelation of the smouldering disaffection which menaced the safety of his throne. “ The harsh and bitter fruit ” of the subsidy had still to be gathered, and “ on a sudden, the people grew into a great mutiny.” Disturbances in the city of York² were followed by resistance to the levy of the subsidy in the counties of York and Durham. The people “ greatly grudged and murmured,” and declared that they would not’ pay one penny of the huge sum now required of them. Their resistance was stiffened by the adherence of discontented Yorkists. The royal collectors complained to the Earl of Northumberland,³ who wrote to the king asking for directions. Henry’s spirit always rose in an emergency, and he never showed less weakness than when confronted by the “ base multitude.” Northumberland was ordered by the king to proceed at once to raise the money by distress or otherwise, “ and by compulsion to enforce suche to payment as whyned moost at it.” ⁴ Opposi­tion to the levy could not be overcome, and, led by one John a Chambre, “ a simple fellow,” the people broke into open rebellion. Northumberland’s attitude showed weakness; a fight took place between the malcontents and the earl’s men near Thirsk, and the earl and many of his followers were killed. The re­bellion under the leadership of Sir John Egremont, who had Yorkist leanings, spread and called for the king’s presence. The terms of a curious proclamation have been preserved bidding the men of the north assemble to “ geynstonde such persons as is aboutward for to dystroy owre sufferyn Lorde the Kynge and the Commouns of England, for suche unlawfull poyntes as Seynt Thomas of Cauntybery dyed for.” Henry sent the Earl of Surrey northwards in command of troops. On 30th April he wrote from the castle of Hertford ordering artillery to be sent forward against his “ unnatural subgietes in the north partes . . . whose sedicious purpose we with Gode’s mighte entende breefly to subdue in owre persone.” ¹ On 10th May gunners, smiths, and carpenters were being impressed and the king’s tents repaired,² and on 22nd May he went northwards himself.

The rebels attacked York on 20th May, but “ having no leaders and little credit,” ³ lost courage as Surrey advanced. “ Their hartes were in their heeles and their stomackes coulde as any stone.” They dis­persed in all directions, but did not escape Henry’s summary vengeance. John a Chambre was hanged at York on a high gibbet “ lyke an archetraytoure,” and his accomplices were executed “ on lower gibbets round about their master.” Sir John Egremont suc­ceeded in escaping and made his way to Flanders. Sir Richard Tunstall was left in the north to see to the collection of the subsidy, and the Earl of Surrey was given the late earl’s office of Warden of the Scotch Marches.

Leaving everything quiet Henry returned south­wards, spending Whitsuntide at Nottingham and then returning to hunt in Windsor Forest.¹ The king had apparently triumphed, but of the large grant made in February only about £27,000 was collected. Appa­rently resistance was encountered all over England, though there was no other open disturbance.

Of the adventures of the important embassy which left London for Spain on the 11th December we know a good deal, thanks to the narrative of the Richmond herald. He has given a detailed account of their stormy voyage from Southampton, which took nearly a month, in two Spanish ships; of their journey through Spain to Medina, which they reached on the 14th March ; and of the details of the Queen of Spain’s rich dresses (one worth 200,000 gold crowns on the herald’s estimation), of the mumbled speech of the bishop, “ who was old and had lost all his teeth,” of the court balls and j oustings and bull-fights, of the appearance of “ notre princesse d’Angleterre,” attended by fourteen maidens, and of the bull-fight at which the “ princess of Wales ” assisted sitting on her mother’s knee,² but of the actual negotiations we know little. They ended in the treaty of Medina del Campo, which was ratified on 28th March 1488-9 by Ferdinand and Isabella. General provisions securing mutual protection and free commercial inter­course were followed by an agreement, which provided for the marriage of Arthur and the Infanta when they reached a suitable age, the dowry of the latter being fixed at 200,000 crowns (4s. 2d.), half of which was to be paid on her arrival in England and half of it two years later. The terms of the alliance with regard to the French war were laid down. No hostile steps were to be taken until after 19th January 1490, when the truce between France and England expired. One of the clauses provided that as Henry had concluded a truce with France until 19th of January, he should not call upon Spain to make war with France during this truce, but that both parties should be free to make a new truce with France, on 19th January 1490, or within a year afterwards, unless at that date England was at war with France. At first sight it appeared that Henry held the key of the situation. The apparent fairness of this provision, however, was more than counterbalanced by the clause making the cession of Rousillon and Cerdagne or of Normandy and Guienne the conditions for the withdrawal of Spain and England from the war, the former being a probable, the latter almost an impossible con­tingency. It was a case of diamond cut diamond. Henry appeared to the Spaniards as already at war with France, but as he did not consider himself a belligerent, he secured for himself the freedom of choice in the time for making war, which Ferdinand hoped to deprive him of. Thus the practical effect of the clause was slight.¹ It was open to France to buy off Spain at the price of a comparatively small cession, leading England to maintain single-handed the huge task of a war of conquest or make what terms she could. In spite of this, Henry could look upon the treaty as a great victory for his diplomacy. The title of his dynasty was recognised by a treaty which provided for a marriage between a Tudor prince and a princess of the Spanish royal house, and England’s weak and isolated position was improved by the prestige of such an alliance even on rather unequal terms. No proof, however, has been found that the English envoys, Thomas Savage and Richard Nanfan, had authority to accept these terms, and the treaty as yet bound no one. It had not been ratified by Henry, who delayed in the hope that something might turn up to improve his position and modify the bargain. He demanded that the princess should be sent over to England, and that half her marriage portion should be paid within four years, obviously raising difficulties to gain time.¹ Thereupon the signatures of Ferdinand and Isabella were cut off from the copy of the treaty.

Henry seems to have considered that he could give considerable help to Brittany, in accordance with his treaty with the duchess, without violating the truce with France. In April 1489, 6000 English­men under Lord Willoughby de' Broke and Sir John Chesney landed in Brittany, occupied Guingamp and Moncoutour, which were evacuated by the French, and besieged Concarneau. The troops were well-disci­plined and were joined by many of the Breton nobles, the duchess in Rennes being guided by the advice of Sir Richard Edgecombe.¹ So far Henry’s measures were prospering, but a quarrel between the young duchess and her guardian, the Marshal de Rieux, introduced fresh complications into the situation. De Rieux wished her to marry the powerful Gascon noble, D’Albret, and in May sent an embassy to Henry suggesting that if he helped to bring about the marriage D’Albret would assist the English in a war to recover Guienne. The lady, however, refused to accept her suitor, who was old enough to be her father. Henry did not interfere in the way De Rieux hoped, but he alienated the duchess and her party by continuing to negotiate through De Rieux instead of with Anne directly.

In Burgundy, however, he was giving her valuable help by co-operating with her ally Maximilian in accordance with the treaty of the 14th February. The rebellious Flemings, assisted by France, were still holding the combined forces of Maximilian and the Empire in check. The French, under the com­mand of Lord D’Esquerdes, were engaged in the siege of Dixmude, and their operations appeared to threaten Calais.² Lord Morley was sent with 1000 men, ostensibly to protect the fortress. He soon took the offensive, and on the night of 10th June secretly entered Flanders, with a force of about 2000 men from the garrisons of Calais, Hammes and Guisnes under the command of Lord Daubeney, in addition to some 600 Germans. They relieved Dixmude on 13th June, after a hotly contested action, in which Lord Morley fell—the news of his death leading to a great massacre of French and Flemings—drove the French out of Ostend, burning part of the town, and took the guns and the rest of the spoil to Niuport. Ac­cording to Hall “ the field was profitable to the Englishmen, for they that went forth in clothe came home in sylke, and they that went out on foote came home on greate horses.” Lord Daubeney retired to Calais, leaving a small garrison with many sick and wounded at Niuport. There they were attacked by Lord D’Esquerdes and very hard pressed. The French had actually entered the town when a ship arrived from Calais with eighty archers, to whom the women of the town “ cryed with lamentable and loude voyces, ‘ Helpe, Englishmen !⁹ and themselves helped so valiantly by cutting the throats of the Frenchmen whom the Englishmen struck down, that the French were driven out.’ ’¹ Lord d⁹Esquerdes, foiled this time in his attempt on Calais, “ which he so sore longed for that he would commonly saye that he would gladly lye vii yeres in hell, so that Caleys were in the pos­session of the Frenchmen,” withdrew. Operations continued in Brittany during the months that followed with no very obvious advantage on either side. In July, however, France gained a great diplomatic triumph by separating Maximilian from the allies. Of all the self-seeking princes of the time he seems to have been the most selfish and faithless, and treaty obligations never bound him long against his own interests. His necessities at this time, however, were very pressing, and the situation in Flanders was in­tolerable, as long as the rebels could look to France for help. Charles offered to use his influence to settle the Flemish difficulty; the Duchess Anne was to have all her fortresses restored, on condition that she turned the English out of the country, and promised not to allow them to get a footing there again. On this basis the treaty of Frankfort was drawn up on 22nd July 1489, but the duchess hesitated to ratify it.

Meanwhile the English troops which had reached Brittany in April had been carrying on the war, capturing the town of Concarneau in September. The Spaniards were making a simultaneous attack on Fontarabia, and the coalition seemed to have some chance of success, but the inopportune desertion of Maximilian and the dissensions in Brittany neutralised Henry’s efforts. The young duchess, believing a rumour that De Rieux had been won over by Henry and had agreed to abduct her and force her into a marriage with the hateful D’Albret, mistrusted Henry’s attempts to reconcile her with her guardian. In November she accepted the treaty of Frankfort. Henry was in a difficult position. One of his allies had deserted him, his other ally, Spain, had done practically nothing, and was even then receiving French embassies to discuss a settlement involving the cession of the two provinces. De Rieux and D’Albret, however, played Henry’s game by refusing to acknow­ledge the treaty. They continued hostilities, and Charles found that the treaty was worthless unless he could persuade Henry of England to become a party to it. Henry therefore held the key of the position. The English were in possession of many important fortresses in Brittany, and without his acquiescence the treaty of Frankfort could not be carried out. Further, though for the last year French and English had been fighting in Brittany and Flanders, the Anglo-French truce did not expire until January 1490, and the feeling of the time apparently decided that though “ their subjects’ swords have clashed, it is nothing into the public peace of the crowns.” The strength of the English position was apparent when, at the end of 1489, Charles sent embassies to England to try and detach Henry from Spain and conclude a treaty with him. One embassy had been received and dismissed in the autumn, but the operations of the English army in Brittany drove Charles to make another attempt,¹ and a second embassy came to England about Christ­mas and after prolonged negotiations was equally ineffective. According to Bacon—but of this no con­firmation has been found—Henry refused to treat unless his title to the crown of France was recognised, and the French ambassadors hotly retorted that their king’s sword would maintain his sceptre. There was evidently some strong feeling aroused by the course of the fruitless negotiations, and one of the Frenchmen revenged himself in a bitter Latin epigram. It may be that Henry touched upon the old claim that made the title of King of France part of his style.

Meanwhile the prorogued Parliament reassembled on 14th October 1489. It was allowed to consider the French proposals, in order that its opposition might strengthen the king’s hand in negotiation and, possibly in the hope of a settlement, was again prorogued until 24th January 1489-90. Some re­newal of the truce must have taken place, though no record of it has been found, for the French am­bassadors were still in England after the date when it was due to expire, and were accompanied on their return to France by an English embassy. At Calais they were met by a Papal envoy, Lionel, Bishop of Concordia, who had been despatched by the Pope to try and effect a settlement between France and England in view of the danger to Christendom threatened by the advance of the Turks.¹ He had had some success in his negotiations at Paris and was on his way to England. Henry, however, would not commit himself beyond a general statement that “ he would be glad and joyous to live in peace and mutual amity with all Christendom.” ² As the Pope’s agent reported, “ The Bishop of Concordia laboured greatly for peace with the English and achieved nothing.” ³ Henry continued his warlike preparations. Ferdinand made an attack on Rousillon, which diverted some of the French troops, and tried to win over the Duchess Anne by a proposal—later disowned—that she should marry the infante Don Juan.

Between January and May the improvement in Henry’s diplomatic position becomes clear. The operations of his troops had been successful, and France, Spain, and the duchess were all bidding for his friendship. The Spaniards showed signs of great alarm at the mission of the Legate; hostility to Spain, not zeal for peace, seemed to them the motive.¹ In February the attitude of the duchess had changed. She sent an embassy to assure Henry of her sub­mission and ask for his continued help, and promised not to marry without his consent.

On the 27th of January 1489-90 the prorogued Parliament met, and while remitting the uncollected arrears of the former subsidy voted a new war grant of a tenth and a fifteenth (about £32,000).² On 27th February Parliament was dissolved.

The hope of a general settlement had not yet been abandoned and a congress was held in the summer. Envoys of England, France, Brittany, the Emperor and Maximilian met at Boulogne and Calais. The Bishop of Concordia made another attempt to reconcile the powers and restore peace to Christendom. As a pre­liminary a seven months’ truce between France and Brittany was agreed upon. The internal dissensions in the duchy had been settled by a reconciliation between Anne and De Rieux, and the prospect of a settlement seemed favourable. The difficulty which wrecked the congress, however, was the fact that French and English troops were in occupation of some of the chief towns of Brittany, and, owing to mutual distrust, the envoys demanded hard terms as the price of their surrender. Thus Henry’s envoys asked that the duchess should repay the expenses incurred by the English in her defence before they gave up the towns. The French seem to have refused to surrender theirs until the king’s claim to the duchy had been considered, and finally in August negotia­tions were abandoned. The internal condition of Brittany was desperate. French, English, and Spanish troops, though acting independently and rarely in concert,² were overrunning the duchy. In June, Henry sent fresh troops under Lord Daubeney and fitted out a fleet under Lord Willoughby de Broke. Meanwhile the coasts were prepared to repel invasion, beacons were set in order, and men were pressed for the garrison of Calais.³ The English garrison of Morlaix, which had been added to the towns held by Henry as security, had to crush a revolt of the miserable peasants, who refused to pay a hearth- tax imposed by the duchess. But, in spite of the smouldering disaffection among the peasants, a better understanding between Maximilian and Henry made the maintenance of the independence of the duchy much more hopeful. Maximilian had by French help succeeded in beating down the resistance of the Flemings to his rule. Having gained all he wanted by the French alliance, he suddenly declared that the treaty of Frankfort had been violated by con­tinued occupation of the Breton strongholds by French troops, and repudiated the treaty. For once Maximilian’s treachery was an advantage to Henry; on 11th September 1490 a treaty between Maximilian and Henry was signed, the object of which was the pro­tection of Brittany against France. On Christmas Day Maximilian was invested at Neustadt with the Order of the Garter as a special pledge of Henry’s friendship.

About the same time there is evidence that Henry was extending the sphere of his diplomatic activity. A Portuguese embassy was in England discussing a marriage between the cousin of the King of Portugal and the elder sister of Henry’s queen. Nothing seems to have come of it.¹ In July of the same year a treaty with the Duke of Milan was signed, though the project for his marriage with the queen’s sister Cecily, perhaps never seriously considered, seems to have fallen through. Less than a week after the important treaty with Maximilian, Henry at last confirmed the treaty of Medina de Campo. His long delay had been useless. There had been no change in the general situation, as he had hoped there might be, which would enable him to make better terms. He was forced to ratify the treaty in order to keep the coalition alive. He still hoped, however, that the treaty might be modified, and additional clauses were sent to Spain, which, as they were an improvement from Henry’s point of view, were not accepted.² The secret negotiations for a marriage between the Duchess Anne and the Spanish prince had fallen through, and, outwardly at least, in the autumn of 1490 Spain, Maximilian, and England were allied against France in defence of Brittany. At the end of the year Maximilian felt himself strong enough to defy France by a proxy marriage with Anne, attended with a curious cere­monial described by Hall as “ a new invencion and tricke.” ¹ Anne was then publicly proclaimed Queen of the Romans and the coalition seemed to be secure. The marriage, however, hampered the duchess instead of helping her. It alienated D’Albret, who, in spite of his rejection by the duchess, had not lost hope of becoming her husband, and drove him into alliance with the French. He surrendered Nantes to France in April 1491. Further, Charles, exasperated by Anne’s defiance, again invaded the duchy. The coalition proved a broken reed. Maximilian gave no help, and indeed was in no position to do anything. The year before, as if he had not already enough on his hands, he had become a candidate for the throne of Hungary, and was now absorbed in a war against his successful competitor the King of Bohemia.

Spain was gathering together all her forces for a great attack on Granada, and actually in the winter of 1490-1 withdrew all her troops from Brittany with the exception of a small garrison in Redon. This was a contravention of the treaty of Medina, and practically left Henry alone of the coalition to defend the duchy. In April he sent more troops into Brit­tany.² In May he received an urgent appeal from Anne for further help, as the Spaniards were secretly dealing with France and again offering a Spanish marriage to the young king. The French were in possession of Nantes, Charles VIII. had come of age and was reconciled to the Orleanist party, and the French attack threatened to be unusually vigorous.

In the face of this danger Henry made great exertions.¹ All through the spring he seems to have feared a French invasion; men had been raised and a fleet fitted out. Money was necessary, and the king, un­willing to “ aggravate the common people . . . whome his mynde was ever to kepe in favoure,” summoned a >

Great Council, and obtained its assent to the raising of benevolences, after the manner of Edward IV. Thus the “ benevolent mynde of the riche sorte ” was searched out by the appointment of commis­sioners, it being published abroad that “ by their open gifts he [the king] would measure and searche their benevolent hartes and loving myndes towarde hym, so that he that gave mooste shoulde be judged to be mooste lovinge frende, and he that gave litel to be estemed accordynge to his gifte.” Troops were sent into Brittany, but the situation had become desperate; it was obvious that half measures would not save the duchy. In October Henry called Parliament together and made a spirited appeal to them, announcing his intention of taking the field in person, to make war upon France, not as before in defence of Brittany but to recover the ancient rights of England. “ The French king troubles the Chris­tian world, that which he hath is not his own, yet he seeketh more. Let us by the favour of Almighty God, try our right for the crown of France itself, remembering that there hath been a French king prisoner in England and a King of England crowned in France.” These are the words put by Bacon into the king’s mouth.¹ This appeal to national ambition and the war spirit met with a good response. Two fifteenths and two tenths were granted for the war, in which it was the king’s purpose “ to hazard his most noble person.” Meanwhile he attempted to bind Ferdinand in some more effective way. Spanish co-operation had hitherto been of little value, and in November, finding his first effort had not succeeded, Henry attempted a second modification of the terms of the treaty of Medina de Campo by drawing up supplementary treaties. The first bound Spain and England to declare war upon France before 15th April 1492, and to begin hostilities before 15th of June at the latest; the second stipulated that the Princess Katherine should be sent to England to marry Prince Arthur as soon as he was fourteen, and that her dowry of 200,000 crowns should then be paid.

Less than a fortnight later the cause which Henry had striven for by diplomacy, by treaties, and by force of arms—the independence of Brittany—had gone for ever. The young duchess, weary of looking to her allies for the help that never came, saw her duchy being devastated alike by the arms of friend and foe. In the summer the French troops advanced, took Redon from the Spaniards, Concarneau from the English, and besieged Anne in Rennes. Her position was desperate. She had pawned all her jewels, she was living in the midst of a disorderly and mutinous garrison of English, German, and Spanish troops. Henry had provided the means of flight and advised her to escape to the English ships and make her way to join Maximilian, but with characteristic courage and determination she refused to abandon her capital. She also rejected Charles’s offer to find her a suitable husband. Charles then bought over the mutinous garrison, entered Rennes in triumph, and asked for Anne’s hand. In her extremity, finding that the vaunted league of three kings was worthless as a defence, she came to terms. She repudiated her betrothal and proxy marriage to Maximilian; Charles on his side renounced Maxi­milian’s daughter, whom he had formally married years before, when she was only three years old. Papal dispensations were obtained, and on the 6th of December Charles VIII. married Anne of Brittany and her duchy became part of the kingdom of France.

The coalition had failed. To two of the allies, involved in wars of more vital consequence, the defence of Brittany was a secondary consideration. Brittany, however, had been Henry’s objective, and with the loss of its independence all his trouble had been thrown away. It appeared at once that Spain and Maximilian were not prepared to undertake a war of revenge upon France. In the heat of his first disappointment Maximilian talked loudly of an attack upon Brittany, and promised to send 10,000 men to serve with the English for two years, but in the spring of 1492 the war in Hungary absorbed all his resources. Spain had just won a great triumph which made her comparatively indifferent to the check received in Brittany. In January 1491-2 the long efforts of the Spaniards were crowned by the fall of Granada, an event which was received in London with great rejoicings.

Henry alone of the allies seems to have been serious in his intention of making war on France, and he was probably swayed to some extent by the war spirit aroused in England by the French success.¹ It is clear that he felt very bitter against France at this time. A letter written to the Pope on 8th December 1491² breathes hostility against France. Henry writes of her insatiable coveting of the dominions of others, her fostering of rebellion in Ireland, her violent thirst for annexation, and her insolent law­lessness. The king spoke of war as a hateful necessity forced upon him to whom the slaughter of men and the shedding of Christian blood was abhorrent.³ A few weeks later he wrote to Milan of the French, “ who are so on the watch to increase their power by any villany . . . that they may annihilate all neighbour­ing sovereigns to their own advantage,” and an­nounced his intention to make war and “ to carry our banners against them in person.”

Henry’s actions reflected the strength of his hostile feelings. He made great preparations, assembled a large force at Portsmouth,⁵ three breweries being built near the town, and appointed John, Earl of Oxford, and the Duke of Bedford as leaders. He spared no efforts to rouse his nominal allies, of whom “ one had power and not will, and the other had will and not power.” ¹ An embassy was sent to Maximilian, which found him as usual utterly un­prepared, urging him to co-operate. He summoned the Duke of Milan to take part in the war and made an appeal to the Pope. He further tried to make capital out of the disaffection in Brittany, where many of the nobles were discontented at the union with France, by entering into negotiations for the surrender of Brest, but the plot was found out and came to nothing. Parliament made regulations for the conduct of the war and the payment of troops, and additional ships were provided. A force sailed from Portsmouth in June, but beyond ravaging the coasts of Brittany and Normandy and carrying off booty little was done. In the autumn an English fleet of twelve ships under Sir Edward Poynings was sent to co-operate with Maximilian’s troops in the siege of Sluys, which had been holding out ever since the Flemish rebellion had been put down. It had been the headquarters of pirates who did great damage to the merchandise of nations trading with Antwerp, and the English cloth trade had suffered considerably. On 13th October the town surrendered, the two forts being handed over to Sir Edward Poynings. The fate of Sluys was of considerable commercial and political importance, as it heralded the end of the Flemish civil war. It proved to Europe that England, under the leadership of her able king, was emerging from the period of failure and weakness.

Though the fleet was thus profitably employed, Henry’s army was delaying in England until late in the year. The spring and summer went by with­out the invasion of France taking place. In May there was a great tournament at the palace of Sheen, “ to warm the blood of the nobility and gallants against the war.” In August a French attack seems to have been feared, and the southern counties were armed to repel an expected invasion.¹ The explanation of the delay was that Henry was still trying to induce his allies to give him some real assistance in an invasion that would be undertaken in their joint interests. He had lost the towns he had held as securities for the repayment of his ex­penses,² and was disinclined to incur further costs without some assurance of support from his allies. Nothing came of his attempts. Even the Spaniards, though set free by the fall of Granada, sent no help. Henry at last saw that it was a choice between making war upon France single-handed or acquies­cence in the loss of all that he had been fighting for, and he reluctantly decided on war. The long-con­tinued threats of war were at last turned into earnest. Henry resolved upon an invasion of France, for since he had accumulated men and money for the purpose, to abandon the project would be unpopular at home and would involve a loss of prestige abroad. The young Prince of Wales was appointed regent, and given power over Church and State in his father’s absence.³ On 2nd October the king sailed from Dover for France in The Swan, landing at Calais at 11 o’clock. His army of about 25,000 foot and 1600 horse had been transported by a fleet of Venetian merchant ships on the same day.¹ At Calais the army heard, what the king already knew, that no help could be expected from Maximilian, who excused himself on the plea of poverty, “ for,” says Hall, “ he could neither have money nor men of the drunken Fle- minges, nor yet of the crakyng Brabanders, so ungrat people were they to their lorde.”

On the 18th October, however, Henry advanced to besiege Boulogne. The town was strongly fortified, and the reduction of it at that late season of the year would have been a big undertaking. Maximilian “ laye style lyke a dormouse, nothynge doynge,” and Henry therefore was inclined to wel­come proposals for peace laid before him by Lord d’Esquerdes on behalf of Charles VIII.² The King of France was just then inflamed with the ambitious plan of invading Italy in support of his claim to the kingdom of Naples. An English invasion and the presence of an English army, which might lead to a revolt of the discontented nobles of Brittany, would be fatal to this scheme. Charles VIII. therefore, following his father’s lead, offered a substantial sum in return for the withdrawal of the English army. Henry was similarly inclined for peace. He must have seen clearly enough that he had been the cat’s- paw of his wily allies, that he was fighting Ferdinand’s battles, Maximilian’s battles, not England’s battles by any means, and not even Brittany’s battles, since the independence of the duchy was lost beyond recovery. The spirited appeal by which he had obtained a Parliamentary grant and aroused some­thing like a war fever in England, was, as the king well knew, a century out of date. The conquests that England had failed to keep were not readily to be won back. France was consolidated and growing stronger every year, and England had been weakened by fifty years of civil war. A war of ambition was a formidable undertaking for the first Tudor king, and the sinister rumour of a new Yorkist plot had just reached him. Henry’s sound, dull common-sense kept his mind free from quixotic schemes. It was the path of safety, not the road to glory, that allured him. His imagination was never fired with the ambition of carving out the career of an Alexander or a Henry V. It is clear, however, that he had an adequate if not an aggressive feeling for the maintenance of the national honour, and the terms suggested for the treaty gave him a chance of withdrawing without dishonour from a war into which he had reluctantly entered.¹ Moreover, he could congratulate himself on being the only one of the great powers that had not deserted his allies and been false to his engagements, a signal distinction at a time when diplomatic double­dealing was more than usually fashionable. Charles’s overtures gave him a chance of repaying his treacherous allies in their own coin, and he decided to make peace.

The king attempted to throw the glamour of popularity over his sound but inglorious decision to abandon the war. His captains drew up a petition speaking in feeling terms of the “ great and outrageous cold of the winter season,” of the difficulty of pro­visioning the camp when cut off from England by “ the great rage and tempest of winds and weather ” ; the allies, they said, were treacherous, the town was strong, Sir John Savage had already fallen, and so on. The treaty of Etaples therefore was signed on 3rd November 1492. By it Charles VIII. agreed to pay 725,000 gold crowns in yearly instalments of 50,000 francs.¹ Each party promised not to help the other’s enemies ; Henry undertook not to assist Maximilian and Charles promised not to harbour Henry’s rebels.

On 4th November the camp before Boulogne heard the peace proclaimed. The news of peace, we are told, was “ bitter, soure and dolourous ” to the English, “ they were in great fumes, angry and evil content, that the occasion of so glorious a victory to them manifestly was . . . refused, putte by and shamefully slacked.” The king was thought to have betrayed his people, to have imposed heavy taxation for the sake of a sham war. But Henry’s policy, though it failed to win popular approval, was obviously the right one. Peace with honour, or at all events without dishonour, was desirable for England, as well as an absolute necessity to the founder of the Tudor dynasty, which was shortly to be faced, as the king perhaps already knew, by another dangerous con­spiracy. The king, much wiser than his people, saw that he could never hope to reconquer Normandy and Guienne, and he had already found that the expenses of foreign war led inevitably to tumults in England.

With the withdrawal of his army from Boulogne Henry’s first and last appearance as leader of an English army, bent upon foreign conquest, was at an end. He never again took up arms outside Britain, and his policy became studiously insular.

A month later (January 1492-3), Charles and Ferdi­nand also came to terms. The two border counties of Rousillon and Cerdagne were restored to Spain, which had thus gained its point without any very great exertion. At the same time, as if to show the value of the treaty of alliance with Spain, upon which Henry set so much store, Ferdinand promised to help Charles against all his enemies, and in particular against his “ old enemies ” the English, as well as against Maximilian, and the chances of the Anglo- Spanish match apparently vanished in a clause by which the kings of France and of Spain bound them­selves not to entertain any proposal of a marriage alliance with Henry or Maximilian. Of all the powers engaged Ferdinand had come out of the affair the most successfully. He had scored all along the line. While the bulk of his forces had been engaged in a successful struggle with the Moors, a few men and the exercise of his unmatched skill as a diplomatist had won for him the coveted provinces and an alliance with the King of France. Even the ally he had overreached and made use of had not been lost, and Henry still counted Ferdinand his friend and ally.

Maximilian, as might have been expected, felt Henry’s desertion keenly.¹ All his splendid schemes had come to nothing, both his allies had deserted him, his daughter had lost her royal husband, and he had lost the heiress of Brittany. Though France had been the instrument of his humiliation he soon came to terms with Charles, but appears to have pursued Henry henceforth with bitter hatred. Frank­fort might be set off against Etaples, but Maximilian was slow to forgive his ready pupil in the art of repudiating binding obligations.

The net results of Henry’s first achievements as a diplomatist had been moderate rather than brilliant. He had made good his footing among the great powers of Europe, but the treacherous friendship of Ferdinand was more than counterbalanced by the embittered hostility of Maximilian. He had gained a large sum of money, but the old enemy France had advanced her borders and faced England across the Channel. He had great hopes of the Spanish alliance, but so far he had served Spain and obtained no reward.

As far as the relations of England and France are concerned, the treaty of Etaples, which remained in force all through the reign, marks the point at which medievalism gave way to modernism. With it ended the last attempt of an English king to push his claims to the throne of France. Henceforth the medieval ambition drops into the background, and anti-French feeling ceases to be the pivot of English policy. Wars of conquest are replaced by years of peace and friendly commercial rivalry.

 

PERKIN WARBECK: 1491-1497

 

 

 

Bad news had hastened the king’s departure from France. He had been warned that another con­spiracy was on foot. Like the attempt of Lambert Simnel it was the work of disaffected Yorkists, and like that, too, it was an attempt to overthrow Henry by producing a pretender who claimed the throne as heir of the Yorkist line. The second conspiracy, however, was much more formidable than the first. It was the most dangerous plot that Henry ever had to face; it handicapped him at critical moments, and its shadow lies over many years of his reign.

The Perkin Warbeck plot first saw the light in Ireland in 1491. There the Yorkist malcontents had been emboldened by impunity. Bad harvests had brought famine; blood feuds and anarchy flourished. Henry had not dared to punish Kildare, the all­powerful Lord Deputy, for his share in Lambert SimnePs rising, and the oath of allegiance he had reluctantly taken did not prevent him from disobey­ing the king’s summons to England and meditating further treachery. The hopes of the Yorkist party gathered round the young Earl of Warwick, and his name was the focus of conspiracy at home and abroad. In December 1489, the Abbot of Abingdon had been concerned in a plot to set him free, and executed for his share in it. Rumours of his escape were constantly started. A letter written in September 1491 by John Taylor, a Yorkist exile,¹ to one John Hayes, who, though formerly a servant to the late Duke of Clarence, had been given an official position by Henry,² contains the earliest mention of the plot. According to this letter, the King of France had been brought into the conspiracy, and had decided to support the claims of the Earl of Warwick “ in thre parties out of the Royalme.” This letter makes it obvious that a plot for advancing the claims of the imprisoned earl was already on foot. It only remained for the Yorkist conspirators, assured of French support, to find a suitable person to pose as the imprisoned earl. The plot thus gaining ground in England and France had reached maturity in Ireland. The Anglo-Irish lords were pondering the details of the conspiracy when, with dramatic opportune­ness, their attention was directed to a handsome, graceful lad of about seventeen,⁴ who, gorgeously dressed in silk apparel, made a brave figure in the streets of Cork. In him they found the figure-head of whom they were in search, and they approached him with the suggestion that he should declare himself to be the Earl of Warwick. This boy was Perkin Warbeck. According to his public confession, the details of which are corroborated by contemporary records and letters, he was the son of John Warbeck or Osbeck,² a boatman and collector of customs in Tournay, and he was born in 1474 or 1475. His childhood had been eventful. He had lived with his successive masters in Antwerp and Middleburg, and in about 1489 he had travelled to Portugal in the service of the wife of Sir Edward Brampton, a well- known Yorkist. He afterwards entered the service of Pregent Meno, a merchant of Brittany, who brought him to Ireland in the autumn of 1491. Here, as we have seen, he was approached by the Yorkist con­spirators. Warbeck, however, refused to personate the Earl of Warwick, swearing before the mayor “ that he was not the son of Clarence or one of his race,” and denied upon oath a subsequent suggestion that he was a bastard son of Richard III. This would have been a curious claim to the throne in any case, and Richard’s son was known to be in Henry’s hands. The conspirators, however, seem to have determined to cast the youth for the chief role in their production, and offered him another part, that of Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the princes murdered in the Tower. By promising him powerful supporters, they ultimately prevailed upon him. “ And so,” says Perkin in his confession, “ agaynst my will made me to lerne Inglisshe and taught me what I shuld doo and say.” ³

So far the conspiracy had not been joined by men of the first importance. Its leaders were Hubert Burgh and John Walter, citizens of Cork, and John Taylor, who had returned from his French exile, but the conspirators counted upon the support of the Earl of Kildare. In a letter written in 1493,¹ Kildare stoutly denied that he had helped “ the French lad,” but this denial came at a time when Henry had proved himself strong enough to punish treachery, and cannot be accepted in face of the evidence of his complicity.

Warbeck certainly remained in Ireland in the winter of 1491-2, learning English and being coached up in the part he was to play. He obtained the active support of the Earl of Desmond, who wrote letters in his own name and in that of “ King Eduartis son ” to James IV. of Scotland,² who was then meditating hostilities and hoped to help himself by hindering Henry. A little later another of Henry’s royal neighbours joined the conspiracy. Charles VIII. sent envoys inviting Warbeck to France. He ac­cepted the invitation, “thinking to be exalted into heaven when he was called to the acquaintaunce and familiarite of kynges and princes,” ³ and was present at the court of Charles VIII. when Henry invaded France. He was treated as a royal prince and was joined by various Yorkist rebels. His stay in France was brief; the intrigues of Taylor and Hayes came to light, and while the peace negotiations were going on Henry learnt of the new conspiracy. One of the clauses of the treaty of Etaples bound Charles VIII. not to harbour or support rebels or traitors against Henry VII. Perkin, obliged to leave France, made his way to the safe haven for all Yorkist traitors, the court of Margaret of Burgundy. She received him gladly, and openly acknowledged him as her nephew, “ the whyte Rose, prynce of England.” In this policy she was supported by the counsel of the young Arch­duke Philip and by Maximilian, who was burning to be revenged upon Henry for the treaty of Etaples. Thus, within a few months of his first appearance, Perkin Warbeck had been acknowledged by crowned heads as well as by Yorkist leaders as i prince of the House of York. It is a curious point as to how far Warbeck’s powerful supporters believed in the genuineness of their claimant. Their readiness to profess belief in his identity with the Yorkist prince sprang from their interest in maintaining the im­posture. To set up a pretender who might shake the king’s throne was their object, and the impostor could easily be replaced by the true prince if the conspiracy succeeded. Some of Warbeck’s adherents may have been genuinely convinced. The fate of the two young sons of Edward IV. was still a mystery, and no conclusive proof of their death had been made public.¹ Stories of their escape from the Tower were con­stantly being circulated, and Perkin’s age and appear­ance corresponded closely enough to deceive people remote from the court. Thus the Yorkist conspirators could count upon a certain number of genuinely convinced supporters, and those who pulled the strings of the puppet behind the scenes naturally made loud professions of their belief in his claims. One by one all the crowned heads in Europe (with the possible exception of Ferdinand and Isabella)¹ acknowledged the youth as the Duke of York, and, what is more, they treated him with the honour due to his high rank. Some, like Maximilian, who, long years after Perkin’s confession had been made public, spoke of him as the Duke of York, may have been genuinely convinced,others, like the Duchess Margaret, were convinced as a matter of policy.² Anyway it was galling enough to Henry.

From the duchess, “that fierce Juno ” who pursued Henry with a “ woman’s undying hatred,” Perkin probably received the training in the part of a Yorkist prince,³ the story of which has been told often and with many exaggerations. In February 1492-3 Perkin was writing letters to Yorkists in England under the title of “ The Merchant of the Ruby,” and in these negotiations it is probable that some of the Hanse merchants acted as the pretender’s agents.⁴

Henry was alive to the danger. He sent an em­bassy in July 1493 to remonstrate with Maximilian and Philip on the conduct of the dowager-duchess,⁵ and on the 20th of the month he wrote to Sir Gilbert Talbot, ordering him to summon men to resist any attempt made by Margaret on behalf of Perkin.⁶ From this important letter it appears that Henry was already in possession of the main facts as to Perkin’s birth, early career, and stay in Ireland. The king mentions “ the great malice that the Lady Margaret of Burgaigne beareth continually against us ... by the untrue contriving eftsoons of another feigned lad called Perkin Warbeck, born at Tournay in Picardy,” and alludes to the duchess’s method of getting together supporters for the pretender by promising “ to certain alien captains of estrange nations, to have duchies, counties, and baronies within the realm of England.” ¹ The king’s ambassadors, how­ever, could not obtain any satisfactory reply to these remonstrances. They were assured of the friendship of Philip and Maximilian, but were told that the duchess was an independent sovereign within her dowry lands and that her conduct there could not be interfered with.² Henry retaliated by an original move which illustrates his despotic bent. The interests of the English wool merchants were sacrificed to the necessities of the Tudor dynasty. On 18th September proclamations were issued for­bidding all commercial intercourse with Flanders. All Flemings were ordered to leave the country and their goods were seized ; the Merchant Adventurers were recalled from Antwerp and their mart was transferred to Calais.³ A similar prohibition of trade with England was issued in Flanders, but not until some months later (May 1494). The political con­sequences unfortunately did not justify Henry’s action. Merchants on both sides suffered loss by the dislocation of trade without the pressure upon Philip and Maximilian being sufficient to make them dismiss Warbeck from the Netherlands ; and in London the privileges of the Hanse merchants, who as foreigners were still engaged in the trade with Burgundy for­bidden to Englishmen, led to a dangerous riot and attack on the Steelyard (15th October 1493).¹ There appeared to be no immediate danger to Henry from Perkin Warbeck’s pretensions. Both Margaret and Maximilian lacked the means required to provide an invading fleet for their protege, and he remained under Margaret’s protection, corresponding with various English traitors until the late autumn of 1493.

The relations between England and Spain at the moment were friendly but not cordial. In the treaties of Etaples and Barcelona both Henry and Ferdinand had ignored their mutual obligations under the treaty of Medina de Campo. The much discussed marriage alliance seemed to have been abandoned. Henry, however, had not given up hope. In March 1493, months after the treaty between France and Spain, he proposed a modification of the treaty of Medina, but the Spaniards having gained Rousillon and Cerdagne had no further use for the English alliance. Ferdinand was too cautious to make an unnecessary enemy, but the Barcelona treaty bound him not to make a marriage alliance with England. For the moment the friendship of France was worth more than that of England. No answer was made to Henry’s overtures until nearly two years had gone by, when, as will be seen, the aggressive attitude of France made Henry’s alliance again valuable to Spain. Henry, however, had nothing to complain of in the Spanish attitude to Perkin Warbeck. Perkin wrote from Flanders to Queen Isabella of Castile asking for her help and mentioning the support he had received from France, Burgundy, Denmark, Scotland, the King of the Romans, and the Archduke Philip.¹ The Spanish monarchs were much too cautious to take up Perkin’s cause, and they obviously doubted the truth of his pretensions. His letter, which gave a very unconvincing account of his early life, being conspicuous for its omission of all important names and dates,² and for a mistake as to the age of the prince he claimed to be, was endorsed “ from Richard, who calls himself the King of England.”

In November 1493 Warbeck left the Netherlands and moved into Austria, in the hope of gaining more substantial help than the promises the duchess had been lavish with. He was well received by Maxi­milian, was treated as a royal prince, and took his place among the royalties who attended the funeral of the Emperor Frederick III.³ The fact that Perkin was being received in Vienna as a royal prince was an insult rather than a pressing danger, and Henry was powerless to interfere. In the summer of 1494 Perkin Warbeck accompanied his latest patron to Antwerp, and Maximilian went a step further. He acknowledged the pretender as rightful King of England, gave him a bodyguard of twenty archers bearing the badge of the white rose, and allowed him to decorate his house in Antwerp with the arms of England, inscribed with the legend, “ The arms of Richard Prince of Wales and Duke of York,” ¹ an assumption which roused some travelling English­men to fury. This insult provoked Henry into remonstrance, and the Garter King at Arms was despatched to assure Maximilian and the duchess that Henry had proofs of their protege’s low origin, and to proclaim publicly the facts of Perkin’s birth.

Meanwhile the relations between England and France were cordial. Payments of the pension due were punctually made, and Charles VIII. adopted a very correct attitude in the matter of the pretender. He kept Henry informed of his actions in Flanders, offered to help him with men and ships if the threat­ened attack was made, and forbade any help being given to the pretender in France.² In view of Charles’s preoccupation with his ambitious schemes in Italy nothing could have been more generous than his offers. Henry replied in the same cordial spirit. The Richmond herald was sent into Italy with care­fully drawn instructions (10th Aug. 1493) thanking Charles for his offer but making light of the pretensions of the “ gargon,” who, he said, was known to every one of rank and position in England to be but the son of a boatman of Tournay. He spoke guardedly of Charles’s claim to Naples and suggested media­tion. Henry also notified his brother that England was “ more peaceful and obedient than it had been within the memory of man,” and announced his intention of bringing the “ wild Irish into peace and order.” ¹

In England Henry was taking what steps he could to neutralise Warbeck’s powerfully patronised preten­sions. In November, Prince Henry, the king’s second son, who was born on 22nd June 1491, was created Duke of York, the pretender’s title. The occasion was celebrated by banquets and tournaments, the prize, a ruby ring, being presented by the Princess Margaret. The young prince, then aged four, rode upon a courser to Westminster. After these brilliant scenes, which gave “greate gladnesse to all the common people,” ² the king struck sudden blows at the Yorkist conspirators in England. There is evidence that he had for a long time been aware of the treasonable negotiations between his subjects and the pretender.³ His spies had been busy in Flanders. Towards the end of the year he obtained the detailed information he wanted by buying over Sir Robert Clifford, one of Perkin’s most enthusiastic supporters, who had declared that he knew the young man by his face to be the son of King Edward. His enthusiasm, however, was not proof against the offer of a pardon and the promise of reward—he obtained a grant of £500 in the following January⁴—and at the end of the year he came back to England to betray his former associates.⁵ Already in November William Worsely, Dean of St. Paul’s, Robert Ratcliff, John Ratcliff, Lord FitzWalter, Sir Simon Montford, Sir Thomas Thwaites, William Daubeney, the Provincial of the Dominicans, and the Prior of Langley and several others had been arrested before the mayor in the Guildhall and condemned. The churchmen escaped the death penalty; the others were either beheaded on Tower Hill or hanged at Tyburn, with the exception of Lord FitzWalter. He was imprisoned in the Tower but, attempting to escape, was executed the following year. Two others, Cressyner and Ast- wood, were pardoned at the foot of the gallows in consideration of their youth. All the rebels were sub­sequently attainted by Act of Parliament in 1495.¹

A confession dated 14th March 1495-6, made by one Bernard de Vignolles, implicates several men (Dr. Hussey, Archdeacon of London, among others) who were not punished, and it is therefore doubtful how much weight can be given to it in details ; at the same time it throws a flood of light upon the nature of the intrigues by which Henry was sur­rounded. There is an extraordinary story of how the conspirators, wishing to kill “ the king and his children, his mother, and those near his person,” visited an astrologer in Rome, and how, the first man failing, they obtained from a second a box of oint­ment to spread along and across some door or passage through which the king would walk, which would bring about his murder by those who loved him best.²

The conspiracy was to claim a much more exalted victim. The information given by Clifford implicated Sir William Stanley, whose help at the critical moment had given Henry victory at Bosworth Field. He enjoyed a full measure of Henry’s confidence, held high office at court, and his brother was the king’s stepfather. When one of those nearest him fell into treason, the king’s hardly given confidence must have been shaken. Unfortu­nately the evidence of Stanley’s share in the conspiracy is slight, but he seems to have promised Clifford to help the pretender with men and money.¹ Facts which came to light many years later (1521) throw light upon Henry’s characteristic conduct and his “ convenient diligence for inveigling.” It appears that Henry knew of Sir William Stanley’s treason two or three years before he laid it to his charge, “ and covertly watched him, keeping it secret and always gathered upon him more and more.” ² Stanley was tried before the Court of King’s Bench sitting in Westminster Hall at the end of January, and was beheaded on 16th February 1493-4. The whole of his vast'wealth fell to the king.³

The deadly character of the plot that was checked for a time by these executions appears from certain documents executed by the pretender in December and January. Perkin Warbeck’s pretensions had reached the pitch of disposing of the towns and castles of England and of the succession to the throne. He actually acknowledged Maximilian, in return for his generous renunciation of an apocrypha] claim to the English crown, as his heir in the throne of Eng­land, if he died without male issue. He promised to the Duchess Margaret, in whose mind the loss of the English lands granted her by Edward IV. and confiscated by Henry VII. still rankled, the town and castle of Scarborough as well as the manor of Hunsdon and the arrears of dowry for which she had long been clamouring.¹ But the execution of Stanley and the others was fatal to these preposterous schemes. The back of the conspiracy was broken, and the danger of a foreign invasion combined with a Yorkist revolt passed away. Henceforth the conspirators in Eng­land “ were as sand without lime.”

The aggressive policy of Charles VIII. indirectly strengthened the position of Perkin Warbeck. In the autumn of 1494, Europe viewed with alarm the young king’s invasion of Italy in support of his claim to the throne of Naples. By the end of February Naples had fallen. His magnificent march through Italy was unopposed. All Europe was alarmed. Ferdinand of Spain, lately the ally of France, became active in bringing together her enemies. A revival of the coalition against France took place, the Pope, Spain, Maximilian, Milan and Venice binding them­selves together for mutual defence in the Holy League of 31st March 1495. In view of the French danger, the attitude of Spain changed ; the English alliance was once more important, and an effort was made to detach Henry from France. A long delayed answer to Henry’s overtures was sent early in 1495, declaring that, since the former treaties were invalid for lack of Henry’s signature, Spain had been obliged to make peace with France. Henry had already shown that Italy was not outside the range of his foreign policy, and his interest in Italian affairs was noticed by the Milanese envoy. “He is most thoroughly acquainted with the affairs of Italy and receives especial informa­tion of every event. . . . The merchants, most especi­ally the Florentines, never cease giving the King of England advices.” He had obtained the nominal but practically useless alliance of the Duke of Milan in the Brittany affair,¹ and had even thought of a marriage between him and the queen’s sister. In 1493 he had approached another of the Italian princes, sending the Order of the Garter to Alfonzo, then Duke of Calabria, who became King of Naples in 1494, on the eve of the French invasion. Henry had been on very friendly terms with Charles of France, but even he was beginning to show uneasiness about his designs in Italy. He was reluctant to see an inde­pendent and friendly kingdom swallowed up by the advancing French monarchy, but his offer to mediate, conveyed by the Richmond herald, had come to nothing. In 1495 the herald was again despatched to inquire into affairs in Italy, assure Charles that Henry had the love and obedience of his subjects as fully as any of his predecessors, and allude to the futility of the claims of the “ gargon.” To the powers, however, the alliance between France and England seemed unimpaired, so that any attack-on the latter would weaken the force opposed to the coalition. Maximilian, therefore, at last roused himself to a de­termined effort to set a pretender on the throne of England and replace a friend of the King of France by a creature of his own. As an Italian diplomatist put it, “ If the Duke of York obtained the crown, the King of the Romans and the League might avail themselves of England against the King of France as if the island were their own.” ¹ Henry’s policy had made “ the island ” count in European politics, and the powers were anxious to replace him by a man of straw, or at all events to stir up trouble for him at home, that would prevent him from interfering abroad. Thus behind the pretender was the whole weight of the Holy League.

In May the preparations were completed. An embassy from Scotland had promised Perkin the support of James IV., the duchess appealed to the Pope on behalf of her nephew and took the oppor­tunity of vilifying Henry’s ancestry and describing him as an usurper of the throne by force of arms. The adventurer sailed from Flanders at the end of June with troops provided by the needy but hopeful Maximilian at great inconvenience.² On 3rd of July Warbeck and his fleet of fourteen ships appeared off Deal. Five or six hundred of his men landed; Perkin, suspecting a snare, remained afloat. Finding they “ cowde haue no comfort of the cuntre ” they withdrew towards their ships, but were attacked by the country people under the Mayor of Sandwich, and beaten off before the king’s troops arrived. Two of his followers were slain, others drowned, and 169 were captured. His great army of “ valiant captains of all nations, some bankrupts, some false English sanctuary men, some thieves, robbers, and vagabonds,” had not inspired confidence among the Kentish peasants. Warbeck did not act on the sug­gestion of the villagers “ that he should return to his father and mother, who lived in France and were well known there,” but sailed away to Ireland, deserting his beaten followers. The Sheriff of Kent led 159 of them to London, “ railed in ropes, like horses drawing in a cart.” Some were imprisoned in the Tower and others in Newgate. The king was in no mood to be merciful; the prisoners were arraigned and condemned. One hundred and fifty were hanged in Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Norfolk “ by the sea side,” the foreign leaders were beheaded in London and their heads set upon London Bridge.

The long threatened expedition, the climax of so many ambitious schemes, had been a miserable failure. The effect of the fiasco in Europe was to strengthen Henry’s position and to discredit the claims of the pretender. Ferdinand and Isabella, who had never believed in Warbeck, wrote in August to their am­bassador making light of his pretensions. “As for the affair of him who calls himself the Duke of York we hold it for a jest.” ² Henry’s improved position appears from Ferdinand’s anxiety for him to become a member of the league against France, as he had shown some intention of doing. For this a reconciliation with Maximilian was necessary. This un­palatable suggestion was pressed upon Henry with the old offer of the Spanish marriage, and in August their ambassador was instructed to sound him on the question of joining the Holy League. A new alliance between England and Spain was proposed, the King of Spain declaring that the treaty of Medina was invalid because the King of England had not sworn to it. This description, which audaciously made waste-paper of the treaty the Spaniards themselves had spoken of as “ concluded,” showed great lack of consideration for Henry’s feelings. Henry, however, faithful as ever to his Spanish dream, “ spoke always in most bland words,” and professed himself willing to be reconciled to Maximilian “ in spite of his in­gratitude.” ¹ The King of Spain at the same time warned Henry against French treachery, promised assistance against Perkin, and expressed his intention of persuading Maximilian and the King of Scots to have nothing to do with the pretender.² Maximilian, however, who in his sanguine way had rejoiced in vain over a report that Warbeck’s invasion of England had been successful,³ still seems to have believed in his claims. In September 1495 he wrote to the Pope appealing to him to support “ Richard, Duke of York, the born son of Edward, the lawful and late deceased king,” and his “ excellent title to the king­dom of England.”⁴ Reconciliation with Henry seemed quite out of the question, but Maximilian’s attitude was not popular with the other European powers. In England, too, the King of the Romans “ was held in no account.” ¹

Perkin’s expedition had sailed westward after the failure of the attempt in Kent, bound for Ireland, where the conspiracy had first seen the light. The years that had gone by since Warbeck had last been in Ireland had seen a great change there. As Henry had informed his brother Charles, he had reduced the wild Irish to submission. His lordship of Ireland had become a reality; Kildare had been deprived of the office of lord deputy, and was in disgrace. Sir Edward Poynings had crushed others of Perkin Warbeck’s former adherents and was in command of a disciplined English force.

The pretender reached Ireland at the end of July in command of a fleet of eleven ships, some of which were probably Scotch, and boldly attacked Waterford, the only town which had been consistently loyal to Henry VII. The siege lasted for eleven days. Poy­nings led a force to relieve the town, and on 3rd August Warbeck was obliged to raise the siege with the loss of three of his ships. For several months, from August to November, when he reappeared in Scotland, we have no record of his doings. Part of the gap may be filled by importing a story from the Lambeth MS., part of which is, no doubt wrongly, assigned to the year 1497. According to this story, Warbeck on raising the siege of Waterford made his way to Cork, where he was received by his friend, John Walters, then mayor. Ships from Waterford followed in pursuit. Finding his cause in Ireland hopeless for the time, Warbeck decided to try his luck in Scotland. Here part of another narrative, that of Zurita the Spanish historian, may be dovetailed into the story, and we can trace the adventurer sailing for Scotland, but being driven back and wrecked upon the Irish coast. He crossed the mountains in disguise to a small Irish port and, finding another ship at last, made his way to Scotland.

It is not quite clear to what extent the King of Scotland had pledged himself to Perkin. As we have seen, the adventurer applied to him almost at the beginning of his chequered career. It is probable that the story he told appealed to the romantic strain in the Stuart character, while policy suggested that a pretender to the English throne might be a useful weapon. There is no proof that James gave help to Warbeck before 1495,² when he is found negotiating with the Duchess of Burgundy and her court of disaffected Yorkists. In the spring of 1495 a Scotch invasion of England was contemplated. James cer­tainly made preparations to send ships and men to assist Perkin’s invasion of England, and votes of money are recorded for the “ passage in Ingland in fortifieing and supleing of the prince of Ingland, Richard, Duke of York.” At all events, Warbeck having failed in Ireland felt sure of a welcome in Scotland, and late in November¹ he appeared at Stirling, where he was given a royal reception.² Great preparations had been made; hangings had been brought from Edinburgh, and his royal host presented the wanderer and his attendants with a supply of garments suitable to his supposed rank. There are notes of the “ expenses made upon Prince Richard of England his servitors,” including the purchase, for £28, of fourteen ells of white damask to be the prince’s “spousing gown,” and seven ells of velvet (£21) to be a “ grete coite of the new fassoune to the Prince with sleiffis.” He received a handsome yearly allowance, and even his offertory at Church festivals was not forgotten. Later, at Perth, James presented the Duke of York to his nobles; orders were sent out to the sheriffs to assemble troops, and early in 1496 arms and artillery were being made.³ These warlike preparations, however, were followed, as often happened in Perkin’s career, by a long delay. It was probably about this time that James found a bride for the adventurer in the person of his kins­woman, Lady Katherine Gordon.⁴ This lady lives again after long years in the graceful and poetic words of the letter ascribed to Perkin, which has been unearthed among the Spanish archives. “ Your face,” he wrote, “ bright and serene, gives splendour to the cloudy sky, your eyes, brilliant as the stars, make all pain to be forgotten and turn despair into delight. All look at your neck which outshines pearls, all look at your fine forehead, your purple light of youth, your fair hair. . . . Love is not an earthly thing, it is heaven-born. . . . Farewell, my soul and my consolation, you, the brightest ornament of Scotland, farewell, farewell.” ¹ Henceforward Lady Katherine followed the adventurer, “ whom she ever fondly loved,” through good and evil fortune, to the end. The end of the year found Perkin still in Scotland appearing in public as a royal prince, but still unable to translate his shadowy royalty into reality.

Meanwhile, in England, Henry continued his pre­parations for resisting a Scotch invasion. His agents kept him informed of what went on in Scotland. The northern counties were armed, and in January and February ships were manned and sent off against Scotland.²

In view of the crisis, writs for a new Parliament, the first since 1492, had been issued. It met on 14th October 1495. The first statute passed was designed to strengthen the king’s hands at the critical moment. It enacted that no one who supported the king de facto should be liable to impeachment or attainder, but excluded from the benefit of the Act any person who should desert Henry in the future. Of course, the Act was open to the obvious objection that it would be repealed at once by any usurper who suc­ceeded in dethroning Henry. But though it could not protect the king’s faithful adherents from the consequences that would follow his defeat, it may have encouraged wavering Yorkists, who were genuinely unable to swallow the ambiguities of the Tudor title, to give their support to the man to whom Parliament declared allegiance was due. Henry realised that he was faced with the most dangerous combination that had threatened him since the beginning of his troubled reign, and he feared serious Yorkist defections in the northern counties on the arrival of the “ Duke of York ” and his Scotch army. Though war was imminent Henry abstained from asking for a money grant. He was empowered to collect the arrears of the last benevolence, received a grant of one tenth from Convocation, and was confirmed in his possession of the lands forfeited by the Yorkist conspirators who had been executed in 1495.¹

But, while preparing for war, Henry did not give up hope of peace. He sent two embassies to Scotland, in June and August 1496, to propose a marriage between the Princess Margaret and James of Scotland. There is no record of the proceedings of the ambas­sadors, but James was obviously disinclined to discuss the matter and continued his preparations, which were duly reported to Henry by his spies. Henry had long ago elaborated an underground policy in Scotland, and spies kept him well informed of the movements of his foes. Scotch nobles, including the Earl of Angus and Lord Bothwell, were among his agents. Lord Bothwell had already taken Henry’s pay for his share in an unsuccessful plot to kidnap the young king, and had been for some time in England, but he had contrived to establish himself in James’s confidence and return to Scotland. His long reports to Henry are extraordinarily treacherous. He seems to have been destitute of the elementary instincts of patriotism, and hastened to betray his country’s secrets for gold. He kept close watch upon the king, reporting to Henry that the date of the invasion was fixed for September, revealed the king’s want of money, the discontent of the people, and even details of the artillery at Edinburgh. Further, he attempted to win over the king’s brother, and his letters contain hints of a plan of abducting and carrying him off into England. He wrote that it would be best now in this “ long night within his tent to enterprise the matter ; for he has no watch but the king’s appointed to be about him.” ¹

By this time the opinion of Europe was inclining against the adventurer. If Henry was to enter the League he must be freed from the embarrassment of Perkin’s performances. Ferdinand was again very anxious to win Henry’s friendship, and his attitude was becoming markedly cordial. The Anglo-Spanish marriage, long a project in the air, became the subject of serious negotiation. In the summer of 1496 a new effort was being made by the Spanish ambassadors to induce Henry to enter the League and promise to invade France in person, and, in return, they showed themselves unusually amenable when discussing the everlasting question of the marriage portion, and genuinely anxious to heal the quarrel between England and Scotland. It was now the turn of Spain to de­claim against the delay in the conclusion of the ¹ Ellis, Letters I. (1), 23.

English alliance, a specially awkward feature of it being that English merchants were carrying on a trade between France and Spain which was debarred to the subjects of both belligerents.

Henry’s position in diplomacy at this moment was undoubtedly strong. As de Puebla pointed out to him, “ the House of England now sees what never before has been seen, that is to say that the whole Christian world unites and allies itself with it.” The strength of Henry’s position was chiefly due to the caution which had governed his relations with France, and the diplomatic instinct with which he extracted gain from a complicated situation, profiting by the fact that he seemed to hold the balance in Europe. France and Spain were vying with each other in repudiating Perkin, and trying to make peace between Scotland and England. Early in 1496 Henry was negotiating for a personal meeting with Charles, reminding him of his offer of help, though he affected to make light of the Scotch danger, and offering to mediate between him and the Holy League. A mar­riage between Prince Arthur and the daughter of the Duke of Bourbon had been proposed by Charles, but Henry’s answer was cold, and he hinted that Charles’s aggressions in Italy might cost him the English alliance. A parade of friendship with France served Henry’s purpose in driving the members of the League, especially Spain, to make still higher bids for his alliance, while his negotiations with the League alarmed Charles into proving how valuable his friend­ship could be to England. In the beginning of the year he had sent Henry a paper describing Warbeck as the son of a barber and offering to send his parents into England.¹ A French embassy under Concres- sault went to Scotland with Henry’s knowledge, armed with instructions to offer 100,000 crowns for the surrender of Warbeck,² and to propose that James should marry a French princess. Henry in the same way was trying to induce Charles VIII. to surrender James’s cousin, the Duke of Albany, who was the leader of the rebels and a refugee in France—perhaps in the hope of playing off a Scotch pretender against the English one.³

Maximilian’s attitude was the great difficulty in the way of Henry’s entrance into the League. An ambassador sent by Henry reported that Maximilian was surrounded by adherents of “ him of York,” and was communicating with Warbeck and the King of Scotland.⁴ Spanish influence was strong with Maxi­milian, and would be stronger when the proposed marriage between the Archduke Philip and the Infanta Juana came off;⁵ but when this influence was used to try and get him to come to terms with Henry he showed great reluctance. To the Spanish ambassadors who pressed him to acquiesce in Henry’s inclusion in the League, he at last give a grudging assent, “ although he could expect neither benefit nor favour from the King of England ” ; but when Lord Egremont arrived as Henry’s ambassador at Nordlingen in January 1495-6 to meet the envoys of the League, Maximilian proposed terms which were almost insulting. He insisted that Henry should at once make war upon France, and offered to negotiate a ten years’ truce and peace between him and “ the Duke of York.” Ambassadors from other members of the Holy League, Naples, Venice, and Milan, who were present, followed the Spanish lead and strongly urged Maximilian to omit the irritating clauses dealing with the Duke of York. The Spanish ambassador also pointed out, that as they knew Henry to be “ a very sage king and to be well advised,” he would not join a defensive league under an obligation to attack France immediately, which did not bind other members. Maximilian was persuaded to dismiss Egremont with a present of a gold cup and 100 florins, and with an answer which acquiesced in the inclusion of England in the League and omitted all mention of the “ Duke of York.”

This seemed satisfactory, and Henry responded by sending Christopher Urswick as his ambassador to Maximilian. He arrived at the end of April 1496, but found that the King of the Romans was again wavering. He talked much of his obligations to main­tain the cause of the “ Duke of York,” from whom he had recently, in February, received letters stating that he hoped for success owing to disturbances imminent in England. He had a suspicion that Henry did not mean to break with the King of France, but simply wished to join the League in order to prevent them supporting Warbeck. Though he personally wished to dismiss Henry’s envoy, he consulted the ambas­sadors of the other powers included in the League as to whether he ought “ to dissemble and dismiss

him with fair words,” and they advised him to admit Henry on his own terms, if he refused to join under the obligation to begin the attack on France. The Venetian ambassador was particularly pressing, as he had received private assurances from Urswick that the English king was only prevented from attacking the French, “ England’s greatest and oldest enemies,” through fear of alienating their ally the King of Scotland—“ who although the poorest king in Christendom, could put into the field for a period of three weeks an army of 30,000 men, his subjects being bound to serve him for that length of time at their own expense.” ¹ Urswick adopted a very firm attitude, indeed Maximilian hinted that he had been suborned by France and had prejudiced Henry against him. He refused to pledge his master to an offensive war against France, and hinted that he might even find it impossible to send troops to join in a defensive war, owing to being hampered by the hostility of the Kings of Scotland and Denmark and by the “ Duke of York ” and Irish rebels. “ The king,” he said, “ is compelled to be much on the watch against the youth who says he is son of King Edward and went lately to Scotland, whose king received him with many promises.” He made no secret of Henry’s distrust of Maximilian arising from their former rela­tions, and of his fear that the latter would do little or nothing against France. The pressure of his allies made Maximilian dismiss Urswick in a friendly manner— the intentions of the confederates being explained in a “ suitable and very flowery discourse,” with the promise that when Henry had joined the League they would use their influence to arrange his differ­ences with the supporters of the “ Duke of York.” ¹

To Spain the mutual antipathy between Henry and Maximilian was most unwelcome. Spain’s jealousy of France made her the life and soul of the Holy League, and her ambassadors were indefatigable in trying to free Henry from the embarrassments which prevented him from joining the League. They showed themselves ready to assent to Henry’s scheme for a marriage between his daughter Margaret and the King of Scotland, and had a great part in arranging a commercial treaty between Henry and the Archduke Philip (February 1495-6), which con­tained satisfactory clauses forbidding the harbouring of rebels.² Further, full powers for concluding the marriage treaty were issued in January 1495-6.³

Thus stood affairs in June, the confederates pressing for Henry’s inclusion on his own terms, as a guarantee that if he would not attack France, he would at all events not help her. The march of events made the matter very urgent. Charles, who had been obliged to withdraw most of his troops from Italy at the end of 1495, was preparing another expedition in the sum­mer of 1496, and the League wanted Henry’s alliance on any terms. The Pope pressed him to take up arms against France in defence of the Holy See, “ to send succour without delay, and not permit the Church to be trampled on.” ⁴ The proclamation by the Pope of a crusade in England (half the profits of which were to go to the king) was held out as an inducement, a singular attempt to apply Spanish methods to England.¹ It is obvious from the tone of the Spanish negotiations that Henry was drifting away from France. In June 1496 he promised to make a demonstration against France by reviewing his troops and arming his navy, and in July it was reported that many of his subjects were inclined for war. The king, however, announced that he would not promise to make war on France while affairs in Scotland were still unsettled.² The members of the League were much alarmed at hearing a report that Henry had sent ambassadors to France to arrange his difficulties, but ultimately, on 18th July, the king was formally admitted into the Holy League on his own terms, his accession being published in Rome on that date.³ A printed copy, adorned with the portraits of the allies, was circulated, there were processions, bell-ringings, and bonfires. The document embody­ing Henry’s admission to the League was confirmed by him at Windsor on 23rd September 1496, and, by a solemn procession at St. Paul’s on 1st of November, he gave a public demonstration of his joy at entering the League. On the same day he received the sword and cap of maintenance sent by the Pope, and a few days later a second Spanish marriage treaty was signed.⁴ Chance and Henry’s skill had combined to give England a splendid position in Europe, and on the action of her king hung the destinies of France.

His new allies, Spain, Italy, the Papacy and the Empire, had been making continued efforts to bring about an understanding between Henry and James of Scotland. Ferdinand’s ambassadors advised James to withdraw his support of Perkin—whom they always allude to as “ him of York,” or “ him who calls himself the Duke of York ”—make peace with Henry, and join the Holy League. At the same time, “ for the purpose of deluding the King of Scots as long as possible with hopes,” the Scotch ambassadors in Spain were beguiled with a favourable reception of their suggestion that a Spanish princess should be given to James in marriage.¹ The Pope added his persuasions, but James would do no more than give a vague promise to keep peace, a promise which he broke almost at once. Deaf to the remonstrances of foreign powers, blind to the dissatisfaction of his subjects, he was bent upon invading England.

On the 2nd of September Perkin signed an agreement by which he promised on “ recovering ” the kingdom of England to surrender Berwick and seven “ sheriff­doms,” together with an indemnity of 100,000 marks. Later in the month the King of Scots crossed the border with Perkin Warbeck and about 1500 men, but, though dignified by the name of an invasion, it was little more than a border raid on a large scale. Bold words were not wanting. An arrogantly worded proclamation was issued in the name of “ King Richard of England,” which spoke of the usurpation, murders, and exactions of “ one Henry Tydder in this our realm,” set a price of £1000 upon the king’s head and made many large promises.² But Perkin’s strength lay in words rather than deeds, and he and his royal host, though “ makyng greate boste and brag,” did very little in England. His men passed over the border and then gave themselves up to plundering and ravaging the countryside, burning towns and villages and killing women and children. If they intended in this way, as Hall suggests, “ to apalle and dauute the hartes of the poore commons so that for very feare they should be enforced and compelled to submit them selfes to this newe found Mawmet,” they were singu­larly unsuccessful. The men of Northumberland failed to rally round the gorgeous gold-embroidered standard of the Duke of York, and the adventurer’s outburst of pity and indignation at the brutal treat­ment of his “ owne naturall subjects and vassals ” came too late. His “ ridiculous mercy and foolish com­passion ” provoked James to suggest that Perkin was distressing himself unnecessarily over his subjects, not one of whom had taken up his cause. The raid was the most hopeless failure. The Scots apparently only advanced four miles beyond the border, and retired after a few days in a panic, as it appeared that the country was rising against them, and the approach of an English force under the Nevills was rumoured.¹ On the 21st of September Perkin was back in Scotland. He had struck his blow and failed. The invasion had come and gone without the great revolt of disaffected Yorkists in the neighbouring counties which Henry had half feared in spite of his bold words.² It proved, if proof were needed, that the new dynasty had taken root in the English soil, and that even the north had learnt loyalty to the Tudor.¹

The failure of the expedition closed the most successful period of Warbeek’s career. James IV. had hoped for much, his bitter disappointment made him consider the possibility of getting rid of his guest. According to the chroniclers he “ every day more and more neglected and lesse phantesied and gave credite to him,” and though he may have continued to believe in the “ Duke of York’s ” claim (and his words support this view, as he spoke of him as “ the Duke of York ” long after his execution) he was learning that those claims would meet with little support in England and could not be profitably ex­ploited in the interests of Scotland. But James was too chivalrous to follow the dictates of policy, and Perkin remained in the country as his guest for some time longer. Henry did not proceed at once to the retaliatory measures urged upon him by his spy Bothwell. The calmer counsels of the Spanish ambassadors prevailed for a time, de Puebla’s efforts being seconded by those of Don Pedro de Ayala, who arrived in Scotland as ambassador from Ferdinand and Isabella. He was an extremely able diplomatist, and the strong influence he soon acquired over James was used to prevent him from making a further attack on Eng­land. In London de Puebla was trying to persuade Henry not to undertake a punitive expedition, “he knew by experience how quickly a kingdom might be won and lost. Great as his power perhaps is, the result of the war is doubtful.” Neither of the ambassadors had an easy task. In January and February Henry was levying troops for the defence of the border and was preparing a fleet to send against Scotland. But the Spanish ambassador in Scotland played his cards very cleverly. In the main he furthered Henry’s interests, which the Spanish sovereigns regarded for the time as identical with their own. For a time he continued the old policy of deluding James with the hope of a Spanish bride. Henry felt some distrust of Ayala, but was reassured by his falling in with the proposal that his daughter Margaret should be substituted for a Spanish princess. The idea of this marriage, which ultimately led to the union of the crowns, first appears in the diplomatic correspondence of June 1495, and it was renewed before and after the border raid. Don Pedro had so far succeeded that a personal meeting between Henry and James was discussed. The offers made on behalf of James by the Earl of Angus and Lord Hume, however, did not satisfy Henry, and in June 1497 his spatience gave way, and Lord Daubeney was placed in command of an army and ordered to invade Scotland. But at this moment events in Eng­land saved James, and Daubeney had to be recalled.

In order to obtain money for the invasion of Scotland without delay, the king had called together a Great Council instead of summoning Parliament. This Council, which included besides the lords, judges and law officers, both burgesses and merchants— “ the head wisemen of every city and good town of this our land”—from all parts of England, met on 24th October at Westminster, and voted the king £120,000 for a war against Scotland. This expedient of a Council, which was born of haste, not policy, brought about a rather curious situation. The grant by Council did not legally warrant the collection of taxes, but seems to have been regarded as a kind of guarantee on the strength of which the king might borrow money which would be repaid when Parliament met. The Council broke up on the 5th of November, and the king at once took steps to obtain the money. On the 1st of December a number of privy seals were issued, addressed to individual rich men, asking them for a loan for the invasion of Scotland. All the privy seals were issued in the same form, beginning with the announcement that “ for the revenging of the great cruelty and dishonour that the King of Scots hath done unto us, our realm and subjects of the same ”... “two armies royall” were being prepared “ by sea and land,” and ending, “ And because as we hear ye be a man of good substance, we desire and pray you to make loan unto us of the sum of £… whereof ye shall be undoubtedly and assuredly repaid.”² Like the unpopular forced loans of Richard III., the loan was collected by commissioners appointed for the purpose.³ From the city of London he had already asked for a loan of £10,000 and obtained £4000. The whole sum raised by way of loan amounted to £57,388, 10s. 2d.¹ With the money thus obtained Henry pushed on his preparations for war, but a Parliamentary grant was needed for the repayment of the loan. Parliament met on 16th January 1496-7. Proceedings began by a speech from Morton about the dangers that menaced the kingdom, illustrated after the prevailing fashion by elaborate parallels from the history of Rome. A very large grant was made, two fifteenths and tenths payable in May and November, and a subsidy in addition equal to two fifteenths and tenths. From these heavy imposts only those who possessed less than twenty shillings’ rent from land or twenty marks’ worth of personal property were exempted.² A large grant was also obtained from Convocation.

In March Parliament was dissolved, but Henry was fated “ to fight for his money,” ³ and had to face serious opposition. The attempt to collect the taxes in Cornwall produced a great uproar, the people, “ lamentyng, yellyng, and crying, maliciously said the kyng’s counsayle was the cause of this polling and shauing.” Cornwall was a poor and barren county; the distant menace from Scotland seemed a slight pretext for the king’s large demands. The angry people found leaders in Michael Joseph, a Bodmin blacksmith, “ a notable talking fellow and no less desirous to be talked of,” and a lawyer named Thomas Flammock, who encouraged the rioters by telling them the law was on their side, and that the king was being led astray by evil counsellors, who would destroy both him and the country. Arch­bishop Morton and Sir Reginald Bray, “ the king’s screens in this envy,” were the scapegoats against whom the popular clamour was directed. The Cornishmen armed themselves with bows and arrows, bills and staves, and the host advanced eastwards through Devon into Somerset. At Wells they were encouraged by the accession of James Touchet, Lord Audley, whom a private grievance had made disloyal.¹ He led them on to Bristol; the city refused to open its gates to the rebels, and they continued their march eastwards through Winchester and Salisbury. Kent, which had played a conspicuous part in many re­bellions, was their objective, but they were disap­pointed to find that the county did not rise at their approach. The men of Kent had proved their loyalty to Henry recently on Perkin’s attempted invasion, and the Cornishmen found “ the freest people of Eng­land ” assembled under the Earl of Kent and other nobles to resist them. As usual, the first check led to many desertions from the rebel host, but the bulk of the insurgents, a body about 15,000 strong, encamped at Famham near Guildford on 12th of June. So far the king had not moved; an undisciplined rout of peasants armed only with rude weapons, and ap­parently not stiffened by the accession of discontented Yorkists or other gentry, had marched all through the southern counties, and their camp now threatened the capital itself.

Henry’s inactivity seems strange. Bacon, following Hall and Vergil, explains it as due to deep design on the king’s part, the rebels being allowed to advance in order to draw them far from their base and support. Bacon also suggests that the king’s inaction was due to the fact that he was “ attempered by fears and less in love with dangers by the continued fruition of a crown.” The obvious explanation is probably the true one—the king did not move before because he could not. The rebellion took him completely by surprise, all his attention had been directed to the preparations for an invasion of Scotland. Since February troops had been mustering, and large sums of money had been sent to York, Durham, Newcastle, and Berwick.¹ The rising of the Cornishmen came like a bolt from the blue. Daubeney was recalled and ordered to lead his men southwards against the rebels, while the defence of the borders was entrusted to the muster of the northern counties under the command of the Earl of Surrey. Henry was faced with a very grave situation—“ a dangerous triplicity to a monarchy, to have the arms of a foreigner, the discontents of subjects, and the title of a pretender to meet.” ²

The city of London was at first panic-stricken at the imminent danger, but Daubeney’s return brought confidence. On Tuesday, 13th June, he, with eight to ten thousand men, marched out to Hounslow Heath and met some of the rebels in a skirmish near Guild­ford. On the same day the king left Woodstock and advanced towards the capital, reaching Kingston on the 16th. On Thursday, 15th June, Daubeney had advanced to St. George’s-in-the-Fields and there received messages from some of the rebels, offering to betray their leaders in return for a pardon. On Friday he joined forces with the king and returned to St. George’s, Henry going to Lambeth. The Cornishmen reached Blackheath the same day and encamped there, but between them and the capital lay a force of 25,000 men. Friday night they spent in “ greate agony and variaunce,” some being dis­posed to submit themselves to the king’s mercy, “ but the Smyth was of the contrary mynde.” Henry also passed the night “ in the ffeilde, abrewyng and comfortyng of his people.” ¹ At six o’clock on the following morning (Saturday, 17th June), a combined attack upon flank and rear of the rebels was led by Sir Humphrey Stanley and the Earl of Oxford, while Lord Daubeney engaged the main body. The rebels made a desperate resistance, but finding themselves surrounded at last surrendered. According to Polydor Vergil and Hall 2000 of them were slain.² The loss on the king’s side was certainly slight, most of those who fell being slain by the yard-long arrows of the Cornishmen. Henry, who commanded the rear-guard, was never engaged. The king rode into London after the battle, being received at London Bridge by the mayor and aldermen. After returning thanks at St. Paul’s for his victory, he went to his lodging in the Tower. On the following Monday the rebel leaders, Audley, Flammock, and Joseph, were examined before Henry and the council in the Tower, and arraigned and condemned at Westminster a week later. The next day, Tuesday, June 27th, Joseph and Flammock were drawn through the city and hanged at Tyburn, the smith showing high courage and hoping “ for a name perpetual and a fame permanent and immortal.”¹ On Wednesday Lord Audley was led from Newgate through the streets, wearing a torn paper coat adorned with the arms of his house reversed, to Tower Hill, where he was beheaded. The heads of the three leaders were set up on London Bridge and their quarters on the city gates. But this was the only vengeance that Henry took; the rest of the rebels he spared.² According to Bacon, the king’s clemency on this occasion, as distinguished from the severity with which Perkin’s attempt in Kent was punished, showed his discrimination “ between people that did rebel upon wantonness and them that did rebel upon want.” ³ The danger thus overcome is reflected in the letters of the Venetian envoy with some extra­ordinary comments. According to him an army of 20,000 men was said to have taken up arms in the north and marched on London “ because a tax had been laid on the priests contrary to custom.” The king was reported to have collected all his property “ in a tower near the coast ” that he might escape if necessary.

Meanwhile there had been a change in the posi­tion in Scotland. Ayala, who since October 1496 had been negotiating to obtain the surrender of Perkin Warbeck to Spain, worked upon the pre­tender by allusions to an approaching and inevit­able reconciliation between the Kings of England and Scotland, and suggested that he should sail to Ireland, whence he could be taken by Spanish fishing- boats to safe refuge in Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella set great hopes on this scheme, and strict precautions were taken to prevent Henry from hearing about it, de Puebla, then ambassador in London, being kept in the dark. Ayala probably succeeded in winning over the adventurer, but James was not disposed to surrender his protege.¹ The Cornish rising raised hopes that Warbeck would find in England the support he had hitherto looked for there in vain. James proposed to co-operate with the rebels by invading England on the north while Perkin was trying his fortune in Cornwall.² Early in July, there­fore, Warbeck sailed from Scotland, with his wife and child, in a ship victualled and provided by James,³ escorted by two other vessels, one of them being a Breton merchant ship, which was perhaps impressed by James for this service.

There was some delay before James carried out his part of the plan. Shortly after Perkin sailed James received an embassy from Henry, who after the Cornish rebellion gave up the idea of a war of re­venge in Scotland, as it meant further taxation. On 4th July, Fox, Bishop of Durham, had been sent north to try and obtain the surrender of Perkin and per­suade James to send an embassy into England to ask for peace, “ to save the dignity of the stronger power.” The ambassador was instructed to make every possible effort to arrange a peace. Even the demand for Perkin’s surrender was to be dropped if it stood in the way of a settlement.¹ James of Scotland, how­ever, was not inclined to treat. His unopposed and unpunished raid encouraged him. Henry, with his kingdom ablaze with revolt, seemed powerless, and the opportunity too good to lose. In August, therefore, James again crossed the border, and, after wasting and burning the country side, besieged the castle of Norham-on-Tweed.² Henry, however, while making overtures for peace, had not abandoned his prepara­tions for war. In July all the Scotch were ordered to leave England, and on July 1st, £12,000 had been sent northwards for the expenses of the war. Norham, strongly fortified and garrisoned by the Bishop of Durham, “ a wise man and one that could see through the present to the future,” made a stout resistance to the Scotch assault. The Earl of Surrey advanced from Yorkshire with 20,000 men, and a fleet put to sea under Lord Willoughby de Broke. At the news of Surrey’s advance James raised the siege of Norham and re­treated over the border, with Surrey in pursuit. The English leader destroyed several border forts and took the castle of Ayton. The Scotch army, which lay a mile off, made no attempt to save the castle, but James offered to decide the whole question by single combat with Surrey, the castle of Berwick to be the victor’s prize. The earl refused this quixotic offer, and thanking him “ harteley of the honoure that he offered him ... to admit so poore an earle to fight with him body to body,” but explaining that Berwick was the king’s and not his to pledge at his will, prepared for battle. James, “ not performyng his great crakes and boastes,” retreated by night. Difficulty in obtaining supplies forced Surrey to with­draw his troops from that “ tempestious, unfertile, and barayne region,” where they had been “ dayly and nightly vexed with continual wynde and un­measurable reyne.” ¹

James’s great scheme had fallen to the ground and nothing had been heard of Perkin. It was a favour­able moment for the renewal of negotiations, and Ayala fostered the peaceful tendencies by every means in his power. Henry, who was also strongly urged to peace by Spain, and who “ did not love the barren wars in Scotland though he made his profit of the noise of them,” sent a plenipotentiary. The chief difficulty which had wrecked the earlier negotiations, James’s reluctance to surrender Perkin at the King of England’s bidding, had been removed by the adventurer’s departure from Scotland. Other points in dispute, such as the compensation for losses inflicted on both sides, were waived, and on 30th September a seven years’ treaty was signed at Ayton.² Ulti­mately, after negotiations skilfully conducted by Ayala as mediator,³ the term of peace was prolonged to the lifetimes of the two sovereigns.⁴ It was publicly proclaimed in London on the 6th December. The importance of this arrangement is happily crystallised by Bacon. “ Ayala’s embassy,” he says, “ set the truce between England and Scotland, the truce drew on the peace, the peace the marriage, and the marriage the union of the kingdoms.” ¹

Warbeck himself wrecked his last chance of success by abandoning James’s plan of sailing direct to Cornwall and landing there. In spite of the failure of the rising, and in spite of, or perhaps because of, the king’s clemency, disaffection was rife in Cornwall. “The king’s lenity had rather emboldened than reclaimed them, insomuch as they stuck not to say to their neighbours and countrymen that the king did well to pardon them, for that he knew he should leave few subjects in England if he had hanged all that were of their mind.” ² On the face of it James’s scheme was a possible if not a likely one—invasions on the north and south to combine with treachery within. The adventurer, however, abandoned this plan and sailed away to Ireland, allured by the promise of help given to him by Sir James Ormond, then in arms against Henry.³ On 25th July he landed in Cork, where he was well received by one of his earliest supporters, John Walter. He stayed there some time, but found that there was little chance of winning further support. Fate seemed to be fighting against the adventurer. Sir James Ormond had been killed on the 17th of July, and his former powerful friends held aloof. The temper of Ireland had completely changed. Kildare had just been re-appointed Lord Deputy, and was bent on proving his loyalty. Des­mond and the Munster chieftains had been pardoned,¹ the south of Ireland was submissive and loyal to the Tudor. The faithful city of Waterford at once sent off news to Henry that Perkin had re-appeared in Cork, and Kildare and Desmond made an attempt to capture him, but Walter arranged his escape by sea to Kinsale. There the adventurer found and rejected a last chance of escape. In Kinsale harbour there were three Spanish ships, either those provided by Ayala to convey the fugitive to Spain or merchant ships hired by Walter. But with characteristic hope­fulness he decided to try his fortune once more in England, and, encouraged by letters from the Cornish malcontents, determined to land in Cornwall. He put to sea at the end of August or the beginning of Septem­ber, but the ship in which he sailed was overtaken by an English vessel and boarded, and the surrender of the pretender was demanded. The offer of a reward of 1000 marks, however, did not induce the captain to betray the fugitive, who lay in the hold of the ship hidden in a cask of wine.² He landed at Whitsand Bay near the Land’s End with about 120 men.

This little company soon grew into thousands; Cornwall was seething with disaffection, and Perkin proclaimed himself as King Richard IV., and ad­vanced to Bodmin at the head of 3000 men. Thence he marched to Exeter and appeared before the city on September 7th. Though without artillery he made a bold attempt to storm the city, setting fire to the gates, but was beaten off with the loss of 200 men, and marched to Taunton, which he reached on Sep­tember 20th. Here the adventurer’s courage began to fail. “ He put small trust and lesse confidence in the remnant of his army . . . because the mooste part of his souldioures wer harnessed on the right arme and naked all the body and neuer exercised in warre nor marciall feates, but only with the spade and shovell.” ¹ Moreover the royal army was advancing to meet him under the command of Lord Daubeney, Lord Broke, and Sir Rhys ap Thomas, Henry, with his usual caution, keeping part of his troops in reserve under his own command. But these precautions soon appeared to be needless. At the rumoured approach of the royal forces Warbeck’s courage failed, and at midnight on 21st September he stole secretly away with sixty mounted men, who had been his captains, leaving his host leaderless to face the king.

Perkin with three of his followers reached sanctuary at Beaulieu, the others were probably captured. The rebels at Taunton, finding themselves deserted, threw down their arms at the king’s approach and sub­mitted themselves to his mercy, “ holdyng up their handes in askyng mercy, offering and promising him faythe, loyaltie, and obeysaunce.” The ringleaders only were taken, the rest were allowed to disperse, being later punished by the infliction of heavy fines. Meanwhile Perkin, after a week in sanctuary, saw that his last chance had gone, and being brought to the “ verie poynte and prycke of extremytie,” and being assured of pardon, surrendered to the royal troops, who were surrounding the sanctuary. He was brought before the king at Taunton on 5th October and made a full confession.² Henry took him to Exeter, and there Lady Katherine Gordon, who had been found by the royal troops at St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, was brought in to the king. Perkin was forced to repeat before her the whole story of his imposture, and she was then honourably escorted to Sheen, where she became a member of the queen’s household.

From Exeter Perkin wrote a sad letter to his mother.¹ He explained that he had submitted him­self to the king and begged for a pardon, laying stress on the fact that he was not by birth Henry’s subject. He had not as yet received a favourable reply, “ nor had any hope of receiving one, wherefore his hearte was very sorrowful.” While at Exeter Henry appointed com­missioners to inflict fines upon Warbeck’s adherents, and they proceeded, we are told, with such severity as “ to obscure the king’s mercy in sparing of blood with the bleeding of so much treasure.” A very searching procedure seems to have been adopted, and as late as 1500 arrears of fines were being collected. Once again the king made rebellion profitable.²

After settling the disturbed west, the king turned towards London, taking Perkin in his train, “ not withoute a great concourse of people metynge hym oute of every quarter to see this Perkyn, as he was a Monstre, because he, beinge an alien of no abilitee by his poore parents . . . durst once invade so noble a realme.” The king reached Westminster on 27th of November, and Perkin was obliged to repeat his con­fession before the mayor and aldermen. This con­fession, which is now regarded as practically true in all its details,¹ gives a full account of the pretender’s birth and early adventures. His proceedings after he reached Ireland, and his adventures in Flanders and Scotland, are dismissed in a few words. Warbeck’s connection with the Duchess of Burgundy is utterly ignored; the explanation probably is that the object of the confession was to make public details of the pretender’s birth hitherto unknown to the people. The king’s object was to discredit him once and for all as a Yorkist prince, and there was no special object in loading the confession with the Duchess’s intrigues² and Perkin’s well-known later adventures. On the following day Warbeck was conveyed on horseback through London, being greeted with “ many a curse and wonderyng inowth,” and was then brought back to Westminster, where he was given a lodging.³ He remained there for some months, being treated with remarkable lenience and allowed a certain amount of liberty. His wife remained under the queen’s protec­tion in safety and honour many years ; “ the name of the White Rose, which had been given to her husband’s false title, was continued in common speech to her true beauty.” ⁴ Henry’s treatment of her is an instance of his generosity to those who opposed him.

Perkin Warbeck’s career, however, was over; Henry had at last respite from the canker which had poisoned so many years of his reign. Though he lived to cause the king anxiety once more, he was never again the centre of his diplomacy, or the chief danger in his path. In Bacon’s vivid phrase, Henry was now “ cured of those privy stitches which he had long had about his heart.” The year that had seen the Scotch ravaging the borders, the Cornishmen marching on London, and the pretender raising his standard in the West, ended in the king’s triumph and the defeat of an impostor whose claims had been backed by traitors at home and enemies abroad.

 

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

 

One of Bacon’s epigrammatic sentences brings out the aim which gave unity and coherence to the com­mercial and industrial policy of Henry VII. “ He bowed the ancient policy of this realm from consi­deration of plenty to consideration of power.” The policy Henry adopted had been tried before ten­tatively and experimentally ; he gave it permanence and made it a success. An increasingly conscious subordination of each legislative act to the general scheme replaced empirical legislation. His reign saw the inauguration of the policy known in later years as the Mercantile System, which aimed at the regulation of commerce and industry with a view to increasing the national power. The system not only harmonised admirably with the general character of the king’s government, but it gained inspiration and success from the approval of his people. Henry’s standpoint faithfully represented the view of the best Englishmen of the day. For a hundred years England had been growing more and more into a commercial nation. Foreign trade had become the centre of ambitious hopes that a generation or two earlier would have spent themselves on schemes of conquest. England was beginning to become conscious of her commercial destiny, and a spirit of keen international rivalry gave flavour to the trade policy of her kings. The king who guided the nation’s destinies at this critical moment was a man who, innately shrewd, far-sighted, and a lover of peace, found a congenial sphere for the exercise of his talents in these bloodless victories of trade.

The guiding principles of the Mercantile System were the accumulation of treasure, the encouragement of native shipping, the maintenance of an adequate food supply, and the provision of employment for the support of an effective population. Though it would be an exaggeration to claim that Henry grasped the system as a logical conception—and, indeed, its full development belongs to a later era—the tenacity with which he kept its main features before him, at a time when economic generalisations were unknown, is a proof of extraordinary ability. In the early part of the reign we find exceptions, waverings, apparent retrogressions, the guiding idea obscured by the necessities of an uneasy throne, but before Henry died the Mercantile System was firmly rooted in England, where it flourished until the dawn of free trade. As the pioneer of the commercial policy under which England won and kept ’her colonial empire, Henry VII. appears in one of his most interest­ing and significant aspects.

The king’s position, above the arena of commercial competition, gave him a general view of the whole field of trade and industry. A speech supplied by Bacon for Morton, warning Parliament to manage industry and foreign trade so that “ the kingdom’s stock of treasure may be sure to be kept from being diminished,” touches on the guiding aim of most six­teenth century statesmen. Henry did not neglect this point,¹ but he had much wider views. His attempts to regulate the flow of the precious metals were a small part of his plan and perhaps the least successful. The way in which he dealt with the export and import trade of the kingdom proves a larger spirit and a wider survey. Much of his legis­lation is designed in a consciously protective spirit. He hoped to gain for England a larger share in the commerce of Europe, and find the sinews of war that came from flourishing trade; to restrict alien competition and provide profitable employment for his subjects. It is this desire that makes the spirit though not the letter of his legislation harmonise with the theories of modem protectionists, who look back beyond free trade to the era of the Mercantile System inaugurated by Henry. “ England for the English ” is a motto which would have enlisted Henry’s sympathy.²

The encouragement of English shipping has been mentioned as one of the essential features of the Mercantile System. Henry was king of an island kingdom with awakening ambitions, and the necessity of having a large merchant fleet which in time of war could supplement the small royal navy and in time of peace would give profitable employment to his subjects, did not escape him. A great effort was necessary. The state of affairs when Henry came to the throne seemed almost hopeless. The merchant fleet, like everything else, had decayed, and foreign ships carried the sea-borne trade of England. The reign brings into relief the keen contrast between the standpoint of the protectionist jealous for national prosperity; and that of the free-trader looking forward to an ideal of cosmo­politan brotherhood.

Navigation Laws, which made a determined attempt to secure the carrying trade for English ships, are an illustration of the operation of the principle of Power versus Plenty. A deliberate sacrifice of the latter to the former was made early in the reign by the passing of Navigation Acts which, at all events at first, must have diminished the volume of trade. The preamble of the first Navigation Act¹ drew attention in striking language to the “ grete mynyshyng and decaye that hath ben now of late tyme of the Navie within this realme of England and ydelnesse of the mariners within the same by the whiche this noble Realme within short processe of tyme withoute reformaccion be had therin shall not be of habilite and power to defend itself.” The Act forbade the importation of wine or woad from Guienne or Gascony except in English, Irish, or Welsh ships, manned by English, Irish, or Welsh sailors. This Act was tem­porary only,² its experimental character being due to the king’s appreciation of the fact that the merchant fleet of England was not yet large enough to carry her sea-borne trade. It was not renewed until 1490, but in the interval Henry had succeeded in obtaining a share of the carrying trade in Italian wine.³ By 1490 restored peace and order and the king’s fostering care had led to such a development of English shipping that it became feasible to pass a second Navigation Act. The new law included a very important pro­vision to the effect that no foreign ship should be freighted in an English port while an English ship remained unladen.¹ Henry’s commercial relations with Burgundy, Venice, and Spain were influenced by the same aim of encouraging English shipping, and his policy was strikingly successful. By the end of the reign the English merchant navy was flourishing, and its energies, outgrowing their former sphere, were finding an outlet in voyages of discovery in search of new markets.²

The two most important branches of England’s trade with the Continent were the export of raw wool and of manufactured cloth. The former was the oldest and still the most important. The state of the trade at Henry’s accession is illustrated by the Cely Pcvpers,³ which reveal the insecurity of the roads and of the sea, the dislocation of trade by constant wars, and the smuggling of wool to Flanders without going through Calais, the chief market for English wool, where the subsidy was collected. In 1484 certain “ banished Englishmen ” turned pirates were robbing Spanish ships, and French, Flemish, and Danish pirates were roving the Channel. The English merchants retaliated by capturing a ship or two themselves, whenever they got the chance. Henry’s accession brought peace and strong government, and for a time the wool and cloth trade flourished. Antwerp, then the centre of the commercial world, was the mart for English cloth; Burgundy was also the chief buyer of English wool. All through the reign, therefore, Henry’s relations with Flanders remained the vital point of his commercial policy.¹ The king had two main objects in view— to widen the market for English cloth, and keep the trade in the hands of English merchants. Smuggling was diminished by an Act of 1487, which handed over to the fellowship of the Staple, the oldest organisa­tion of English merchants, which had become a powerful corporation controlling all the details of the trade, the customs upon wool and leather, in return for the maintenance by them of the Calais defences.²

Unfortunately the peaceful development of the wool and cloth trade was early checked by dynastic complications. The personal hostility between Henry and Maximilian, the intrigues of Perkin Warbeck and Suffolk, Henry’s anxiety to marry Margaret, all deeply affected the course of the wool trade. In September 1493 Henry took the extreme step of forbidding all commercial intercourse between his subjects and those of Maximilian. All Flemings were ordered to leave England, and the mart for English cloth was removed from Antwerp to Calais. Six months later Maximilian retaliated by a decree forbidding any importation of English cloth, and forbidding English merchants to trade in the Netherlands.³ For three years this state of affairs continued. There is some evidence to show that the effect was more severely felt in the Netherlands than in England, owing to the fact that the want of English wool starved the Flemish cloth manufacture, while the Flemish market was no longer all important to the English cloth trade since Henry’s policy had opened new markets for it in Germany.¹ Henry has been charged with de­liberately sacrificing the welfare of his subjects for his own personal advantage, but in his view, dynastic considerations were all-important instead of unimportant to his people. The Tudor dynasty had given them peace and prosperity, and anything that threatened the safety of the king’s throne threatened the safety of the subject’s trade. Contemporary evidence supports the view that the loss inflicted upon English trade was infinitesimal compared with the damage in the Netherlands. Criticism, however, may be justly directed to the king’s methods in the matter. His attempt to forge a political weapon from his restraint of commerce was a signal failure. Maximilian got on so badly with his rebellious Flemish subjects that care for their interests was not likely to make him vary his policy, and there is no evidence that Henry’s action weighed with Maximilian at all.

Much relief was felt when a change in the political situation made a renewal of friendly relations possible. The commercial provisions of the treaty between Henry_;and Maximilian, signed on February 24,1495-6, provided for free commercial intercourse between England and Burgundy. The duties imposed upon English and Flemish merchants were not to exceed the rates customary during the last fifty years; piracy was to be put down, and the fisheries were to be free.²

The treaty was not, as might have been expected, generally popular in England. In London there was no enthusiasm over it; jealousy of the Flemish traders was deep rooted, and the Mayor was reluctant to affix the seal of the city.¹ Only a few months, however, had gone by after this settlement before fresh difficulties arose. A new duty was imposed on English cloth which Henry complained of as contrary to the treaty. Retaliation followed immediately. The English mart was again removed to Calais, and this pressure led to the withdrawal of the new duty in July 1497. The English merchants returned to Antwerp, where they received a popular ovation.² The' remaining difficulties were discussed at con­ferences at Bruges in 1498 and at Calais in the follow­ing year, and a treaty of 18th May 1499 settled the outstanding questions.³ The assistance of the Staple merchants was obtained in the drafting of the treaty, and the gain to England was considerable. The price of English wool sold by the Staple merchants at Calais was slightly reduced in favour of Flemish purchasers, and in return duties on English cloth were removed, though its sale retail in the Netherlands was forbidden. The articles which allowed the English merchants to export gold from the Netherlands were regarded as specially advantageous.

This settlement, however, like those that went before it, was disturbed by the appearance of fresh political difficulties about the end of 1504. The cause of them remains obscure, but it seems more than probable that Philip, resenting a rumour that Henry was sending money to the rebellious Duke of Gueldres in the hope of buying the surrender of his rebel the Duke of Suffolk— a nice complication of dynastic interests—had again imposed heavy duties on English cloth. Though this is a surmise rather than a certainty, the fact of renewed trade difficulties is clear. After the failure of negotia­tions for the removal of the duties conducted by the Spanish envoy Manuel, Henry retaliated by transfer­ring the English cloth market for the third time from Antwerp to Calais (15th January 1505), and followed this up by imposing a duty on English cloth exported from Calais to the Low Countries.¹ Philip raised the duty on English cloth to correspond, and finally imports were again forbidden on both sides. Once again there was a bad effect on the trade in Flanders without injuring English merchants to the same extent. Andre’s flattering language, which suggests that the removal of the market to Calais was an advantage to England, cannot be relied upon, but the Venetian and Spanish papers support Andre’s view. The silence of the English chroniclers also proves that trade in England cannot have been much affected.² The stoppage of trade was keenly felt in the Netherlands, and Philip, who had been obliged to withdraw the prohibition of the importation of English cloth, sent one envoy after another to England to try and improve the situation. Henry stood firm, supported by national feeling, and the whole course of the dispute is a proof, if proof be needed, of the great advances made by English trade since the begin­ning of the reign. The dispute lasted until 1506, when shipwreck left Philip in England at Henry’s mercy.¹

Under the provisions of the treaty signed in London on 30th April 1506, the tolls fixed in 1496 were to be continued, and were not to be arbitrarily raised above the rates which, in the view of those who drafted the treaty, “ had been customary since the beginning of the world.” English merchants, how­ever, were to be exempted from certain local tolls, and retail sale of English cloth was to be permitted all through the Netherlands except in Flanders.² The obvious unfairness of these arrangements made the treaty of little practical value. For once Henry had overreached himself. It was one of the mistakes that mars the policy of Henry’s later years, when his diplomacy loses the practical reasonableness before so characteristic of it. It was hopeless to expect Philip’s subjects to acquiesce in a treaty which placed them at such a glaring disadvantage. Philip himself declined to ratify it, and on his death in September 1506 the commercial difficulty was still unsettled. The Regent Margaret at once suggested a return to the arrangements of the treaty of 1496.³ Henry frankly expressed his keen disappointment, but as he was very anxious to remain on friendly terms with Margaret, he adopted a much less uncompromising attitude than in his negotiations with Maximilian and Philip. He drew up a draft scheme which became the basis for the final settlement of commercial relations. The treaty signed in June 1507 restored the arrangements of 1496, the exemptions from local tolls allowed to English merchants in 1506, how­ever, being allowed to stand. The arrangements of 1506 about the retail sale of English cloth were abandoned. This satisfactory settlement endured till the end of the reign.

Henry’s policy with regard to the Hansard merchants was a reflection of popular feeling in England. The Hansard merchants had captured a great part of the trade between England and North Germany during the period when England was crippled by civil war, and Edward IV. had repaid them for their political and financial support by a charter granting them extraordinary privi­leges. Thus, at the accession of Henry VII., a body of alien merchants were settled in the country, trading in English goods on better terms than Englishmen themselves. Owing to the prevalent jealousy and suspicion of alien merchants, the favoured position of the Hansard merchants was as unpopular as it was anomalous.¹ Nothing proves more clearly the feebleness of the central government and the decay of English commerce than the position of the men of the Steelyard. The fact that English mer­chants had no corresponding privileges in the towns of the Hanse League made the arrangement a glaring humiliation and injustice.

Henry VII. set himself to vindicate the position of his own subjects and to restrain the privileges of the Hansards. Even in the stormiest years of his reign he pursued this policy, though many years elapsed before he met with much success. Caution and moderation were very necessary at first, in view of the great power of the Hansards. When Henry’s first Parliament granted him tonnage and poundage for life, the Hanse merchants were exempted as before from the higher rates imposed on aliens. They paid exactly the same as the native merchants, and their special privileges were confirmed by chafter in March 1486. Signs of a change, however, soon appeared. A statute of Richard III. restricting exports was revived, Hansards were forbidden to export any cloth except fully dressed cloth, complaints of piracies committed by their ships were brought forward, and their privilege of trading in “ their own commodities ” was interpreted as meaning products of the Hanse towns only. At least one of their vessels was cap­tured by Henry’s ships, attacks on individual mer­chants were made, and the whole body was even threatened with expulsion from England. Henry’s proposal that a Diet should be held to discuss the complaints and claims of English merchants, ignored at first, was acceded to in the face of the growing storm. The Diet met at Antwerp in June 1491, and came to an agreement under which English merchants gained the right to trade with Dantzig.² This slight gain was all that Henry’s envoys won, and English merchants were still in a very inferior position in the North German trade.

In another direction, however, the king’s quiet campaign against the Hansards had met with marked success. Much of the valuable trade with Iceland had been monopolised by the Hansards under licence from the King of Denmark, but some daring English merchants—men of Scarborough and Bristol—had carried on an unauthorised and contraband trade without the permission of the King of Denmark. The exclusiveness of the Hanse merchants had made them very unpopular in Denmark and Scandinavia, and Henry used their unpopu­larity to gain a regular footing for English merchants. In August 1489 he sent an embassy to Denmark, and on January in the following year a commercial treaty was drawn up admitting English merchants to trade with Denmark and Iceland on very favourable terms, and allowing them to incorporate themselves.

These slight advantages obtained by Henry’s diplo­macy were not sufficient to disarm national jealousy of the Hansards, and it became acute when, during the cessation of commercial intercourse between Eng­land and Flanders, the Hanse merchants employed themselves in the trade forbidden to British subjects, gaining not a little advantage from their position. Bitter feeling led to a riot in London on 15th October 1493. The Merchant Adventurers and other London citizens attacked the Steelyard, and were only repelled with the help of a force sent by the Mayor. Henry profited by this display of national resentment to extort from the Hansards a sum of £20,000, to be held by him as a pledge that they would not take part in the forbidden trade with the Netherlands.

A severe blow had been dealt at their privileged position. The unpopularity of their colony in London continued, and the governing bodies of the Hanse towns remonstrated with their merchants in London on their alleged dishonesty, extravagance, and dis­solute behaviour. In spite of the efforts of the Hansards to gain redress, Henry continued hostile, but as he knew that English shipping was insufficient to carry on the whole trade (even if he were strong enough to wrest it from their hands), he stopped short of provoking an absolute breach with the powerful confederacy of towns. He made no secret of his unfavourable attitude, and treated the representatives of the Hansards with studied discourtesy. In 1497 the conference repeatedly asked for by the Hansards was appointed to meet at Antwerp, but the English envoys complained that the Hansard representatives had not authority to represent the whole confederacy, and left Antwerp before the hastily despatched envoys had returned with their fuller powers.¹

Meanwhile, Henry was making a further attack on the Hansard monopoly of the North German trade. The agreement permitting English merchants to trade with Dantzig had proved a dead-letter owing to the hostility of the Dantzig merchants. He opened negotiations with the town of Riga, and in November 1498 an agreement was reached by which English merchants were allowed to trade in Riga on very favourable terms.² Henry hoped that he had thus obtained a point of entry into the profitable trade with the Far East, but the Hansards resented this arrange­ment, and at a diet held at Bruges in the summer of 1499, the feeling on both sides was so strong that there seemed little prospect of an agreement being reached. The Hansards were bent on obtaining some redress of their grievances. What they had suffered in England ought to be recorded “ with a pen of iron on a hard flint stone that it might never be forgotten.” Henry’s envoys told them loftily that the king would not hear of any alteration of the existing law, and that they had better trust themselves to his mercy. Henry’s attempt to separate Riga from the League failed. The town submitted under pressure, and surrendered its separate arrangement with England.¹ Henry’s anxiety to gain a share of the Baltic trade proved that English trade was growing fast enough to make the Hansard monopoly felt as a restriction, but his failure showed that English merchants, even when strongly supported by their sovereign, were not yet powerful enough to break through the fetters imposed by a powerful and well- organised league. Henry, however, has to his credit two attempts to gain new markets—or more strictly to recover old markets—for his subjects; he was a pioneer on the path ultimately thrown open to British traders.

After 1500 there is a distinct change in the character of the king’s relations with the Hansard towns. His former freedom of action was fettered by the political complication of Suffolk’s intrigues, and under the pressure of circumstances he made a serious mistake. Suffolk had taken refuge in one of the Imperial towns Henry had tried and failed to induce Maximilian to have him proclaimed as a traitor, and he decided to approach the Hansards, all powerful in the towns of Germany, and negotiate through them for his surrender. This is the explanation of the Act of 1504 which removed all the disabilities under which the Hansards suffered, “ saving only the freedom and privileges of the town of London.” ¹ It was a total reversal of Henry’s policy. His willing­ness to sacrifice important trade interests to a very doubtful diplomatic advantage is another instance of the curious deterioration of policy visible in the king’s later years. Fortunately, this reactionary measure never took effect. When Suffolk left Aix in April 1504, the attempt to bribe the Hansard towns became useless. Henry repudiated his obligations with cynical aplomb and resumed his former attitude of hostility. In an ambiguous saving clause of the Act of 1504, he found the way of escape he desired. The increased privileges of the Hansards were de­clared to be an infringement of the rights of the city of London, and customs were again imposed at the higher rates.

In 1504, when commercial intercourse with Bur­gundy was again forbidden, the Hansards in London were asked to hand over another large sum to the king as security that they would not engage in the forbidden trade. The original pledge of £20,000 still remained in the king’s hands, and in July 1508, about the date when its restoration fell due, Henry declared it forfeited owing to the export of cloth to Burgundy during the prohibited period. Thus, all through the reign, with one brief interruption, Henry had consistently pursued his policy of hostility to the alien merchants. He had shorn them of many of their privileges, and left the field open for the competition of his own subjects, to their great gain.¹

The position in the Mediterranean was closely analogous to the state of affairs in the Baltic and North Sea. At Henry’s accession the lion’s share of the trade with England had been grasped by Italian merchants—the men of Venice being the largest traders—and was carried in Venetian galleys, English merchants chafed jealously against their monopoly, but as the Italian merchants did not occupy a specially privileged position in England like the Hansards, the situation was not nearly so acute. Besides, the trade was specially profitable to both countries. English wool was the raw material upon which the Italian weaving industry depended, and the Venetian galleys brought to England the Italian wines, silks, cloth of gold, fine cloth, and other luxuries Englishmen were beginning to find it difficult to do without. Thus the Italian trade brought England into contact with the centre of European civilisation.²

The legislation of Henry’s first Parliament left the position of the Venetian merchants who had settled in England unaltered, except that an Act was passed imposing upon those merchants who had become naturalised in England customs dues and taxes on the same scale as they had paid before naturalisation.³ Early in Henry’s reign English merchants tried to gain part of the carrying trade in Italian wine by offering much cheaper rates of freight. This attempt was checked by a decree of the Venetian Senate (14th November 1488), which imposed an additional duty on wine carried in foreign ships, thus not only equalising matters, but even penalising British ships.¹ It looked as though Englishmen would be driven out of the trade altogether when Henry took the matter up. The case did not call for the extreme caution that had marked his dealings with the Hansards. The king grasped the fact that Italy could not, even if she would, give up the English trade. He struck swiftly and surely; the year 1490 saw the treaty with Venice’s great trade rival Florence and the second Navigation Act,² both of which deeply affected Venetian traders. The treaty with Florence (15th April 1490) made the Florentine port of Pisa the staple for the sale of English wool, and provided that English ships alone were to be engaged in the trade. The treaty also provided that the English merchants in Pisa might form themselves into a company,³ this being the first attempt to start “ a regular factory of English merchants in the Mediterranean.” ⁴

For a time the Senate ignored both this treaty and the menacing Navigation Acts, and maintained the extra duty on wine brought in foreign ships.⁵ Countervailing duties were imposed in England in 1492, and in spite of protests from Venice were con­tinued for several years. Henry’s firm attitude, and the economic dependence of Italy on English wool, at last resulted in the Signory giving way, taking off the duties on wine and leaving English ships free to capture what they could of the carrying trade.¹ Even then the king did not have the Act of 1494 repealed, though he issued a proclamation allowing some de­ductions. It is noticeable that even at the height of the dispute the friendly relations between England and Venice were undisturbed, and as time went on they became more intimate. Venice set a high value on Henry’s friendship, and was deeply anxious for his entry into the Holy League. After 1496 the Signory kept a permanent representative in England, whose letters are a valuable source of information. Venetian merchants enjoyed the king’s favour and protection ; once or twice they were given assistance to repair damaged ships, and on one occasion a Venetian captain had the honour of dining at the king’s table. Venice received signal proofs of Henry’s friendship in later years. In 1506 a royal proclamation ex­empted the Venetians from the Act of 1490, which forbade the purchase of English wool by foreign merchants until six months after the shearing.² In March of the following year the Venetian merchants were given a new ten years’ charter for trade with England, but at the same time they were forbidden to engage in the trade between England and the Netherlands.³ This latter order is a proof of the recovery and steady growth of English shipping; the Navigation Acts had gained for native shippers an ever growing share of the carrying trade. By his refusal to join the League of Cambrai Henry gave the last and greatest proof of his friendship for the threatened Republic.¹

Henry’s commercial relations with France were fairly simple. At his accession he signed a treaty (17th January 1486) which removed all the fresh burdens that had been placed upon the trade between England and France since the accession of Edward IV.² Commercial relations, disturbed by the war, were resumed immediately afterwards, but both parties had something to complain of. Henry had passed his second Navigation Act in 1490, but on the other hand English merchants complained of fresh duties imposed during the war and still exacted. Henry also made strong representations on the subject of the piracies committed by the seamen of Brittany and Normandy. Nothing was done, however, until Charles’s attempt to conquer Naples gave Henry a chance of exacting a high price for English neutrality. He made good use of his opportunity. Charles signed a decree at Naples in April 1495, which annulled the new duties and restored to English merchants the privileges they had formerly enjoyed.³ The very favourable character of this settlement from the English point of view can be seen from the bitter tone of the re­monstrances made by the French merchants. From this date until the end of the reign they complained constantly but in vain of the restrictions under which they struggled, and of the extraordinary privileges allowed to English merchants in France. Charles’s ambition had saddled his subjects with an unfavourable treaty, and Henry had won another commercial victory, the results of which endured till the end of the reign.

Commercial relations between England and Spain played a comparatively unimportant part in the endless negotiations between the two powers. Henry won a considerable advantage at the outset by a misunderstanding. The Treaty of Medina del Campo had settled that the duties paid by Spanish merchants should be those customary thirty years before. This meant the surrender of concessions made to Spanish merchants in England since that date, and though the difficulty was obviously due to an over­sight on the part of the Spanish agents, Henry clung to his advantage, and duties were exacted on the higher scale. The unfairness of this arrangement was constantly brought forward by the Spaniards during the prolonged marriage negotiations, and they also objected to English ships being employed, during the war between France and Spain, in trade between the ports of the two hostile powers. Thus trade afforded a subject for mutual recriminations if the ordinary topics of the dowry and the marriage portion palled. The Spaniards demanded secu­rities from English ships clearing from their ports that they would not rim into French ports, and threatened that duties on the same scale as those imposed on Spanish merchants in England would be levied from English merchants in Spain. The English Navigation Acts were also a subject of complaint.¹ None of these questions had been settled by the marriage treaty of 1496, and they continued to be a source of friction until 1499, when by the Treaty of 10th July both powers agreed to treat each other’s subjects like their own, “ with full preservation of the local laws, rights, and customs.” The interpretation of this last clause involved a renewed dispute. Henry continued to enforce his Navigation Laws against Spain in spite of remonstrances.¹ Concessions were made to England by a treaty of 23rd June 1503, but many questions were still outstanding at the end of the reign.

The protective principles that gave unity to the king’s commercial governed his industrial policy. Most of the industrial legislation of the reign was framed with a view to encouraging the native artificer at the expense of his foreign competitors. Many of the industrial enactments of Henry’s Parliaments were not original, but followed legislation of Edward IY. What was new and interesting about Henry’s policy was that it was the outcome of a definite principle and part of a well-considered plan. His legislation was not experimental like that of Edward IV., but was designed for permanence and met with some success. The most obvious illustra­tion of this policy is found in the king’s treatment of the wool trade and of the cloth industry.

The cloth trade was still comparatively small, and, from the Treasury point of view, financially unim­portant. Yet whenever the interests of the two trades conflicted, as they often did, Henry postponed the interests of the wool trade, which, though pro­fitable to the king personally, had led to great de­population in the rural districts, to the interests of the industry that promised to give employment to an effective population.

The customs on wool amounted to fully one-third of the king’s total revenue from customs, but in spite of this a very heavy duty, amounting in some cases to 70 per cent., was placed upon wool exported from England.¹ This almost prohibitive duty was im­posed, as an Italian observer points out, to prevent the exportation of undressed wool and to stimulate the woollen cloth industry,² which was already flourish­ing in the eastern counties, especially in Norfolk and in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Two later Acts checked an anticipated decay in Norfolk by diminish­ing the restrictions on the taking of apprentices;³ and according to tradition, though there is no clear evidence on the point, Henry secretly encouraged the immigration of alien workmen into Yorkshire to teach their methods to the native workmen.⁴ Another statute (1489-90), which revived an earlier Act of Edward IV., had given English cloth-workers the exclusive right of buying in advance what they required of the unshorn crop of English wool. Foreigners were prevented from buying until some months after shearing, so that they could only take what the native manufacturers had left.⁵ In order to prevent the later processes of manufacture from being monopolised by aliens, a statute of Edward was re-enacted and extended (1487). It forbade the export of “ unrowed and unshorn cloth,” whereby “ outlandissh nacions with the same drapry arne sette on labour and occupacion to their greate enriching, and the kynges true liegemen . . . for lake of such occupacion dailly fall in greate number to ydelnes and povertie.” ¹

In his endeavour to foster the English cloth in­dustry Henry came into conflict with long-established monopolies, and the monopolists had to give way. His attacks on the Hansard merchants had greatly strengthened the position of their rivals, the Merchant Adventurers. The latter were specially strong in London, and there they had adopted an exclusive attitude which roused much jealousy in the provinces. They attempted to keep the whole of the Flemish trade in their hands, and passed a decree which re­quired an entrance fee of £20 from every merchant trading with the Netherlands. This attempt to confine the trade to the wealthier merchants was quite at variance with the spirit of Henry’s policy. He refused to allow the interests of an industry, which was of great importance from the national point of view, to be subordinated to the greed of a group of wealthy men. An Act of Parliament passed in 1497 declared trade with the Netherlands free, reducing the entrance fee to ten marks.² The selfish spirit of monopoly checked, the Merchant Adven­turers continued to prosper, gaining strength as the restrictions on the Hansards increased. Having once got the upper hand of them, Henry made use of their powerful organisation to enforce throughout the kingdom royal regulations of the cloth trade. In the later years of the reign the Merchant Adventurers received many marks of royal favour. Thus, in 1499, the company obtained permission to use its own coat of arms, and in the following year its charter was confirmed. In 1505 there was a general reorganisation of the whole company by Act of Parliament. A governing body, composed of an elected governor and twenty-four assistants, was set up, and given power to settle the affairs of the trade and decide disputes between members, subject always to the king’s authority.¹ By giving additional executive powers to a body which he had reduced to submission and dependence, Henry increased the control of the Crown over one of the most important trades in the country.

Henry’s protective measures were not, however, framed in a spirit of rigid exclusiveness, and, where national interests were not involved, the interests of the consumer were considered. An example of this is his treatment of the silk trade. Though there was great jealousy of the Italian silk merchants, and the importation of certain manu­factured silk goods was forbidden by Act of Parliament in 1485, Henry did not consider the native industry sufficiently advanced to supply the needs of the country, and in 1504 all silk goods except those men­tioned in the Act—“corses, gyrdelles, rybandes, laces, calle sylke or coleyn sylke ”—were to be imported free.

Henry’s attempts to deal with the agricultural problem were spirited but unsuccessful. The circum­stances that produced the flourishing cloth trade had brought agriculture into difficulties. Owing to a variety of causes, of which the Black Death, the decline of the monasteries, and the disorders of the civil wars are the most important, there had been almost complete stagnation in agricultural methods. What a man’s father and grandfather had done, that he continued to do, often less thoroughly. This equilibrium gave way in the reign of Henry VII. The high price of wool, and the increased demand for it, led to the conversion of much arable land into pasture. Small holdings were thrown together, great flocks of sheep were kept, and there was a diminished demand for labour. The state of affairs is familiar to us through the indignant eloquence of contem­poraries. “ Where there hath been many houses and churches to the honour of God, now you shall find nothing but shepcotes and stables to the ruin of men.” ¹ “ The husbandmen thrust out of their own, or else by covin and fraud, or by violent oppression, put beside it, or by wrong and injury so wearied that they sell all, . . . the noblemen and gentle­men, yea, and certain abbots, holy men no doubt, that leave no ground for tillage, they enclose all into pasture, they throw down houses, they pluck down towns and leave nothing standing, but only the church to be made a sheep house.” ²

The situation presented elements of grave political danger. The depopulation of the countryside, the number of men thrown out of employment, the wide­spread distress, all threatened the king’s dearest aims. Henry made several attempts to stem the tide of revolution by legislative interference; but natural forces were too strong for him. As the great profits to be obtained from wool-growing were realised, more and more land was laid down to pasture. A pressing social problem remained unsolved as a legacy for the next reign.¹ Fortunately, however, there was no great rise in the price of corn during the reign. Improved farming led to a greater production of corn from the diminished area under the plough,² and little corn was exported. On the rare occasions when prices rose owing to a bad harvest, as in 1491, the export of corn was forbidden,³ the needs of the whole nation being preferred to the profit of the corn growers. The king also attempted to encourage the breeding of horses and cattle by legislation. The export of horses was forbidden,⁴ and the licenses necessary for the exportation of cattle and sheep were very sparingly issued,⁵ in order to prevent con­tinental breeds being improved by mixture with the English stock. At the same time the fishing industry was regulated and protected.⁶

The same conflict between the old order and the new that embittered the agricultural difficulty was at work in the organisation of industry. The expanding manufactures were outgrowing the craft gild re­gulations and rebelling against restrictions that seemed ineffective as well as oppressive. The ap­pearance of new ideas about competitive prices jarred harshly with the medieval view of a fair price. Gild regulations were not framed to harmonise new ideas and old methods, and the effort to escape from them caused the migration of woollen and linen manufacturers into rural districts, which explains the constant complaints of the decay of the towns. Many of the older towns were in a very bad state, with streets deserted and houses falling into ruins. Remissions of taxation had to be constantly made to the towns that were unable to sustain the burden of the old assessment.¹ It was Henry’s settled policy to bring the gilds under his control. In nearly every case State interference was exerted in the interests of the community against a class of privi­leged monopolists. A series of Acts was passed con­trolling the craft gilds in particular cases. Thus Parliament defined the weight and quality of cloth, arranged the details of apprenticeship and inspection by gild officials, and settled disputes between rival gilds.² But the most important step of all (and one which has attracted but little notice) was taken in 1504, when the gilds were brought under the control of the courts. The Act declared that no gild re­gulation should be binding until it had been approved by the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the chief justices of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas, or the judges on circuit.¹ It was a measure which secured greater uniformity of trade regulations, broke down local jealousies, and most important of all perhaps, from Henry’s point of view, rendered the king’s control of industry effective.²

Henry’s dealings with the capital are another illustration of his anxiety to break down local ex­clusiveness and advance towards the still distant ideal of free trade within the kingdom. In 1487 an Act of Parliament annulled an ordinance of the City of London which actually forbade London merchants to frequent markets outside the city.® At the same time the old privileges of the city which forbade foreigners to buy and sell retail except through citizens were confirmed.⁴ Henry shared to the full the contemporary jealousy of the alien trader.

The importance to a statesman of the sixteenth century, when the credit system was in its infancy, of being able to lay his hand at any moment on a considerable hoard of treasure, can hardly be exag­gerated. Henry VII. was not the only king in Europe who hoarded bullion, but he was the only one who made a considerable success of it. The possession of accumulated treasure strengthened him against rebellion and invasion, and his reputation for wealth won him consideration and deference in Europe. Taxes, fines, and benevolences replenished his hoard, and “ golden showers poured down upon the king’s treasury.” In addition he attempted to prevent gold coin and bullion from leaving the country. In 1487 he revived the law of Edward IV. which forbade alien merchants or merchants from Ireland or Guernsey to carry gold out of the kingdom, and ordered that they should buy other commodities with the money obtained from the sale of their goods.¹ This Act, originally limited to seven years, was made permanent by Henry VII. Three years later alien merchants were forbidden to take more than ten crowns out of the country,² and in 1504 it was enacted that not more than 6s. 8d. should be exported by any merchant to Ireland.³ Henry tried to increase the supply of the precious metals in another way by giving special rights and privileges to the Southampton Metal Staple.⁴ On the whole these measures were very successful. A long period of peace stopped the drain of gold to the Continent, and Henry’s considerable subsidies to his allies were balanced by the payment of pensions.

The currency was in a chaotic condition during the early years of the reign. Debased, clipped, and foreign coins were in circulation, and there was much counterfeit money.⁵ Andre spoke of Henry’s re­form of the currency as one of his twelve herculean labours, and he certainly had some success in a difficult business. Stern measures were taken to repress the activity of the counterfeit coiners, and the forging of foreign as well as of English coin was made high treason. Special efforts were made to prevent the circulation of the bad Irish coinage.¹ Finally an Act of 1504 dealt with the whole question in a statesmanlike way. The first step to a general reform of the coinage was made by abandoning the old principle that light or clipped coin was to be accepted at its face value. The new law enacted that gold coins were only to be accepted when of full weight. Clipped coins were to be refused, and new coins were to be stamped with a circle round the edge to prevent clipping.² The reform of the silver coinage did not go so far, and light (though not clipped) silver coins were to be accepted if they bore the royal stamp. A proclamation of the follow­ing year made the clipping of coin punishable by death, and a false coiner was hanged at Tyburn as a warning.³ Modern coinage may be said to begin in this reign, the sovereign being issued for the first time in 1490, and the shilling in 1504. The new coinage has been described as “ the best specimen of metallic portraiture coined in England since the time of Constantine.”

The king’s reforming hand dealt also with the standard weights and measures, which were in a state of confusion equal to that of the coinage. Several statutes were passed which, like many others before them, declared one standard to be obligatory through­out the kingdom; but, unlike the earlier efforts, they were followed up by practical attempts to make the standard measures known. Metal copies of them were provided for distribution by the members of Parliament to their boroughs, and in many ports King’s Beams were set up. Owing to the increased power of the central government the laws of ’Henry VII. were carried into effect, and the use of the authorised measures was enforced.¹

Henry shared the general dislike of usury, which was regarded as a striking instance of an attempt tc sacrifice public welfare to private gain. To lend money for interest was looked upon as a heinous offence, an unchristian attempt to obtain profit where no profit was due, by speculating in a “breed ol barren metal.” Quite early in the reign, in 1487, an Act was passed to restrain the “ dampnable bargayns groundyt in usurye, colorde by the name of neweCheve- saunce, contrarie to the lawe of naturell justis, to the comon hurt of this land.” Usurious bargains, that is, all bargains in which a percentage was allowed for the use of money, were declared void, offenders being subject to a penalty of £100, “ reservyng tc the Church the correcion of their soules according tc the lawes of the same.” The Chancellor was given jurisdiction in cities and boroughs, and justices oi the peace in the counties. A later Act dealt with the same subject, and also forbade loans being secured upon land by way of a rent-charge.

In the reign of Henry VII. we may see the begin­ning of the paternal government both by legislation y' and ordinance characteristic of the Tudor dynasty. There are many examples of Parliamentary regula­tion of prices, the theory in most cases being that the retail traders were making unfairly large profits ; ¹ the articles affected ranged from hats and caps to long-bows, the price of these latter being limited to check the threatened supersession of the character­istic weapon of England by the cross-bow.¹ Parlia­ment had long ago undertaken the responsibility of regulating wages, and in 1495 a comprehensive measure fixing the maximum rates and ordering the payment of lower rates wherever they were prevalent was passed. Subsequent legislation affords evidence that the State was gradually extending its sphere of action. Acts of Parliament were passed regulating many of the details of employment, how many hours a day workmen were to work, how long they were to spend on their meals, and so on. A workman who left his job before he finished it was to go to prison for a month and pay a fine of £1, and holidays were not to be paid for.² Legislation also regulated ap­prenticeship, forbidding cards and dice except at Christmas, and so forth. Examples of the active control of Parliament over the conditions of industry might be multiplied indefinitely. Parliament stepped in to prevent manufacturers singeing their fustians, to arrange the details of the leather trade, to prescribe the way in which feather beds should be stuffed, 1 compel all butchers, except those of Berwick an Carlisle, to do their butchering out of doors.¹ Th minute supervision of social conditions was extende over much wider ground later in the reign, when tt Crown devised machinery for controlling the era! gilds. It is not too much to say that by the end < the reign the influence of Henry the Seventh’s pei sonality touched the lives of his subjects at almos every point.

Changes in the standard of comfort have mad it difficult to estimate the social conditions c labour in the reign. In some respects the laboure was very well off. Working eight hours a day—th ordinary length of a working day in the fifteent century—he could earn two or three shillings a day house rent and fuel were cheap, and the average cos of necessaries was about one-twelfth of their cof to-day. There were many opportunities for amus< ment, and many compulsory holidays ;² rural sporl and pastimes flourished, and nearly every parish ha gilds or fraternities which gave dramatic performance Movement from place to place, however, was difl cult, and roads and bridges were much neglectec suffering from the decline in monastic activity England was ravaged by plague several times durin the reign. There were two outbreaks of the new an mysterious sweating sickness in 1485 and 1508, whicl beginning in London, spread over the rest of Englan< In 1499-1500 an epidemic of the more familial plague wrought great havoc in London, and there were less serious outbreaks in 1487, 1503, and 1504.¹ The chief hardships came from the clashing of new ideas and old habits. The old tie between lord and man had not yet lost the personal character that made the master feel responsible for the welfare of his dependants, but the new relations between capital and labour were giving a changed colour to society in the flourishing industrial districts. In agriculture and industry historic methods were being abandoned.

The Crown drew to itself more and more power. The strange thing is that this great extension of State control was almost uniformly beneficent in effect, as it was in intention. We cannot point to a single one of Henry’s commercial statutes that was designed to forward any selfish interests of the king or his advisers. The underlying principle of all the indus­trial and agrarian legislation was to provide for the maintenance of the effective population upon which all national ambitions depended. Idleness, “ the cause and root of all evil,” the parent of poverty and crime, was the bugbear of the Tudor statesmen. On the other hand, the king’s aim was not the modern one of alleviating the lot of the worker. He showed no altruistic desire to add to his people’s happiness. Disorder and violence, the symptoms of economic disease, were kept in check, but the root of the disease lay beyond the king’s reach and could be touched by Time alone. Henry’s aim was to make his kingdom strong and powerful, and the happiness of the mass of the people found no place in this robust ideal.

 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 1497-1503—MARRIAGE ALLIANCES

 

The failure of Perkin Warbeck’s attempt removed a thread which had been bound up in the tangled web of European diplomacy for many years. For the future foreign affairs were simpler and infinitely easier for the king. The position he had won for himself by tireless effort in the face of a dangerous con­spiracy, supported at one time or another by nearly all the royal houses of Europe, could easily be main­tained and improved now that the pretender was defeated and his supporters discredited. The dramatic interest lessens. There is no longer the atmosphere of suspense, the straining of every faculty to win from a reluctant Europe some recognition of the power and influence of the upstart king of a weak and divided nation. Already, by years of toil and anxiety, the Tudor dynasty was rooted in England, and England had been given a place in European politics.

Henry’s strength and prosperity was beginning to attract the attention of foreign observers, and had been the subject of some comment in this critical year of his fortunes. The states of Venice and Milan both realised the value of Henry’s friendship. An ambassador from Venice, Andrea Trivisano, was de­spatched in the summer of 1497 to assure Henry of the love the Signory bore him, congratulate him on his “ very great successes,” and express their joy at his joining the Holy League. He was instructed “to make great demonstrations of love on behalf of the Republic ” to the queen, Morton, and Prince Arthur. Further, he was ordered to send news of England. News indeed he sent, but not of the most reliable, when on his journey,¹ but as soon as he reached England and the court his tone changed. He wrote that Henry’s rule was “ to be considered much strengthened and perpetual” by the suppression of the disturbances. “ The kingdom of England,” he wrote, “ has never for many years been so obedient to its sovereign as it is at present to his Majesty the king.” More detailed information to the same effect was sent by the Milanese envoy. He reported that Henry was “ admirably well informed and thoroughly acquainted with the affairs of Italy.” Even the courtiers knew so much about Italian affairs that he fancied himself at Rome. One sentence as to the state of affairs in England towards the end of this year is worth quoting. “ The kingdom is perfectly stable by reason first of the king’s wisdom, whereof every one stands in awe ; and secondly, on account of the king’s wealth, for I am informed that he has upwards of six millions of gold, and it is said that he puts by annually five hundred thousand ducats.” He went on to speak of Henry’s diplomatic skill, that, for instance, he had kept the French ambassadors who wished to visit Scotland in England, entertained them magnificently, and sent them home laden with presents, but without seeing Scotland. The envoy commented on the assistance Papal protection had been to Henry; the rebellious Cornishmen had felt the efficacy of Papal censures. “All who eat grain garnered since the rebellion or drink beer brewed with this year’s crops, die as if they had taken poison, and hence it is publicly reported that the king is under the pro­tection of God eternal.” ¹ The Spanish ambassador, de Ayala, wrote a few months later to the same effect. He reported that Henry’s crown was undisputed, and that he was complete master in England, observing with some insight that he showed a desire to “ govern England after the French fashion.” The settled policy by which Henry made himself the first of a line of despots did not escape shrewd observers. The troubles he had passed through, however, had already left their mark upon the king. “ The king,” wrote Ayala, “ looks old for his years but young for the sorrowful life he has led.”

The summer of 1497 saw also the departure of the Cabot expedition.² This setting out of British mer­chants for unknown seas in this year of invasion and tumult emphasises the point at which the strife be­tween medieval and modern influences, which per­vades the whole reign, began to incline in favour of the latter. Henceforward England begins to look westward with her spreading commerce, and draw away from the medieval background of “ privy con­spiracy and rebellion.”

After 1497—the turning-point of the reign in so many spheres—foreign politics become comparatively simple and stable. Diplomacy was to be dominated for many years by the attempts of the kings of France and Spain to win the alliance of England with a view to advancing or checking French designs in Italy. It is a premature sketch of the system of the “ balance of power ” later elaborated by Wolsey. The outcome—after many waverings—was the com­pletion of the alliance between England and Spain which lasted for forty years and brought such weighty results.

But while the ultimate issue is simple, the negotia­tions which led up to it were as complex as ever, and the lack of dramatic interest is heightened by the maze of trivialities, and the wearisome discussions of foregone conclusions preserved in the State papers.¹ Already in 1496 the principle of a marriage alliance between England and Spain had been accepted on both sides, but many years were still to be spent bickering over the princess’s marriage portion, the extent of the English lands which were to form her dowry, and even over her trousseau and jewels.

In negotiations of this kind Ferdinand and Henry were very fairly matched. In both, as they grew older, a habit of dealing carefully with money de­generated into stinginess; both seemed to have revelled in an atmosphere of squalid haggling fitter for the counter of a pawnbroker than for the antechambers of great kings. The spirit of vulgarity pervading these negotiations was personified in de Puebla, the Spanish ambassador, who lived in England perma­nently from 1494 to 1509. A mean, spiteful, avari­cious man, begging, whining, and backbiting, without a shred of personal pride or official dignity, he brought his high office into disrepute, and was a butt for the sneers of the English court. One of his fellow-countrymen reported him to be “ avaricious and a notorious usurer, an enemy of truth, full of lies and a calumniator of all honest men, vainglorious and ostentatious. It is generally said at court tha de Puebla comes a-begging. He is often glad c the bad success of his masters.” This unpleasan picture was not a bit overdrawn. The ambassado of Spain lived squalidly in a “ vile and miserabl inn of bad repute,” hanging round the court to sav himself the expense of meals, though he made larg sums by taking bribes from Spanish merchants t< push their interests with the English king. All th time, in spite of his deformity, he was flattering him self with the hope that his master would allow hin to accept the English bishopric offered him by Henry or the “ honourable marriage ” with a wealth; English bride arranged for him by the same patron It seems strange that the power and dignity of Spaii lay so long in these unworthy hands, but Henry seem to have had some kind of affection for him, and t< have treated him with singular confidence. His pel describes the ambassador as “ industrious, vigilant and true and adroit in all negotiations entrusted t< him,” and he gave him many marks of favour.

The strong personal influence exerted by all th< Tudors brought de Puebla early under Henry’s sway and a keen Spanish observer saw that his popularity with the king was due to his pliancy.¹ His absurc vanity made him the dupe of Henry’s flatteries. Hi letters to Ferdinand echoed the king’s opinions anc championed his point of view. He even concealec important news from his master. The Spanish mer chants complained bitterly of de Puebla’s neglect o their interests, and asserted that he deliberately los the opportunity of wringing commercial concession from Henry at a time when he was “ in such Hiffi culties that he would not have refused the half o his revenues if de Puebla had asked it.” His de­spatches read like those of a confidential minister of the English king rather than of a Spanish ambassador. Ferdinand and Isabella were not deceived. As early as 1498 they suspected that “ de Puebla was en­tirely in the interest of King Henry.” One of their envoys, Londono, wrote, “ He is in such subjection that he dares not say a word but what he thinks will please the king. . . . He is a great partisan of the King of England.” But it was convenient for Ferdinand and Isabella to have an agent who re­peated all the gossip of the English court, and they guarded against de Puebla’s over great submission to Henry by putting delicate negotiations in charge of an ambassador of a much higher stamp, who became the mark for de Puebla’s jealous railings. He had not even the wit to conceal his jealousy of Ayala. Bitter recriminations against him fill his letters. He in­sinuated that Henry would be glad if Ayala left the country, “ although he had written to the contrary,” ¹ and proudly boasted about his own great influence over Henry and the “ wonders ” he performed in spite of “ superhuman difficulties.” Distrusted and despised by both Spaniards and English, he yet remained in England in nominal control of all the negotiations between the two countries for many years.²

Towards the end of 1496 a peaceful tendency had become visible in Europe. The shadow of French ascendancy in Italy passed away after the successes won by the Spanish infantry in the kingdom of Naples. Now that the danger was over the Holy League was ready for peace, and Spanish successes in the Pyrenees made France anxious to treat. On 27th February 1496-7 a truce between France and Spain was made, in which the other members of the League were included shortly afterwards.¹ Henry was prepared to go further than this. Peaceful re­lations with France were profitable as well as pleasant. In May 1497 a commercial treaty strengthened the bond between the two countries. Henry’s diplomacy had put England into a very favourable position. His entrance into the Holy League had brought him invaluable help in the most anxious year of his reign. He had gained the prestige of an alliance blessed by the Pope, but his obligations under it had been merely nominal, and he remained a defensive member of an offensive league. One power alone stood in the way of a general pacification. Maximilian remained obstinately hostile to France, and on the sudden death of Charles VIII. of France (7th April 1498), he prepared for war. The League, however, made no move ; he dared not attack France without an ally, and he was forced to swallow his hatred of Henry and make overtures for his alliance. He worked hard to revive England’s grudge against her old enemy, suggested the recovery of the lost pro­vinces, and promised “ to perform wonders in the war against France.” Henry was not to be drawn. He had seen too much of the contrast between the promises and performances of the King of the Romans. He did not conceal the fact that he was not over-con­fident in the “ constancy, veracity, and perseverance ” of his would-be ally, and he answered with ironical politeness that he “ should like to see the King of the Romans at war with France, but only by way of witnessing his wonderful feats, and not in order to take part himself in the enterprise.” ¹ The prospect, however, of seeing Brittany again independent was alluring, and Henry sent spies into the province to see whether the revival of national spirit in Brittany would lead to an attempt at separation. His hopes were disappointed. The new King of France lost no time in securing his hold upon Brittany by divorcing his own wife and marrying the widow of Charles VIII. Amicable relations between England and France were not disturbed. A solemn dirge or obsequy was sung in St. Paul’s Cathedral for the dead King of France. De Puebla tried to make Henry break with France, but in vain. He reported to his master that owing to the tribute paid by the King of France to Henry, and the pensions given by him to English nobles, Henry valued his friendship more than the whole of the Indies; the new King of France had shown every wish to please Henry, had undertaken all the obligations of his predecessor, the pensions and so on. On 14th July the treaty of Etaples was confirmed by Henry’s agents in Paris, and the clause relating to rebels was made more binding than ever.² The thunders of the Papal chair were invoked on either of the parties who should break a treaty which seemed to bring the vision of universal peace in sight. The example set by Henry was speedily followed in Europe. On 2nd August the Archduke Philip made peace with France and renounced his father’s claim to the duchy of Burgundy. His peaceful attitude, very popular in Flanders, was distasteful to Maxi­milian, who was carrying on hostilities in a desultory way. A few days later, Ferdinand of Aragon, who had been the brains of the Holy League, also came to terms with France, a treaty being signed at Marcoussis on 5th August. Thus the whole of Europe, with the exception of Maximilian, had given guarantees for the maintenance of peace, and even he at last recognised the impossibility of the position, withdrew his troops and made peace with France, in which he was followed by Venice. Thus the Holy League broke up.¹

Meanwhile the Anglo-Spanish negotiations were revealing a much firmer attitude on Henry’s part in spite of the Perkin Warbeck complication. By the treaty of 1st October 1496 it had been provided that the marriage between Arthur and Katherine should take place when the prince had completed his fourteenth year, that Katherine’s marriage portion was to consist of 200,000 crowns (4s. 2d.), half to be paid within ten days of the marriage and the re­mainder within two years. The last quarter might be paid in plate and jewels. The dower of the Princess of Wales was to consist of one-third of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester, and was to be increased to the usual amount when she became Queen of England. Her rights of succession in Castile and Aragon were saved, and a separate document signed by Henry VII. assured the suc­cession to the throne of England to Arthur’s children if he should die in Henry’s lifetime. This treaty did not completely satisfy Ferdinand. It contained none of the commercial concessions he hoped for and did not bind Henry to an offensive and defensive alliance with Spain. The efforts of Spanish diplomatists were concentrated upon obtaining some modifica­tion of the treaty. Ferdinand first tried to induce Henry to break with France by using the old lure of the speedy settlement of the marriage. But this charm no longer worked. Henry, well aware that the marriage had now been definitely decided on by the Spanish court, became less eager for its imme­diate because he felt sure of its ultimate fulfilment. He realised the strength of his position, and even the critical events of the year 1497 did not weaken his attitude. It is from the other side that the flattering expressions come. Isabella writes of Henry as “a prince of great virtue, firmness and constancy,” and hopes for a more intimate friendship with him after the marriage.

Ferdinand seemed bent on giving every proof of his friendly feelings. He wrote that the absence of harmony between Henry and the archduke weighed on his mind; he welcomed the announce­ment of his intention to enter the Holy League, forwarded evidence about the claims of the Duke of York, and ordered de Ayala to use all his influence to reconcile Henry and James of Scotland. Henry was assured that by the marriage of the Infanta Juana to the Archduke Philip he would have hence­forth a daughter in Flanders.¹ Isabella wrote later that she “ confided in Henry as she would in a brother.” ¹ Henry’s firm attitude led to further concessions. War with France, the original object of the treaty, which had been strongly urged upon Henry at first, was dropped when it appeared that he would not bind himself. The treaty was too valuable to Ferdinand to be jeopardised by obstinacy, and in January 1497 Ferdinand and Isabella ratified it.² A month later the arrival at Southampton of the Princess Margaret of Austria—she was on her way to Spain to join her husband and was driven in by bad weather—gave Henry an opportunity of showing his friendship. She received a very cordial letter from him. “ The arrival of his own daughter could not give him more joy,” he wrote. He placed at her disposal his person, his realm, and all that were to be found in it. They were not to spare him and his realms, for they would render him a very great service by accepting everything from him.³

But these fair words did not augur any concession, and it was not until July, the month of Perkin Warbeck’s adventure, that Henry at last ratified the marriage treaty.⁴ The betrothal of Arthur and Katherine took place a month later by proxy at Woodstock, where the court was established for the early autumn.⁶ The Spanish alliance was of immense practical value during this year of difficulty, especially in the Scotch negotiations.¹ Henry re­ceived cordial assurances of Spanish support at the time of Warbeck’s landing in Cornwall. Ferdinand and Isabella offered to despatch a fleet, and hailed the defeat of the adventurer and the “ great victory of their beloved brother, Henry,” with expressions of apparently sincere delight, announcing that “ they had always known that he [Warbeck] was an im­postor.” ² On 4th February 1497-8, the treaty was ratified for the second time by Ferdinand and Isa­bella,³ and in July, after a dispensation had been obtained from the Pope, Arthur and Katherine were married by proxy with great solemnity, de Puebla representing the princess.⁴ Henry expressed his joy at this event with a vigour that meant a great deal from a man of his unenthusiastic temperament. He swore “ on his royal faith ” that he and the queen were more satisfied with this marriage than with any great dominions they might have gained with the daughter of another prince. On another occasion Henry laid his hand on his heart and swore “ by the faith of his heart,” that if any one of his “ best beloved subjects said anything against the King or Queen of Spain he would not esteem him any longer.” He and the queen had a playful dispute about the letters they received from their Spanish “ brother and sister.” Henry professed to want to carry them about with him all the time, but the queen did not wish to give hers up. Henry and the Prince of Wales both wrote personal letters to Spain, and the king sent with his a curious gift—twenty-four “ blessed rings,” one dozen of them being gold and one dozen silver. Several young Spanish noblemen came over to England to enter the Prince of Wales’s service, while an Englishman was recommended for the service of the Princess Katherine.¹

In the midst of these rejoicings Henry had an un­pleasant reminder of the dangers he had passed through. On June 9, 1498, Perkin Warbeck escaped from court. He fled towards the coast, but, finding the roads watched, took refuge in the monastery at Sheen. The prior interceded with the king. Perkin’s life was spared, but the king, “ that had an high stomach and could not hate any that he despised, bid take him forth and set the knave in the stocks.” After being thus publicly humiliated, and repeating to the crowd the confession formerly made to the mayor and corporation, he was taken to the Tower, and there lodged in close confinement, “ so that he saw neither sun nor moon.” ² The rigour of his im­prisonment had such an effect on his health that de Puebla, who was present a few months later at an interview between Henry and the Flemish ambassa­dor, at which Perkin appeared, thought that his days were numbered.

In July Henry received another Spanish envoy— Londono—with marked cordiality. “ The king,” we are told, “ made a remarkably fine speech in French,” and Morton made a Latin oration. Henry offered to serve Spain with his person and with his army. “ He said it with words which manifested great love and affection.” ¹ De Puebla reported Henry’s wish that the Princess Katherine should talk French to the Archduchess Margaret so that she might be able to speak the language fluently when she came to England, “ as the English ladies could not speak Latin, much less Spanish.” The princess was also advised to accustom herself to drink wine. “ The water of England is not drinkable,” wrote de Puebla, “ and even if it were the climate would not allow the drinking of it.”

On 10th July a supplementary treaty of alliance between England and Spain was signed. The articles dealing with commerce and the harbouring of rebels had been slightly altered, and Ferdinand and Isabella complained that de Puebla had shown him­self very neglectful of their interests, and that he had exceeded the powers given to him; they expressed their anger and astonishment, and ordered him to follow their instructions “without transgressing a single word for the future.” He was to consult Ayala in all things, and regard him as joint ambassador at the court.²

But at this moment, in ominous contrast to the general atmosphere of success and self-congratulation, the darker thread that was never long absent from the tangled skein of Henry’s life reappeared.

The name and claims of the young Earl of War­wick, who had been dragging out his miserable life in the Tower, sprang into sudden prominence through the appearance of another impostor. An Augustinian friar, one Patrick, persuaded Ralph Wilford, a boy of mean birth who was a favourite pupil, to personate the imprisoned earl, promising “ that he would easily make him King of England.” Though this plot was hatched in Kent, which had a reputation for sup­porting “ phantastical fantasyes,” it failed ignomini­ously. The king’s spies got wind of it. The friar’s miserable dupe was hanged on Shrove Tuesday (12th February 1498-9), but Patrick, owing to the benefit of clergy, escaped with perpetual imprisonment.¹

The plot, a slight thing in itself, had weighty results. The reappearance of the spectre of con­spiracy had shaken Henry’s growing confidence. His Celtic blood inclined him to belief in prevalent super­stitions. In March 1499 he consulted a priest who was reputed to be a seer, and who had foretold the deaths of Edward IV. and Richard III. Henry asked him in what manner his end would come, and the answer that his life would be in great danger all through the year, and that the kingdom harboured political plots, seems to have made a deep impression on the king. Ayala reported that these two weeks had aged him so that he looked twenty years older. He was growing very devout, and had heard a sermon every day during Lent.² Though the court was gay with rejoicings over the birth of another prince, though ambassadors from France had just brought loving messages and presents from Louis XII., and though the long dispute with Flanders had just been settled by the treaty of May 1499,³ the king himself was ill at ease.

Another cause of alarm was the flight of Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, a nephew of Edward IV., who in spite of his brother’s rebellion ¹ had been re­stored by Henry to a portion of the family estates. He had glittered in court tournaments, and won some­thing of Henry’s favour, but the king’s generosity failed to win allegiance. In the summer of 1499, Suffolk, offended at being indicted for a manslaughter, fled to Calais and thence to St. Omer. Henry feared that he would put himself under the archduke’s pro­tection, and actually sent envoys to ask him to return. He assented and returned to court. Henry’s patience seemed inexhaustible.

But some little time elapsed before the danger that seemed to be weighing on the king’s spirits came to a head. If Henry really believed, as he appears to have done, that a great plot was being matured, he may have regarded the Spanish marriage as a bul­wark against the threatened danger. Arrangements for it were pushed on, and a second proxy marriage between Katherine and Arthur took place at Bewdley, Prince Arthur’s Herefordshire seat, on Whit Sunday, 19th May 1499.® The prince, “ in a loud and clear voice,” expressed his joy in contracting this mar­riage “ not only in obedience to the Pope and to King Henry, but also from his deep and sincere love for the princess his wife,” and thereupon his lord chamberlain joined the hands of Prince Arthur and de Puebla, who again stood proxy for Katherine.

Before the end of the year England was ringing with the news of another desperate Yorkist plot. The very name of the Earl of Warwick seemed to have power to throw the black shadow of conspiracy and dethronement across the king’s path, and it was this constant anxiety, working on a mind darkened by superstitious terrors and the recent sinister revela­tions of underground conspiracy, which explains, though it cannot justify, the judicial murder which stains the king’s reputation. The king’s long patience gave way at last, and the mere rumour of a plot between Warbeck and Warwick sealed the fate of both. No one, reading the brief account of the con­spiracy that survives, can doubt that the earl was condemned on trumped-up evidence. His dangerous name outweighed his youth and innocence.

The evidence given at the Guildhall, probably by one Robert Cleymound, who seems to have turned informer,¹ was to the effect that the Earl of Warwick, with Astwood, a former adherent of Warbeck’s, and Cleymound, while in the Tower, on the 2nd of August “ confederated and agreed that the earl should assume the royal dignity and elect himself king, and falsely and traitorously depose, deprive, and slay the king.” Subsidiary evidence was given to the effect that the earl had plotted to seize the Tower and carry away the jewels from the king’s treasury, issue a public pro­clamation promising 12d. a day to any one who joined him, set fire to the gunpowder stored within the Tower, and then escape beyond the seas in the con­fusion and bide his time to dethrone the king. A certain Thomas Ward, clerk, was alleged to have been won over to the plot by Robert Cleymound, who showed him a wooden image as a token from Warwick. Cleymound also declared that he had re­ceived a cloak and a velvet jacket from the earl. It has been suggested that these objects, which seem to be very clumsily dragged into the story, were meant to be exhibited as tangible proofs of a guilt that apparently rested only on the evidence of an informer, but the jury found the proof sufficient, and sent the earl for trial by his peers. The character of some further evidence, which attempted to impli­cate Warwick in a treasonable league with Perkin Warbeck, throws still more doubt upon the earl’s guilt. It was alleged that Warwick had conspired on August 2nd “ to set him (Peter Warbeck) at large and create and constitute him, the said Peter, to be King and Governor of England.” This obviously con­flicts with the assertion that on the same August 2nd Warwick concocted a plan to make himself king. The informer did not prove that Warwick and War­beck ever saw each other; the story was that the earl knocked upon the floor of his chamber in the Tower and said to Warbeck, who was confined in the cell below, “ Perkin, be of good cheer and comfort.” Cleymound, who from his freedom of access to both prisoners seems to have been a warder in the Tower, promised to hand Perkin on the following day a letter from an adherent, “ one James, a clerk of Flanders.” According to the informer’s story, the earl, two days later, made a hole in the floor of his chamber by which he could communicate with Perkin, but the only purpose for which he undertook the considerable feat of overcoming the massive masonry of the Tower—in the course of a single day, be it remembered—was “ to comfort the said Perkin in his treason by saying to him, ‘ How goes it with you ? Be of good cheer.’ ”¹

This lame story, with a few other adornments, the suggestion that Perkin had accused his fellow-con- spirators to the king and council, and so on, bears on the face of it the secret motive of the whole busi­ness—to involve the last heir of the House of York and the impostor who had played the part of the White Rose in a common ruin.

On 21st November the Earl of Warwick, then aged twenty-one, was brought to trial before the Lord High Steward, the Earl of Oxford, who pre­sided over a court formed of the Duke of Bucking­ham, the Earls of Northumberland, Kent, Surrey, and Essex, sixteen barons, and the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem. He pleaded guilty and was condemned to death as a traitor. Perkin Warbeck, John Walter alias Attwater, formerly Mayor of Cork, and his son, and James Taylor had been condemned to death previously, but the sentence was only carried out on Warbeck and Attwater. On the scaffold at Tyburn Perkin confessed his guilt, and after telling the story of his imposture to the assembled multitude, he “ took his dethe meekly.” His head was cut off after death and set upon London Bridge. The meteoric career of the White Rose was over. In Bacon’s words, “ It was one of the longest plays of the kind that hath been in memory, and might perhaps have had another end if he had not met with a king both wise, stout, and fortunate.”

The romantic career of the adventurer is full of contrasts. Gay and self-confident, he had played his r61e so long that he had almost come to believe in it himself. His personal charm had won him love and loyalty, he had fraternised with princes and borne himself royally in pageant and banquet. But his princely and gallant bearing deserted him in danger. Twice at least, in a critical hour, he failed those who trusted and followed him, and fled to shameful safety. The lack of personal courage was fatal. He had matched himself against a crowned adventurer whose early career had been as difficult and almost as romantic as his own, whose calculating brain and iron nerve were never more at his service than when rebellion and invasion threatened the crown he had won on the battlefield.

On the following Thursday (28th November),¹ be­tween two and three o’clock in the afternoon, War­wick was executed on Tower Hill. The king paid the expenses of the funeral, and the earl’s body was taken by water to Bisham Abbey in Berkshire, and buried there with his ancestors.² Thus did the “ winding ivy of a false Plantagenet kill the true tree itself.”

An attempt has been made to defend Warwick’s execution on the score of policy. It is alleged that Henry was induced to get rid of Warwick by the urgent representations of the Spanish ambassador, who dwelt on his master’s reluctance to allow his daughter to marry the heir to a throne constantly threatened by the survival of a prince of another royal house.¹ According to this view Warwick was sacrificed by Henry as the price of the Spanish marriage.

But what is the evidence for this view ? There is not a shred. There is no trace of or allusion to a communication of the kind. The whole story seems to have been evolved from the exulting words of de Puebla “ that not a doubtful drop of royal blood remained in England,” from Katherine’s lamentation many years later over the marriage that had begun in blood, and from the coincidence in point of time between the execution and the marriage. But these are slender foundations on which to build a theory inherently improbable. It does not even square with the general view that Henry was an unscrupulous politician who would commit any crime for gain, a view that calls for proof that the marriage depended in some way upon Warwick’s removal. Of such a connection there is no trace. The marriage had long been decided upon by the Spanish court, the delay came from Henry’s side, and there is no evidence of any pressure being put upon him. If policy dictated the crime at all, a more plausible explanation would be that Henry felt that his throne was insecure as long as Warwick lived. He had tried generosity to his captive foes and found it a failure. Extraordinary patience, considering the traditions of threatened dynasties, marked Henry’s treatment of conspiracy. But even this is an insufficient explanation of the sudden cruelty that claimed a life spared in much more dangerous crises. The execution of Warwick was not an exhibition of inhuman calculation but of human weakness. Henry’s temper was altering.

“ Age was fatal to the Tudor despots ” ; his naturally calm and judicial spirit was being warped by con­stant threats, and by the suspicions of premature old age. It was no monster chuckling over the profit of premeditated murder, but a terror-stricken man driven to a sudden act of cruelty by anxiety and over­strain, who signed the warrant for Warwick’s execu­tion. Panic, not policy, drove the king on to crime.

The Anglo-Spanish negotiations of the year 1500 are more than usually wearisome. The arrival of Princess Katherine in England was expected. Prince Arthur had written in October 1499 expressing his anxiety to see his bride, and the king was spending enormous sums in preparing for her reception. But several things delayed her departure. Ferdinand made the sudden discovery, on comparing the earlier with the later marriage treaty, that the latter was less favourable to Spain instead of much more favourable, as de Puebla had often assured him it was. He declared that many of the conditions had been altered to suit Henry’s views, and hoped that they might still be modified in spite of the number of times the treaty had been ratified on both sides. De Puebla, too, sent reports that made Ferdinand un­easy. Perhaps with a view of emphasising his heroic achievements he reported that the feeling in England was hostile to the Spanish match, and that he and the Bishop of London had had infinite difficulty in getting the council to agree to the treaty of alliance. Members of the council objected to the omission of the words “ King of France ” from the king’s style in letters from Ferdinand and Isabella, and vied with one another in pointing out difficulties in the treaty until Henry called them to order and told them to stop disputing about words. The suspicious Ferdinand took alarm, and his fears were increased by the rumour that Henry was seriously considering a match between the Prince of Wales and a French princess. On Friday, 8th May, Henry and the queen left England suddenly for Calais. No one knew of their intention until a day or two before they started, and there was much speculation in diplomatic circles as to the motive of the visit. A French ambassador came to Calais to pay his respects to the king and bring an instalment of the tribute, and on Friday in Whit week Henry had an interview with the Arch­duke Philip at a church in the fields. “ The interview, which was splendid and solemn, was very cordial. . . . The archduke said that he loved Henry and regarded him as his protector.”¹ Henry, much flattered, made a suitable reply. The king stayed a month in Calais before returning. The meeting with the archduke made Ferdinand suspect some manoeuvre of Maxi­milian’s with a view of substituting the Princess Margaret of Austria for the Princess Katherine as a bride for the Prince of Wales. Therefore, while he concealed his suspicions in letters to de Puebla, Fuensalida was despatched on a special mission to England to see whether there was any truth in the rumour of another marriage, and instructed to keep a close watch on de Puebla, who was said to be entirely under Henry’s influence. De Puebla was brimming over with self-satisfaction at achieving “ a masterpiece of diplomacy,” when making the final arrangements for the marriage, and gave a variety of reasons for his delay — “ the absence of the Prince of Wales, the Great Seal being kept at Westminster, the absence of the king and queen in Calais, the fact that the Latin secretary was suffering from ague, that the third son of the king had died, and that he himself was suffering great pain.”¹ Fuensalida’s report was not reassuring. He certainly thought the match was in some danger, and repeated de Puebla’s remark that, “ judging by the national character, it was quite likely that the English had changed their minds.”

All this seems to have been a cobweb spun from the suspicious brains of the Spaniards. Preparations for the marriage, then expected in August, were going on all over England, and Henry was spending large sums on jewels and so forth. But Ferdinand could not get rid of his suspicions. Various excuses were made to delay Katherine’s departure, and Ferdinand announced that he wished the marriage ceremony, already twice performed, to be repeated as soon as the prince had completed his fourteenth year.³ Henry thought the third repetition of the ceremony unnecessary, but gave way to de Puebla’s representations, and the marriage took place at Ludlow Castle, the Prince of Wales’s seat, on 22nd November, the Bishop of Worcester officiating. De Puebla, as proxy of the princess, was placed at table above the Prince of Wales on his right hand. More respect was paid to him than he had ever before received in his life—he told his master. Disputes about the size of Katherine’s Spanish household fol­lowed. The list had been drawn up on a generous scale, as it was anticipated that Henry would pay the salaries,¹ but the council were violently opposed to her bringing so many Spanish gentlemen and men- servants with her, and specially “ abhorred ” the idea of the Majordomo or Lord Steward. Henry declared that the number was unnecessarily large. “ The princess,” he wrote, “ will be better and more respectfully attended by English ladies and gentle­men than ever princess has been served before.” De Puebla reported that the king and queen wished very much that the ladies who were to accompany the Princess of Wales should be “ of gentle birth and beautiful, or at least that none of them should be ugly.” The Spanish ambassador was still oppressed by the “nightmare” of trying to induce Henry to accept 35,000 crowns worth of the plate and jewels the princess was bringing with her as the first instalment of the marriage portion, an interpretation of the treaty which Henry was not disposed to accept. There is a very interesting letter from Isabella to Henry, written on 23rd March 1500-1, expressing her gratification at hearing of the splendid preparations that were being made for her daughter’s reception. Though she delighted in them as signs of the magnifi­cent grandeur of her brother Henry,¹ she ardently implored him that her daughter should not be the cause of expense but of happiness to England, and that the substantial part of the festival should be Henry’s love for his true daughter.²

Henry’s suggestion that the princess should land at Gravesend was not favoured by Isabella, who pre­ferred Southampton or Bristol, as safer harbours. In spite of the 100,000 nobles spent in vain prepara­tions the year before, still greater efforts were being made. Tournaments and meetings of the Knights of the Round Table were arranged, and distinguished foreigners were invited over to witness the celebra­tions.³ The young Duke of York went to Southamp­ton to superintend preparations for her reception. At last, on 21st May, after further delay caused by another rising of the Moors and a low fever from which she was only just recovering, Katherine left Granada. Owing to the heat, she travelled by very slow stages, and did not reach Corunna until the middle of July. On August 25 she embarked, but was driven back by storms and hurricanes. She disembarked at Laredo, waiting for more favourable weather. On Monday, 27th September, the fleet again sailed. Henry, hearing of her unfortunate ex­perience, had sent one of his ablest captains to look out for the princess and convoy her to England. The princess, however, was still pursued by ill-luck, and on the voyage met with furious winds and thunderstorms. On Saturday, 2nd October, at three o’clock in the afternoon, she reached Plymouth har­bour. The nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood had flocked into the town. One of her attendants wrote to Isabella that “ She could not have been received with greater rejoicings if she had been the Saviour of the world.” ¹

A month went by before Henry set out to meet her, though he wrote her a letter of welcome,² and sent a number of English ladies, headed by the Duchess of Norfolk, to form her suite. He met Katherine at Dogmersfield on 6th November, and there they were joined by the Prince of Wales. Ferdinand’s instructions that the princess was not to meet her husband or father-in-law before the wedding day had been overruled by Henry, who announced that he became Katherine’s guardian as soon as she set foot on English soil. There was music by Kathe­rine’s minstrels, and the prince and princess danced together. Henry wrote to Ferdinand later telling him how much he admired Katherine’s beauty as well as her agreeable and dignified manners.

It had been arranged that Katherine should make her public entry into London alone, the king and royal family viewing the procession from a platform in Cheapside, and on November 12th, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, Katherine rode from Lambeth over London Bridge into the city, followed by a great train of nobles and gentlemen. It was a scene of extraordinary gaiety and splendour. The procession passed through crowds of rejoicing citizens. The streets were lavishly decorated; pageant followed pageant at different points of the city. At London Bridge she was met by a pageant which included St. Katherine and St. Ursula, both of whom recited very long poems, which, however, were a mere prelude to the eloquence which “ Polycy,” “ Noblesse,” “ Vertue,” “ the Archangel Raphael,” and others lavished on her at later stages of the route. The final pageant re­presented the heavens with seven golden candlesticks, and “ a man goodliche apparailed representyng the ffader of heven.” “ Goodly ballades, swete armony, musicall instrumentes sounded with heavenly noyes on euery side of the strete.” Katherine was lodged in the bishop’s palace near St. Paul’s, where she was visited by the king and queen and the Countess of Richmond soon after her arrival. On the following Sunday (14th November), Arthur and Katherine were married in St. Paul’s Cathedral by the Archbishop of Canterbury and fifteen other prelates. The stately ceremony took place on a raised platform, the bride and bridegroom being dressed in white satin. Stand­ing before the high altar, the Prince of Wales endowed his bride with one-third of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester. The banquet that followed was a scene of great splendour, and an opportunity for the display of the king’s magnificent plate.¹

The ten days that followed were given up to re­joicings—pageants, banqueting, and “ disguisings,” jousting in the open space in front of Westminster Hall, and dancing within the Hall. Katherine danced in Spanish dress, and the young Prince Henry, we are told, “ perceiving himself to be accombred with his Clothes, sodainly cast off his Goune and daunced in his Jackett,” greatly to the delight of the king and queen. The nobles vied with one another in “ pleasant devices ” to vary the monotony of the disguisings, and a “ Lanthome ” in which there were more than a hundred great lights and twelve goodly ladies, roused the Herald to even more than his usual enthusiasm.¹ The chef-d’oeuvre apparently was the device of two mountains, “ sub telly convayed and drawne upon Wheeles,” linked by a golden chain, which represented England and Spain, one green and planted full of trees, and realistically complete with “rocks, marveylous Beastes and a goodly young Ladye in her Haire pleasantly besene,” the other like a rock scorched and burnt with the sun, out of whose sides “ grewe and eboyled ” various metals and precious stones. The knights and ladies who in­habited the mountains made music so sweetly that the Herald is moved to remark that in his mind “ it was the first such pleasant Myrth and Property that ever was heard in England of long season.” Sunday afternoon was spent in the gardens at Richmond playing chess, dice, cards, and bowls, shooting at the butts, and watching a Spanish juggler do many “ wondrous and delicious Points of Tumbling, Dauncing, and other Sleights.”

Henry wrote a very sympathetic letter to Katherine’s father and mother. He begged them to dismiss sad­ness from their minds. Though they could not now see the gentle face of their beloved daughter, they might be sure that she had found a second father, who would ever watch over her happiness, and never permit her to want anything that he could procure for her. Arthur himself wrote that he had never felt so much joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet face of his bride. He and Katherine retired to Ludlow Castle soon after the wedding.

These rejoicings symbolised the triumph of one of Henry's dearest ambitions. The new Tudor dynasty was now united in marriage with one of the proudest royal houses in Europe. At the same moment he was arranging an alliance which was to prove far more important in the future. An embassy from Scotland arrived in London on 20th November with powers to settle the terms of the long proposed Scotch marriage. Since the treaty of December 1497, negotiations for the marriage had been dragging on, their uneventful course being occasionally broken by unpleasant incidents on the Border. Henry’s strong desire for peace is visible all through.

Margaret, the bride-elect, was a delicate, back­ward child about eleven years old; the proposed bridegroom was a man of twenty-eight, notorious for his adventures with women, who at the time of the negotiations had a liaison with the beautiful Lady Margaret Drummond. But scruples as to suitability were unfashionable, and the mysterious death of Lady Margaret removed one awkward difficulty.¹ The negotiations ended in a treaty drawn up on 24th January 1501-2. It was agreed that a proxy marriage should take place at once, and that the young bride should be handed over to her husband not later than September 1, 1503. Important clauses arranged for free commercial intercourse and for the peace and security of the Border. Thus a close offensive and defensive alliance was inaugurated. The suggestion of some doubter that the alliance might lead to the subjection of England was met by Henry’s confident answer that “ the greater would draw the less.” ²

As usual, Henry’s hour of success was embittered by a secret source of anxiety. The Earl of Suffolk had lent himself to another desperate plot, and had fled from England for the second time in July or August 1501. After negotiations conducted through Sir Robert Curzon, formerly governor of Hammes,³ he put himself and his claims trader the protection of the King of the Romans. About the time when Katherine landed in England there was a meeting at Imst in the Tyrol between Maximilian and the English refugees. Maximilian hailed this new oppor­tunity of getting hold of another of Henry’s rebels, but as usual he was lavish of nothing except pro­mises. He welcomed Suffolk as his “ very dear and well-beloved cousin,” and suggested that he should take up his abode at Aix-la-Chapelle, where he re­mained for years waiting upon fortune. Policy as well as poverty bridled Maximilian’s hostility, and the treaty of May 1499 was very valuable to Henry at this crisis. A suggestion that the King of England might advance 15,000 crowns to Maximilian for his Turkish war was dangled as a tempting bait before his eyes, and Philip was using all his influence to im­prove the relations between the two princes. It was a struggle of policy against the antagonism of mutually repellent personalities, and in the end Maximilian put off Suffolk with promises and began to consider the terms of the treaty offered by Henry.

Somerset and Warham were despatched as the English plenipotentiaries, with instructions, dated 28th September 1501, to demand the immediate surrender of Suffolk and the other rebels, and, if this were agreed upon, to offer 50,000 crowns as a present, not a loan. The instructions are an illustration of Henry’s diplomatic skill, and of his care for the honour of England. The money was not to be given on any terms which could suggest that he offered it as the price of peace, which he and his progenitors, Kings of England, had never done, “ for it coude not so stand with their honour.” Over these terms the English and Burgundian envoys haggled for months at Antwerp. Maximilian tried hard to get “ oon of the myghtyest prynces of alle the Crystyn faithe ” to promise a larger sum; he suggested a marriage be­tween Prince Henry and his granddaughter Eleanor, but was either too chivalrous, or too deeply com­mitted to Suffolk, to surrender him.

Meanwhile in England Henry had taken prompt measures. On November 7th, Suffolk was proclaimed a traitor at St. Paul’s. His property was confiscated, and his relatives and adherents were arrested. His brother, Lord William de la Pole, and his cousin, Lord William Courtenay, were imprisoned in the Tower, and later sent across to Calais, where they remained till the end of the reign. One brother, Sir Richard de la Pole, however, “ so craftely conveyed and so wisely ordered hym selfe in this stormy tempest that he was not attrapped eyther with net or snare.” Other conspirators, however, were less fortunate.¹ Sir John Wyndham, and Sir James Tyrell—the murderer of the Yorkist princes—and many others were arrested and executed in the following May.

The subsidy Maximilian angled for was to be used against the Turks, whose rapid advance westwards was a very real danger. By 1500 they had overrun Greece, and their fleets scoured the Mediterranean. If the Christian faith was not to lose more ground their advance must be checked. The cry of “ the Cross against the Crescent ” should have roused the sympathies of Europe. But neither the pressing danger, nor the glamour of a new Crusade, availed to unite the princes of Europe. It was a materialistic age, uninfluenced by great ideals. The theory of the unity of Christendom had given way to the stern fact of bitter rivalry between the princes. The Pope and Emperor remained as symbols of the vanished unity, but the then holders of both offices were not the men to arouse the loyalty or obtain the sub­mission of Europe. Maximilian’s authority was set at nought by even the princes of the Empire, Alexander VI. was a corrupt sybarite to whose cove­tous fingers the gold of Christendom would have clung. Alexander, however, as the obvious champion of Christendom, issued his appeal to the princes of Europe.

It met with little response. Louis of France was absorbed in ambitious schemes. He had met with some success in Italy, and by the end of 1499 was master of Milan and Naples. A friendly understanding as to the partition of the latter duchy united him and Ferdi­nand for the moment, and made them deaf to the Pope’s appeal. Henry’s attitude is interesting, and more sympathetic than might have been expected. The Venetian envoy reported his “ excellent disposi­tion towards the Christian expedition,” and he was urged to attack the “ rabid and potent enemy of Christendom ” in the following spring. He answered the Pope’s appeal in a masterly letter. The terms of politeness reveal, as they were meant to do, Henry’s real distrust. He expressed his admiration for the Pope’s published intention of leading the war against the infidel in person, and regretted that the distance of England from the scene of combat—a seven months’ journey from Venice—prevented him from giving any help.¹

But this evasive answer did not mean that Henry was indifferent to the peril of Europe. On the contrary, it appears that he was one of the few princes of Europe who had any serious intentions with regard to the Crusade. Though he had persuaded Alexander that the tax of one-tenth imposed by him upon the clergy was “ contrary to the liberties of the king­dom ” and therefore could not be collected, he himself obtained the grant of a similar sum from Convocation, £4000 of which he presented to the Pope.¹ None of the other princes of Europe did as much as this, though some of them collected Crusade taxes, which they converted to their own uses. Henry’s action is the usual blend of generosity and carefulness. Though unwilling to place his English gold in corrupt hands, he was quite prepared to give hand­some subsidies to more dependable champions of Christendom. Contemporaries quite appreciated the sincerity of his attitude. Cardinal Hadrian records that Henry not only promised pecuniary support, but also that he would himself go in person to the war against the Turks in defence of the Christian faith. Empty boasting was alien to Henry’s char­acter. We are bound to believe, as contemporaries did, that the offer was genuine, as well as the offer made some years later when Julius II. sat in Alex­ander’s place.²

In the spring of 1502 there happened “ a lamentable chaunce to the kynge, queene and all the people.” On the 2nd of April the Prince of Wales died at Ludlow Castle. A life full of promise ended pre­maturely, to the deep grief of the king and queen. After lying in state at Ludlow the prince’s body was taken in a mournful and stately procession, illumined by the glare of torches, to Worcester. There in the cathedral the prince was buried with great pomp. The bier was draped with a “ rich Cloth of Majestie,” and surrounded by tapers and by banners bearing the arms of England, of Spain, Wales, Cornwall, Chester, Normandy and Guienne, and Poitou, and the arms of Cadwallader, the British ancestor of his house. “ Then the Corpe with Weeping and sore Lamentation was laid in the Grave. . . . He had a hard heart that wept not,” wrote the chronicler. . . . “ Then God have Mercye on good Prince Arthur’s Soule.” ¹

The death of the Prince of Wales was a public calamity as well as a private grief. One boy’s life alone stood between the nation and a renewal of civil strife, and all the hopes of the Tudor dynasty centred in him. Suffolk’s exulting letters bring out the danger of the position. King Henry, he wrote, could not live much longer, and if Prince Henry died he would at once succeed. Prince Henry, however, was a gallant, high- spirited boy, whose brilliant health seemed to mock at Suffolk’s hopes.² Round him the king, with his tireless patience, began to re-weave the subtle web of his diplomacy. The Spanish alliance, the fruit of tedious years, had lost its chief security by Arthur’s death, but Ferdinand was even more anxious than Henry for the alliance to be maintained. In the earlier negotiations, Ferdinand had appeared to yield reluctantly to Henry’s importunity; he was now pre­pared to make overtures for the marriage. On the 10th of May 1502, as soon as he heard the news of Arthur’s death, he despatched the Duke of Estrada with powers to conclude a marriage between Kathe­rine and Prince Henry. He was ordered to keep these powers secret until he had asked that the princess should be sent back to Spain with her dowry as soon as possible, taking great pains to impress Henry with the sincerity of their anxiety for their daughter’s return.

With the beginning of these negotiations we are plunged anew into the familiar atmosphere of suspicion and chicanery. Ferdinand soon began to suspect that Henry might try to avoid the responsibility of provid­ing for Katherine. A letter of 29th May breathes alarm, in spite of his attempts to reassure himself and his envoy by declaring that “it was impossible to suppose that such a prince as the King of England could break his word at any time.” His suspicions gathered strength as time went on, and in addition he had heard rumours that a marriage between Prince Henry and a French princess was contemplated. In July he wrote very urgently to Estrada, ordering him to have a marriage contract drawn up with all possible speed, but “ not to show so much eagerness that it may cause the English to cool.” Even the old idea of an English war for the recovery of Guienne and Normandy was dragged out again, and Spanish help was to be offered to Henry for this preposterous adventure. Many very anxious letters written by Isabella to Estrada in July and August remain. He was to disguise his sovereign’s eagerness for the match by pressing for Katherine’s instant return. “ They could not endure that their beloved daughter should be so far from them when she was in affliction.” A rumour had already reached Isabella that Henry contemplated retaining the marriage portion, and she wrote at once to express her disbelief in the report. She could not believe that Henry, “ being as he is so virtuous a Prince, so truthful, and such a friend to justice and to reason, and of so honourable a character,” would break his promises. This testimonial seems, from the context, not to be a mere flattering remark destined for transmission, through Estrada, to Henry, but an expression of Isabella’s genuine opinion. Sub­sequent negotiations undeceived her as to Henry’s purpose. Perhaps she was trying to reassure herself by repeated expressions of her belief in Henry’s integrity, for she certainly felt very anxious on the question of the marriage portion.

To these advances Henry made little response. He held the key of the position. Katherine was in England and dependent on him, and 100,000 crowns of her marriage portion had already been paid to him. His position in Europe was so much stronger that the Spanish alliance became a less glittering lure. On 19th June 1502 the prolonged negotiations with Maximilian ended in a commercial treaty at Antwerp, and on the following day another treaty was drawn up. By this Maximilian undertook not to give help or protection to English rebels and to dismiss them from his territory. In return Henry promised to give Maximilian £10,000, to be used in the war against the Turks. The money was paid over on 1st October, and the treaty was proclaimed in London three weeks later.¹ Henry’s willingness to pay £10,000 in an attempt to bind the faithless Maximilian to with­draw his support of Suffolk, proves how much he feared the refugee’s plans. He paid a high price for his fears. The treaty, unsatisfactory in its terms, was interpreted by Maximilian in a spirit which made it almost useless to Henry. He allowed Suffolk to remain at Aix, on the plea that it was a free town of the empire, and that he had no authority to turn him out. The only change was that he no longer supplied the refugee with funds. He remained at Aix, running deeper into debt, surrounded by Henry’s spies, and rendered desperate by the confiscation of his estates and the execution of his friends. It appears from a hint contained in a letter of Isabella’s that she and Ferdinand, though ostensibly trying to use their influence with Maximilian in Henry’s inte­rests, were working for his surrender to Spain, not to Henry. The refugee wrote a series of letters to Maximilian imploring him for help, and announcing that he and King Henry could never be together in England without one of them perishing.

The end of the year (1502) found Henry still postponing a definite agreement with Spain about the marriage, and negotiating with Louis of France, to whom he declared that he would be willing to pay ten or twelve thousand crowns for Suffolk’s sur­render. In December he despatched Sir Thomas Brandon and Nicholas West to take the Order of the Garter to Maximilian and obtain his oath to the treaty. After a month’s delay at Cologne they met Maximilian at Antwerp, and succeeded in getting him to bind himself in a very solemn way. He took the oath in the church of St. Michael, kneeling before the altar with the English envoys, and, with his hand on the Gospels, uttered the word “ Juramus ” at the moment of the elevation of the Host. As far as forms went the elusive prince was firmly bound. It

was not the fault of the envoys that he took his obligations so lightly. The accounts the ambassadors furnished to Henry are rather amusing.¹ While the town was blazing with bonfires, and the windows displaying “ brennyng cressentes,” Maximilian began to show his usual dexterity in evasion, giving various specious reasons for refusing to be invested with the Garter, and for delaying the proclamation of Suffolk and his adherents through the towns of the empire. The remonstrances of Henry’s envoys were treated lightly. Maximilian and his council consulted with “ grete laughter.” The envoys resented their treat­ment, but were too stupid and too honest to be a match for Maximilian, who obtained a further delay by despatching an embassy to Henry to settle the disputed points. The embassy arrived in England at the end of March 1503. Then followed a repetition of the proceedings in Antwerp. Henry solemnly swore to the treaty in St. Paul’s Cathedral, the city rejoiced with bonfires, and Maximilian’s proxy was received into the Order of the Garter at Windsor. But the question of Suffolk was not yet settled.²

The year 1503 saw two events of the first import­ance in the English royal family, the death of the queen and the marriage of the Princess Margaret. On 11th February, her thirty-seventh birthday, Queen Elizabeth died in the Tower, ten days after giving birth to a princess. It is strange that the queen’s last confinement should have taken place in the Tower, a place with such dark memories for the people of her house.³ There is a touching account of the king’s grief, and the dead queen was sincerely mourned by the whole nation. Her body lay in state in the Tower chapel, near the then unknown grave of her murdered brothers, and was afterwards taken in procession through the streets to West­minster, an effigy of the queen in crown and robes of state being placed above the coffin. The pall bore the queen’s arms and her appropriate motto, “ Humble and reverent.” The burial took place in the Abbey. There, in the centre of the gorgeous chapel of Henry VII., beneath Torregiano’s beautiful monu­ment, rests Elizabeth, the daughter, sister, wife, and mother of kings.

Margaret’s marriage to James IV. took place on August 8th. The summer had been spent in prepara­tions, and the king seems to have made up his mind that the first bride of the Tudor house should have a suitably magnificent outfit. Many embroiderers were hard at work for the Queen of Scots, perhaps adorning her garments with the red roses of Lancaster, which appeared in every possible place, from cushions to the trappings of palfreys. In June the king was buying jewels and plate to the value of £16,000 for the bride. On June 27 Margaret left Richmond on her way to Scotland. Henry went with her as far as Collyweston in Northampton—one of his mother’s residences—and from there she went on alone attended by a gorgeous retinue of nobles. The Herald gives a detailed account of the whole journey, which in­cludes vivid descriptions of Margaret’s meeting with James, of his graceful manners and accomplishments, of the wedding in St. Giles’ Cathedral, and of the rejoicings that followed. It appears, however, from Margaret’s later letters, that she was far from happy in Scotland. She pined for England and the English court, and the family from which she was exiled. Her pathetic letters to Henry show her as one of the many royal victims of politic marriages.¹

Emery Walker, Photo ELIZABETH OF YORK From the full-length effigy on her tomb in Westminster Abbey

 

Death had been busy in the king’s household as well as in his family, and the figures conspicuous in the early years are henceforth absent. The death of Morton in 1500 had removed one of Henry’s wisest ministers. He had spent his youth in the dangerous atmosphere of the civil wars, and learnt pliability and dexterity therein. When exiled to Flanders he became the brains of Richmond’s enterprise, and Henry never forgot the debt. Morton became in 1485 a member of the Council, in 1486 Archbishop of Canter­bury, in 1487 Lord Chancellor, and in 1493 a Cardinal. He opened Parliament with his elaborate Latin ora­tions, delivered answers to ambassadors, and so on. Bacon’s account of Morton as a man “ in his nature harsh and haughty, much accepted by the king but envied by the nobility and hated of the people,” is prob­ably less reliable than that of Sir Thomas More, who sjtent his youth in Morton’s household and knew him intimately. “ In his face did shine such an amiable reverence as was pleasant to behold, gentle in com­munication, yet earnest and sage. He had great de­light many times with rough speech to his suitors to prove, but without harm, what prompt wit and what bold spirit were in every man. In his speech he was fine, eloquent, and pithy. . . In the law he had profound knowledge, in wit he was incomparable, and in memory wonderful excellent.” ² He was a states­man of a good type, who played his conspicuous part with ability and dignity.¹ Tradition makes him the inventor of “ Morton’s Fork,” but though he became unpopular as the supposed author of Henry’s ex­tortions,² what evidence there is goes to prove that he tried to restrain the king. Certainly things became much worse after his death.

Sir Reginald Bray, who died in 1503, had also spent his life in Henry’s service, and enjoyed an unusual measure of his confidence. Bacon states that Bray was “ noted to have had with the king the greatest freedom of any counsellor,” though he suggests that he used this freedom to flatter the king, but Hall writes—“ he was so bold that if any thinge had bene done against good law or equitie, he would, after an humble fassion, plainly reprehende the king. . . . He was a very father of his country, a sage and a grave person, and a fervent lover of justice.” ³ Like Morton he incurred considerable unpopularity in con­nection with the heavy taxation.

The extent of the influence of men like Morton and Bray over Henry must remain a secret, but the scanty evidence that remains affords no proof that they pursued any original policy, except Morton perhaps with regard to ecclesiastical affairs, but the loss of men who had shared his exile and won his hardly given confidence must have added to the loneliness of a king surrounded by men whom he could command but could not trust. A fine influence was removed from the king’s court, and men of a baser stamp, who had proved themselves willing and un­scrupulous, became Henry’s servants if not his ad­visers. To ascribe to the death of Bray and Morton, however, the deterioration in the character of Henry’s policy in his later years that has often been noticed, is to allow too much weight to their influence. No adviser ever had power to mould Henry’s policy, and the change in its nature was due to the inevitable hardening of an ungentle character with advancing years. Carefulness degenerated into avarice, paternal despotism into tyranny, caution into cunning.

But already by 1503 Henry had completed most of his enduring work, the alliance with Spain and Scotland, the re-establishment of England among the powers of Europe, and—by far the most important— the establishment of the Tudor despotism in England. On the financial and legislative work which gave Henry the right to be considered the founder of that despotism, little has yet been said.

 

LEGISLATION AND FINANCE : THE FOUNDATION OF THE TUDOR DESPOTISM

 

In contrast with his diplomatic activity, painfully intricate and only partially successful, Henry’s work in England has the attraction that comes from bold­ness and success. He found in England a sphere in which all his first-rate abilities were exercised, in which all the strength of his strong, unlovely per­sonality was exerted. His struggle with the forces of disorder and reaction, his unvindictive triumph, the patient accumulation of power and wealth that raised the Crown far above all forces in the State, and made it the mainspring of history in the following century, can claim the interest that comes from an achievement of first-rate importance. The dynasty he founded bore the stamp of his personality. He settled its character, chose its armour and weapons, and his spirit animated it to the end. He can claim to have introduced a new idea into English politics —that apparent contradiction in terms, a popular despotism.

Where did Henry go for his political ideal ? Con­siderable stress has been laid by at least one modern writer on the supposedly foreign origin of Henry’s constitutional policy,¹ but beyond Ayala’s words,

“ He would like to govern England in the French fashion but he cannot do it,” there is no evidence to support this. In some comparatively unimportant details, French and foreign influences appeared. His exile abroad had certainly familiarised him with the continental theories of kingship, but his own native talent taught him what pitfalls to avoid. The idea which gives the Tudor despotism its peculiar char­acter and secured its permanence, that of despotic power based on popular approval and maintained by an alliance of the Crown and the middle classes against the nobles, was certainly alien to the spirit of French despotism. It was Henry’s own contribu­tion to political theory; it was evolved from a study of contemporary conditions and strengthened by the Tudor instinct for popularity. The path of popular despotism upon which Henry and his successors trod had a different direction to that which led from the Louvre through Versailles to the Bastille.

The rule of Edward IV. furnished Henry with a recent example of English despotism, but surface similarities do not conceal the fundamental contrast between his work and that of his predecessors. A new spirit transformed the old methods. Henry’s power was based on an alliance with the people, Edward’s led to a reign of terror, when even the first excuse of absolutism, strong government, failed. He even failed to secure his own dynasty, and with the disappearance of Edward V. and his brother the era of violence and hopeless anarchy seemed to have returned. Things were different from the beginning with Henry VII., and he won his way to the only possible solution for the difficulties of the time, when with care and patience he set up a popular despotism.

The disorderly weakness of England at his accession cried out for strong rule. Parliamentary government had been a lamentable failure, and the people, who had proved themselves unripe for power, were ready to sacrifice the theory of freedom for the fact of peace. The failure of this premature attempt had been followed by a riot of aristocratic faction. The memory of Lancastrian anarchy fought for the Tudors; occasional arbitrary conduct seemed a smaller evil than lack of governance. Tyranny was as dis­credited as Parliamentary government. The ex­hausted country had submitted to the rule of Edward IV. and Richard III., but their bloodstained sceptres failed to maintain order, and a reaction had brought about the triumph of Henry VII. He it was who succeeded in finding a new basis for des­potism, and built up a new type of monarchy which suited both the genius of his people and the temper of his house.

In the Tudor despot the demagogue was but thinly veiled. The vast power the king wielded was drawn from the people’s will, and with a flash of insight Henry VII. realised the promise of this new alliance. “ It was the definite aim of the Tudors to pose as social reformers,” we have been told,¹ and though the first Tudor is not haloed with the modem aureole of social service, he was none the less the saviour of society in England.

Even from the beginning the drift towards des­potism is visible. Long before he had made his throne secure, long before popular sentiment had gathered round the new monarchy, we find him taking the first steps in this direction. Before Parliament met or his title was confirmed he was exercising all the rights of an absolute king. The first and obvious duty of restoring order was taken in hand at once, with a judicious mixture of firmness and lenience. No wholesale convictions of defeated foes revolted popular sentiment. Violence and robbery were put down with a strong hand. Confi­dence in the stability of the government and in its power to protect the individual revived, and popular opinion—that great security for peace—began to range itself on the side of a dynasty that had a hereditary title as well as the force of arms behind it. As the knowledge that the king was about to marry Elizabeth of York spread through England, men began to hope for a peaceful compromise of a question that had devastated England for two generations. The Yorkist disturbances of the early years of the reign hide from view the extent of popular acquies­cence, and before the princes of Europe realised that the Tudor dynasty was firmly established, some sen­timent of loyalty was already attached to it in England.

Henry attached to his sceptre national feeling as well as national interests. It has often been pointed out that the growth of international rivalry in Europe is a feature of the age in which Henry VII. lived. In England, owing to its island position and the long wars with France, a feeling of national unity had appeared early. The peculiar character of English feudalism and of English municipalities made decentralising forces less strong than abroad, and it was easier for national to replace local ambition. These facts gain a new significance in connection with the foundation of the Tudor despotism, and were responsible for much of its success. National self-consciousness was growing restive. “An appeal to Magna Carta would have left a Tudor audience untouched,” but it could be roused to enthusiasm by a hint of national pride or an allusion to the splendid heritage which Englishmen were beginning to realise. It was this growing pride in nationality that the Tudor sovereigns fostered, represented, and profited by. Like the rest of his dynasty, Henry was perfectly in touch with contemporary feeling. The floating atoms of thought and opinion held in suspense among the mass of the people were crystallised in the action of its sovereign. In the king the aims of the people found expression, in his policy they took effect, and this intimacy with national sentiment became the mark of the dynasty he founded.

It is characteristic of the practical turn of Henry’s genius that he was able to translate this harmony of feeling between the king and the nation into a regular alliance between the Crown and the middle classes, acting through their representatives in the House of Commons. He drew his strength from the loyalty of the dwellers in field and city, not from the towers and walls of medieval castles or the leadership of feudal hosts. The influence of capital was fast changing the basis of society. Personal relations be­tween lord and man were being superseded by the complex, impersonal relationships of commerce and industry,, of employer and employed. From the decay of a feudally organised society the middle class emerged. Rich citizens began to compete with feudal lords, and became richer with the revival of trade. The class which had thus obtained wealth found the path to political power opening before them, and, owing to certain peculiar features of English society—the absence of rigid social castes and the union of the knights of the shires with the burgesses in the House of Commons—their representatives in the House of Commons had the strength that came from the union of the landed gentry with the wealthy towns­men. In an era of transition, therefore, Henry VII. enlisted the support of the class which was rising while he levelled the last outstanding feudal figures to whom the past belonged. The forces that com­bined in his support represented all the progressive and hopeful elements of society. As one conspiracy after another was formed and failed, the hopelessness of their aims, the threat involved in their success, was stamped upon the popular mind. They were empty of any promise except the return of anarchy, they represented the party of faction and reaction that had everything to gain and nothing to lose by disorder. The days of civil war were still near enough to throw their dark shadow, and the trading classes, feverishly absorbed in money-making, realised that everything depended on the king’s protection. A successful conspiracy would have engulfed their newly earned wealth in the returning waves of anarchy, hence their steady loyalty to Henry VII. The king’s occasionally heavy taxation and his un­constitutional borrowings they seem to have regarded in the light of an insurance against the risks of renewed civil war, and isolated acts of tyranny were obscured by the general justice of the king’s rule under which the poor and weak found protection and the prosperous citizen found peace.

Over the nobles, discredited by their proved in­capacity for rule, weakened and impoverished by the Wars of the Roses, Henry won his first triumph. They had no leader; the men with personality or ambition had fallen on the field of battle or by the axe, and they were divided by memories of civil strife. Against them was a resolute man, bent on reducing them to obedience, who struck one hammer stroke after another at the overgrown power which was the root of disorder. There is little wonder that he prevailed.

In his first Parliament they had to take an unpalatable oath against maintenance and livery.¹ This first blow attacked the root of their political power and the outward signs of their aristocratic dignity. The armed bands who, swaggering under feudal badges, had overawed the countryside, intimidated sheriffs, and bullied juries, felt that their days were numbered. Private war, once a necessity, became a prohibited and almost unattainable luxury. But the effect of this first step must not be exagge­rated. The practice of keeping bands of armed re­tainers was too much part of the life of an English nobleman to be abandoned at once. The tigers needed careful watching even after their teeth were drawn. One statute after another repeated the tenor of the oath, adding penalties. The “ feedmen ” of the Duke of Northumberland, the “ great Host ” of the Lord Strange, the retainers of the Duke of Buckingham, of the Nevilles, and other nobles²— though not as familiar as the retinue of the Earl of Oxford, that has won an anecdotic immortality— existed late in Henry’s reign to show how much stronger custom still was than law. The unsuccessful rebellions, the sharp justice of the Star Chamber, the obscuring of the spirit of faction by years of peace, completed the work that legislation had begun. By the end of the reign the typical English nobleman had found other occupations than the medieval ones of riot and civil war.¹ He was a much more peaceful character, who was beginning to appreciate the refine­ments of Renaissance culture and a gentler civilisation.

Henry was too politic to take their traditional occupation from his nobles without giving them some new interest to take its place. His attitude to the old nobility is an interesting example of his skill. By his unrevengeful policy he conciliated all except the irreconcilables, and the great names of the feudal aristocracy became conspicuous among the men who adorned his court. The Duke of Buckingham and his brother nobles were splendid figures at jousts, revels, and “ disguisings,” and remained at court under the king’s eye planning further displays of glittering magnificence instead of in the distant pro­vinces keeping up almost royal state and meditating treason. Though none of the older nobility, except the king’s immediate relatives and the Earls of Oxford and Surrey, obtained important employment in the State, the king’s tact kept them satisfied with their ornamental r61e. Though they were occasion­ally employed as dignified ambassadors on diplomatic missions which called for no special ability, their real mission in life was to shine in the brilliant con­stellation revolving round the throne. It was a definite part of the king’s policy to keep them about the court, and it appears that their absence attracted his notice and made him suspicious.² Henry’s example was followed by his successors, who in herited from him an ineradicable and perhap excusable jealousy of the great aristocrats. At m period of English history were the nobles more con spicuous at court, yet at no period had they les real power in the State.

This ornamental nobility was balanced by a ne^ official class. Merchant blood ran in the veins of th Tudors themselves, and gave them sympathy witl men of non-noble birth. The important offices o State were given to men of comparatively obscur birth, who owed everything to the king and had m traditions of aristocratic independence behind them Men like Morton, Fox, and Warham obtained th dignity necessary for their exalted office by holdinj high ecclesiastical rank, and their success encouraget talented men of humble birth to hope for simila careers. Bray, Empson, Dudley, and Wolsey wen all men of the non-noble class who found their wai to office under Henry VII. His choice of middle class ministers was imitated by his successors, an< though he personally created few new peerages, ; patent of nobility was often the reward of service ti the State in the later Tudor period. The new nobility as it has been called, owes its origin to the policy of Henry VII.

As Henry amassed wealth and set on foot splendic traditions, the gulf between royalty and the aris tocracy widened. This process of exalting the roya dignity continued. His children did not marr among the English nobles, as had been the unfor tunate tradition, but among the other royal house of Europe. After Warwick had been executed, little of the blood royal flowed in the veins of subjects. The Crown withdrew to a position of splendid isola­tion, and its strength was unchallengeable by any.,¹ noble or group of nobles.

Even the Church, with all its great traditions behind it, became a support of despotism, not a bul­wark of freedom. Though the hierarchy was as strong as ever in wealth and estates, the Church was rapidly losing its power with the people. The advent of the critical spirit of the Renaissance, the revival of insular hostility to a body under the control of Rome, the secularisation of the Church, the decline of the monastic ideal, and the scandals of sanctuary and benefit of the clergy, deprived the Church of influence and involved her in unpopularity. By the humiliation of the baronage and the weakness of the Papacy the Church had lost its former allies, its natural leaders had become the king’s servants, and it sank into dependence on the Crown, bringing to it all the dead weight of its vast possessions.

The position of the Crown gained strength from the intellectual revival. The Renaissance brought with it the revived study of the Roman civil law with its imperial language and absolutist sentiment.

“ What is pleasing to the prince has the force of law,” ¹ became a familiar maxim, and a growing band of scholars looked to the king for patronage and reward. The ideas of Macchiavelli’s II Principe and the rule of the Italian despots had familiarised Europe with the sight of the autocrat whose sceptre was adorned with the graces of art and literature.

The power of a monarchy that thus represented the popular will early gathered round it national sentiment. “ No one but a Tudor poet,” it has been said,¹ “ would have thought of the ‘ Divinity that doth hedge a king' or have written :

“ Not all the water in the rough rude sea

Can wash the balm from an anointed king.

The breath of worldly men cannot depose

The deputy elected by the Lord.”

Under the dynasty founded by Henry the people had the opportunity of looking at the best and strongest side of the theory of kingship, and it is not by accident that Shakespeare and the rest of the Elizabethan dramatists are silent about the elected representatives of the people while they idealise and dignify the monarch. It is curious to notice how the reverence for and awe of the Crown deepened as the reign went on. Henry deliberately fostered this by his personal dignity and aloofness from the common people, and by the growth of splendour and cere­monial at his court. It is not for nothing that the word “ Majesty ” appears first in this reign. The king deliberately set himself to hedge his throne by all outward forms and observances. “ He had nothing in him of vainglory,” wrote Bacon, “ but yet kept state and majesty to the height, being sensible that majesty maketh the people bow.”

Henry’s relations with Parliament introduce the most characteristic feature of the despotism he founded. A series of pliant Parliaments gave a legal colour to the methods of Tudor government, and enforced the royal will through their legislation. Though in Henry’s time the system of legalising absolutism did not reach its climax, it was he who established the tradition. The king succeeded in making Parliament subservient without resorting to clumsy methods of corruption. His dealings with the legislature were not according to any of the former models. His Lancastrian descent and immediate summons of Parliament may have- raised hopes that the king was going to tread in the way of his Lan­castrian ancestors, and that the age of Parliamentary government had returned. But the king’s scheme was very different. He chose a middle way between the too great dependence on a popular assembly associated with the weak rule of Henry VI. and the hatred or contempt for Parliament shown by Edward IV. and Richard III. He originated a method which, while it preserved the time-honoured forms of Parliamentary liberty, secured the practical pre­dominance of the royal will.

It is Henry’s success in using the power he had acquired over Parliament to secure a legal basis for his despotism and arm it with still further powers that is the most novel feature of his rule. Men were familiar with tyranny, and familiar with Parlia­mentary government, but the blend of the forms of liberty and the fact of absolutism was new. At the beginning, at all events, everything was done under legal forms. It was not until the king had furnished himself with new weapons forged for him by Parlia­ment, and had hedged round his dynasty with every legislative sanction his ingenuity could devise, that he abandoned his Parliamentary ally, and resorted to the more obvious and usual methods of absolutism.

How was this subservience of Parliament obtained ? Not in the main by any underhand juggling with the electorate, or any political wire-pulling, but by that practical coincidence between the will of the king and the wishes of the people’s representatives to which allusion has before been made. Satisfied of their unity of aim, Henry’s complaisant Parliaments put into his hands powerful weapons against their common foes, and thdr trust in him made them sanction some of his most arbitrary actions. On most points the identity of interests was obvious, and with con­summate tact the king avoided collision on the points where harmony between Crown and people was not complete.¹ Finance was almost the only question upon which difficulty arose, and it was the king’s reluctance to arouse the opposition of Parliament and the people by asking for large supplies that drove him to the questionable financial expedients of the later part of the reign.

The king, it may be noticed, was not without many sources of influence which he could have used to restore harmony, if any hint of popular opposition were revealed. In this connection the Lower House is the more important. The Upper House reflected in its political nullity the practical weakness of the nobility. Never had the House of Lords been more dependent on the Crown and less a feature of the constitution. This was not due to the extermination of the baronage, a picturesque view of the result of the battles of the Roses that has long been abandoned. Though only eighteen temporal peers sat in Henry’s first Parliament, the number afterwards rose to the usual level of about forty.² They were, however, outnumbered by the spiritual peers, who were more than usually dependent on the Crown, and the House of Lords became a negligible factor in the constitu­tional situation.

Many of the sources of influence over the Commons discovered by Henry VII. were little used by him, owing to his success in avoiding causes of conflict with Parliament, but they are interesting as anticipations of later methods. The appointment of the Speaker was practically in Henry’s hands, though theoretically he was elected by the Commons. The list of Speakers for the reign, Lovell, Mordaunt, Sir Thomas Fitz- William, Empson, Robert Drury, Thomas Inglefield, and finally Dudley, at the height of his unpopularity —all men who were devoted to the king’s interests —proves how strong Henry’s hold over Parliament was. The fact that the Speaker then managed the whole business of the House, very much in the way that the modern leader of the House does, but in the interests of the Crown not of a party, gave the king considerable influence over proceedings in the Commons. There is little evidence of attempts to control elections either directly, by the use of royal influence, or indirectly, through putting pressure on local magnates. Neither is there any evidence of the creation of new boroughs on royal estates, a favourite method with Henry’s successors. The king’s policy gave him a position independent of such devices. There is evidence, however, of influence in another direction. Nearly all the new charters granted to boroughs during the reign restricted the electoral bodies in the towns. The case of Leicester, where the change introduced by charter was confirmed by Parliament,¹ is a fair example. There the elective body which chose the town officials and the members of Parliament was reduced to forty-eight, on the plea that “ through the ‘ exclamacions and hedinesse of persons of lytel substance ’ the elections had been scenes of riot and disorder.” ² This action, taken on the king’s own personal responsibility, is one of the first cases of the tampering with borough franchises, which was elaborated in the later Tudor period when popular independence was reviving.

Owing to the infrequent and brief sessions of Parliament, most members of the House of Commons lacked initiative, and had no familiarity with Parlia­mentary business. They had no leaders, no discipline or party organisation, no ground of common action, no burning grievances to rouse them to resist a king who had a reputation for wisdom and the monopoly of administrative experience. As a result the House as a whole took little interest in politics. The question of peace or war might arouse some enthusiasm, as in the session of 1491, the demand for large supplies might and did arouse discussion. But with regard to general legislation Parliament was apathetic, and at the same time trusted the king completely. The interests of both appeared identical, and there is no record of opposition even to the measures which invested the king with almost despotic powers.

From the first Henry found Parliament a willing tool. The brief Act recognising the king’s title gave an idea of the kind of thing that was to follow. His right to reign was acknowledged not bestowed by Parliament. The voice of Parliament was Henry’s voice, the peti­tions he graciously granted he had himself inspired. The lead given by this first Parliament was followed by its successors. The various Acts of Attainder by which the king made the representatives of the people share the responsibility for the punishment of his foes,¹ the Acts of Resumption, and the Star Chamber Act led up to the legislation of the Parliament of 1495 (called by one writer “ the obedient Parliament ”)— legislation which affords very strong proof of the extraordinary advance in the power of the Crown since the beginning of the reign. The Act legalising benevolences placed an arbitrary exaction of the king’s on the same footing as a tax imposed by the strictest constitutional forms, the Act setting up the informer system, which will be discussed below, gave the king an opportunity of making a profit out of the judicial administration of which he at once took full advantage. This Parliament, strongly monarchical in tendency, is the forerunner of the servile Parlia­ments of Henry VIII. The last Parliament of the reign, called after a long interval during which the king’s despotic power had grown through years of non-resistance, went further still. The Act of 1504 gave the king the power of reversing attainders by letters patent.² By this extraordinary statute, the unopposed passing of which is a measure of Parliamentary confidence in, as well as obedience to, the king, Henry found himself able to perform the highest act of sovereignty and annul at his pleasure an Act of Parliament passed with all proper for­malities.

All this Henry had accomplished without doing any injury to the forms of the constitution. His new plant of Parliamentary despotism had taken root. “ He did much to maintain and countenance his laws,” writes Bacon, “ which (nevertheless) was no impediment to him to work his will.” The writers who have credited him with the desire to set up in England a despotism of the continental type appear to miss the very features which made the Tudor monarchy a success. The bodyguard, the spy system, and so on were accidents rather than attri­butes of his despotism.

Only the outstanding features of the legislation passed by Henry through his complaisant Parlia­ments can be dealt with here. Legislation aimed at political disturbances and social disorder takes up many pages of the statute-book. The oath against livery and maintenance, already noticed,¹ was fol­lowed by legislation which gives a picture of serious disorder. The Act “ against unlawful hunting in forests and parks ” ² refers to the facts that “ Divers persons in grete nombre som with paynted faces som with Visors and otherwise disguised to thentent they shuld not be knowen riotously and in manner of Werre arraied” had hunted by night as well as by day in the forests and parks, especially in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, and the result had been “ rebellions, insurrections, riots, robberies, murders, and other inconveniences.” It was enacted that offenders should be brought before any member of the king’s council, or any justice of the peace, night hunting being made a felony.¹ An “Acte against Murderers ” ² recited the neglect of the law “ and how murders and the slaying of the king’s subjects daily increase in the land,” and enacted that murderers should be proceeded against at the king’s suit within the year, and that there should no longer be the delay of a year and a day—the time allotted for an appeal by the relatives of the slain. Townships were to be amerced for the escape of murderers; coroners were given a fee of 13s. 4d. for every inquest they held, a penalty of 100s. being imposed upon them for neglect to hold an inquest. The last provisions were directed against the notorious slackness of the coroners, which had resulted in much crime going unpunished.

By another Act single justices of the peace were de­prived of the power of allowing bail to prisoners, which had been much abused in favour of powerful offenders, “ wherby many murdrers and felons eschaped to the greate displeasure of the king.” Two justices had to agree to allow bail, and the fact had to be certified at the next sessions or gaol delivery. This Act and others like it amount practically to a restate­ment of the ordinary duties of local officials, but the heavy fines which punished culpable neglect of duty were novelties. The disturbed state of society is further illustrated by the necessity for an Act of Parliament which made the violent abduction and marriage of women of property a felony.

The abuses of benefit of clergy and of sanctuary—another grave danger—were limited. Benefit of clergy then extended to all who could read, and thus exempted a horde of criminals from the sterner justice of the secular courts. An Act of 1490 only allowed benefit of clergy once to any offender who was not actually in orders, and provided that if his offence were murder or felony he was to be branded on his left thumb with the letters M or T. If subse­quently indicted he was to lose his benefit of clergy. By later statutes soldiers who deserted from the army, or servants who killed their masters, were entirely deprived of benefit of clergy. Contempo­rary opinion declared that the king had been led to pass these Acts owing to the much more satisfactory state of affairs in France.

The right of sanctuary was a similar menace to good government. Any church could shelter an offender from his pursuers for forty days, and certain specially privileged places could give sanctuary for an unlimited period. In 1487 an Act of Parliament was passed to prevent the privilege of sanctuary being abused by debtors in order to defraud their creditors. The opinion of the judicial bench, as well as popular feeling, was hostile to these dangerous privileges, and in the case of Humphrey Stafford (1487) the judges decided that sanctuary could not protect an offender accused of high treason.² This put a powerful weapon into the king’s hands, and his position was strengthened by the bulls which his cordial relations with the Papacy enabled him to obtain from three Popes in succession. A bull issued by Innocent VIII., and confirmed by Alexander VI. in 1493, deprived a robber or murderer who left sanctuary and committed a second offence of its benefits, and authorised the king’s officers to take him out of sanctuary. At the same time the bull contained a provision, very important from Henry’s point of view, that in the case of a fugitive sus­pected of high treason taking sanctuary, his place of refuge might be surrounded by guards to prevent his escape. In 1504 another bull forbade the reception of criminals who had left sanctuary into any other refuge, and provided that all criminals might be watched by royal guards when in sanctuary.

The bitter fruit of years of tumult and disorder could not be destroyed at once by Act of Parliament. Henry’s task of restoring order seemed an endless one. Quite late in the reign native as well as foreign observers were commenting on the prevalence of crime and violence. Though the sight of twenty thieves hanging on one gallows was not unique, theft was “ ryffe and rancke ” everywhere.

The streets of London were thronged with beggars and with idle gentlemen who, said More, “carrye about with them at their tails a great flock or train of idle and loytering serving men . . . who jette through the street with a bragging look and think themselves too good to be any man’s mate.” Such men when they lost their masters had no trade but theft.

Much of the disorder was caused by the lack of employment due to the increase of sheep-farming, the disbanding of the liveried retainers, and by the spread of luxury and ostentation, “ the strange and proude newefanglenes in apparel, prodigall riot and sumptuous fare . . . the many noughtie, lewde, and unlawfull games that send the haunters of them streyghte a stealynge when theyr money is gone.”¹

Further, a host of vexatious law-suits, the legacy of civil war, had cropped up to harass the landlord. No one felt his title secure, but much was done to restore a feeling of confidence by the Statute of Fines.² The fine, which under the original Act of Edward I. had been an unchallengeable way of conveying land,³ had by a later statute (noun chaque) lost this ter- minative effect. The former efficacy of the fine was restored by Henry’s statute, with increased pre­cautions against fraud. The theory that this statute was an instance of Henry’s craft and foresight, that it beguiled the nobility into impoverishing themselves by making alienations easy, was the product of Bacon’s fancy, and though often repeated is now abandoned. As a matter of fact the Act is only a re-enactment of an earlier Act of Richard III., and its ostensible purpose of providing a method of securing a doubtful title to land was its real one. Its later use by lawyers as a convenient method of alienating entailed land could hardly have been fore­seen by Henry, and was of little importance until considerably later.

Of all the statutes which aimed at restoring order to the distracted country, the famous Star Chamber Act of 1487 is the most important.¹ The preamble gives a vivid picture of the evils the statute proposed to remedy. “ The Kyng oure sovereygn Lord re- membreth howe by onlawfull mayntenance gevyng of lyveres signes and tokyns and reteyndres by endentur promyses othes writyng or otherwise, em- bracieries of his subgettes ontrue demeanynges of Shrevys in makyng of panelles and other ontrewe retournes by takyng of money by jurryes by greate riotts and unlawfull assemblez the polacye and good rule of this realme is almost subdued . . . wherby the lawes of the lond in execution may take litell effecte, to the encres of murdres, robberies, perjuries and unsuerties of all men lyvyng and losses of their londes and goodes.”

By this Act the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, and the Lord Privy Seal, or any two of them, were empowered to summon a bishop and a temporal lord of the king’s council with the chief justices of the king’s bench and of the common pleas, or in their absence two other judges, and form a court to con­sider any bill or information laid against any one for misbehaviour of the kind stated in the preamble. They were given authority to summon the offenders to appear before them by writ or privy seal, to examine and punish them as if they had been con­victed by one of the ordinary courts of law. At the same time the justices of the peace were to order in­quiries to be made by special juries with a 40s. qualifica­tion as to the concealment of offences by other inquests.

By later Acts, as will be seen below, the sphere of this court (which, though not designated by the name of the Star Chamber in the Act of 1487, may, for the sake of convenience, be called by that name) was considerably enlarged. Acts of 1495 provided that “ heinous riots ” were to be reported to the Star Chamber by justices of the peace, that cases of perjury were to come before it, and that appeals could be brought to it in criminal cases. In 1504 a new Act against retainers mentioned the Star Chamber. It gradually attracted business of a very varied char­acter. Quarrels between the Merchant Adventurers and the Staplers, gild disputes, cases of usury and forgery, and disputes over enclosures were brought before it, and thus a court of the king’s servants had in its hands the commercial and industrial interests of the people.¹ The vast increase in the power of the king, who by a court set up outside the ordinary jurisdiction could thus control the daily lives of his subjects, can hardly be exaggerated.

This Act is another of the cases in which originality of device cannot be claimed. It has been pointed out that it derived its “ statutory pedigree ” from an Act of 1453, which empowered the Chancellor to sum­mon rioters before the Council,² and further the Act of 1487 only adapted for particular cases powers derived from a much older source, the authority exercised by the king’s Council in its judicial capacity. But though it did not set up the “ Star Chamber,” nor introduce any startling novelty in administrative machinery, the Act was of first-rate importance for practical purposes. It converted a temporary and abandoned experiment into part of the permanent machinery of government. The process sketched out in the reign of Henry VI. was hardened and defined. The Act increased the number of offences with which the Council had the clear authority of Parliament to deal, legalised the issue of writs of privy seal, long a subject of contention between king and Parliament, and extended to a number of specified offences the partly abandoned power of the Council to examine defendants on oath. Like other engines of Tudor absolutism, the court of Star Chamber was a despotic excrescence growing out of constitutional usage, and sacrificing the forms of justice in particular cases to the good of the State. There is little doubt that its action in the early days of the Tudors was almost uniformly beneficent. It touched a class of offenders against whom the ordinary courts were powerless, res­cued weak suitors from the tyranny of juries bribed or coerced by the local magnates, and substituted for the decision of a venal official, or the verdict of a corrupt or coerced jury, the judgment of uninterested and highly-placed statesmen. Rapid and effective action took the place of the delays by which legal process had often been made a denial of justice. The simplicity of its procedure swept away technicalities, anomalies, and injustice. “ It was a law unto itself, with hands free to invent new remedies for every new disease of the body politic.” ¹ The enthusiasm of Lambarde, who wrote of the Star Chamber as “ this most noble and praiseworthy court, the beams of whose bright justice do blaze and spread themselves as far as the realme is wide,” is a sufficient contrast to the whole­sale denunciations of it current in the seventeenth century. But the points that made for its usefulness in the reign of Henry VII., led to the defects that produced its condemnation later. The temporary supersession of the jury system, the condemnation of the accused on written evidence, without the oppor­tunity of being confronted with witnesses, its rapid methods, the growing practice of examining the de­fendant in secret and subjecting him to torture under a licence obtained from the Privy Council, all these things were liable to become weapons of arbitrary tyranny. Its very freedom from formalism and re­luctance to consider itself bound by its own pre­cedents, the elasticity that had made the court valuable in the early period, were twisted into arbitrariness and illegality. The court that had been the safeguard of the weak and a security for order in unquiet times, degenerated in less able hands and more peaceful times into the weapon of weak cruelty, and it finally perished in well-earned ignominy.

The legislation of the Parliament summoned in the autumn of 1495, after Warbeck’s raid on the shores of Kent, reflects the critical character of the situa­tion. The Act which promised security to those who supported the king de facto is important as a measure of the king’s uneasiness, rather than for its effect in reassuring his subjects.¹ Other Acts were more important. There was a great dread of violence, of some upheaval within the kingdom that would drive the king from his throne.² During the late disorders local officials had proved themselves incapable. The jury system was under a cloud; sheriffs and justices of the peace were corrupt and careless. If the king’s throne was to survive exter­nal dangers, the internal administration must be reformed. Very important legislation was passed through Parliament which still further increased the control of the Crown over local institutions. The Star Chamber Act had already provided for the trial of sheriffs who had neglected their duty, but this Parliament went further, and a new statute imposed heavy fines on such offenders. The Act also pro­vided a check upon the justices of the peace, by ordering that complaints against them were to be taken to the justices on assize or to the king and chancellor — that is, to the Star Chamber. The preamble of the Act stated the king’s wish “ that his subjects should live at peace under his laws and increase in riches and well-being,” but the Act was not repealed when the danger was over.¹

Other statutes, as we have seen, extended the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber to perjury, in cases touching the king,² and re-affirmed its powers in con­nection with “heinous riots.” ³ Another Act, evidently passed with a view of diminishing the number of vagrants, who became a grave political danger in this year of crisis, provided that all beggars incapable of work should be returned to their own hundreds. The severe penalties imposed by an Act of Richard III. were abrogated, and the vagrant was to be set in the stocks for three days on the first offence and for six days on the second offence. Scholars, soldiers, and sailors who begged were required to show a licence from the governing body of their university or from their commanding officers.⁴ This statute, which seems to anticipate the later distinctions between able and impotent beggars, was evidently successful.

Perkin Warbeck found no crew of vagabonds and out-of-works to support him, and in 1504 it was found possible to reduce the penalties upon vagrancy to a day and a night in the stocks.¹

The Star Chamber statute had not completed the reform of the jury system, and still more drastic treatment was required. An Act of 1495 set up machinery by which appeal might be made from the verdict of a jury. In civil cases the appeal lay to a special jury of twenty-four summoned to hear the appeal, and if the verdict of the original jury was reversed each member of it was fined £20. In criminal cases appeal lay to the Star Chamber, which thus obtained control of the whole criminal adminis­tration of the country.² In 1504 this legislation, which had been passed for a term of years only, was renewed as to civil appeals but not as to criminal appeals.³ It has been suggested that Henry had the settled purpose of destroying the jury system—that typically English institution that was so much mis­understood by contemporary foreign observers ⁴—but as usual the evidence of sinister design is absent. In civil cases he arranged for appeal from one jury to another, and the legislation as to criminal appeals was not renewed during the reign. As a matter of fact, however, it appears that criminal appeals were still occasionally taken to the Star Chamber in spite of the lapse of the legal authorisation. In 1504 the laws against livery and maintenance were strengthened by a statute which imposed fines for breaches of the earlier Act, and gave a certain inquisitorial power to justices of the peace, who were ordered to summon before them any they should “ thynke to be suspect of any reteynour.”

The effect of these centralising statutes can hardly be exaggerated. They introduced the efficient local administration which became one of the features of Tudor rule. The king enlisted in his service all the political capacity he could find, placing much reliance on the minor country gentry who became the props of the Tudor throne, and, though his government was high-handed, it was strong and dependable. The excesses of the local tyrants, the cramping fetters of the exclusive corporations, gave way before the power of the king. Many despots had given place to one— a despot enlightened by practice in ruling, and broadened by considering the nation as a whole.

Side by side with the Star Chamber, Henry set up, or rather established on a permanent footing, a court which is less well known. The Court of Requests, the “ poor man’s court of equity,” aimed at providing a summary tribunal for the adjustment of civil cases under the rules of equity. Like the Star Chamber, it is an offshoot of the Council, but it bears clear marks of the theory that made the king the fountain of justice, in the fact that for a long time it followed the king on his progresses through the kingdom. This practice was gradually given up, though an isolated instance has been found as late as 1544, and the legal element grew stronger as time went on. The court seems to have been popular as well as effective, and its reorganisation is a proof of the king’s tenderness for his poorer subjects.¹

The volume and importance of all this legislation supports the familiar paradox that the Tudor des­potism saved the essence of Parliamentary govern­ment.² Henry VII. roused Parliament from a state of impotence. In the reign of Edward IV. Parlia­ment “ seemed to have nothing better to do than to regulate the manufacture of cloth. ... If for a moment it can raise its soul above defective barrels of fish and fraudulent gutter tiles this will be in order to prohibit ‘ cloish, kayles, half bowl ’ ” and other unlawful games.³ Henry brought Parliament back from the contemplation of particular and local in­terests to the great affairs of the nation. It is true that Parliament only entered upon its new and im­portant work under the heavy hand of a master ; but experience in dealing by legislation with great national questions would have been cheaply pur­chased by the sacrifice of independent powers of regulating the “ making of worsteds ” or the herring trade. But even this sacrifice Parliament did not have to make. The new work of becoming the instru­ment of despotism thrust upon the national assembly by Henry VII. did not absorb all its energies. Its activity in the regulation of special trades continued. The Statute Rolls of Henry VII. make curious read­ing. Legislation making great constitutional changes comes side by side with Acts prescribing punishments for those who stuffed beds with “ improper feathers,” restraining the evil practices of itinerant pewterers, or ordering the repair of Bristol pavements.¹ The share in government (or at all events in legalising the Acts of government) was given to Parliament by Henry VII. for his own personal convenience, but it brought about results of the highest importance. The king brought Parliament back to the old line of development inter­rupted by two generations of anarchy. He started it on a course which made it a natural develop­ment for Parliament to alter the national religion, become supreme in finance, and ultimately, by changing the succession, to obtain control of the executive government. The system of the first Tudor despot contained in it the essence of Parlia­mentary monarchy.

Henry’s financial policy invites both admiration and criticism. The latter it has obtained in abundant measure ; the sensational faults of the later have obscured the patient, meritorious work of the earlier years. In some respects Henry’s treatment of finance was the most difficult—though perhaps the most successful—of all the work he did for England. He found the country exhausted, the exchequer empty, even the crown jewels in pawn. He maintained a precarious throne against foreign and domestic foes, kept up a splendid court, and yet left a fabulous treasure to his son. His extraordinary success was not due to the accident of a general economic recovery in England, or to the brilliant and original devices of a financial genius. Neither was it the result of the painful accumulations of a throned miser ;² the king’s personal expenditure was lavish, his court was magnificent, his rewards to followers generous, his prefer­ence of public policy to private gain constant. He was a generous host and a liberal ally.¹ His success was the result of improved management, careful account-keeping, constant attention to detail, and judicious economy.

In his reorganisation of the ordinary sources of revenue, Henry showed the skill of a born financier. Of these sources the Crown lands were the most important.

Though the vast estates of York and Lancaster had been added to the Crown lands, the ruinous wars, and the extravagance of both Lancastrian and Yorkist kings had led to great alienations of territory. Heavy mortgages encumbered many estates, and land and buildings were neglected and ruinous. In the very first month of his reign, Henry showed his char­acteristic grasp of the detail of finance, and before he met his first Parliament he had the management of the Crown lands at his fingers’ ends. In September, when he had been only a week or two in his capital, he was arranging for the repair of royal castles in Chester and Flint, and appointing loyal followers as keepers of other strongholds. New stewards and bailiffs of royal manors were appointed, new parkers and masters of the game in the royal forests. From Berwick to Cornwall we find evidence of the king’s activity.² Revenues from Crown lands, hitherto paid into the Exchequer, were transferred to the control of special commissioners in order to avoid delay. The leases under which Crown lands were held were reviewed, and nearly all the new leases provided for the payment of “ improved rents ” in addition to the former rents.¹ Repairs were under­taken at Windsor, Westminster, and the Tower of London; order was brought out of chaos, and waste and neglect restored. The Crown lands were con­stantly augmented during the reign by the forfeitures of traitors and rebels, though the harsh action of these confiscations was mitigated by limitations in favour of widows and heirs.² The first Parliament of the reign passed an Act of Resumption restoring to the Crown all lands alienated since 2nd October 1455. Other Acts followed later, and finally the “ obedient Parliament ” displayed its subservience by restoring to the Crown property alienated as far back as the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.³

The result was that Henry had in his hands an accumulation of landed property far greater in extent than any king before him, which, besides increasing his income, added to his already vast power. These great lands supported a small army of servants and officials, disciplined and devoted to the king’s service, and provided lucrative posts with which the king augmented the scanty salaries of ambassadors and other State officials.⁴ There are not sufficient data for an exact statement of the revenue received by Henry from the Crown lands, but the well-informed Italian observer was not very far out when he esti­mated it at 547,000 crowns (£109,000).¹

The profitable incidents of a dying feudalism, wardships, marriages and reliefs, formed a considerable but diminishing item of the royal revenue. In addi­tion Henry expected freeholders owning land worth £40 to take up the honours and burdens of knight­hood, and towards the end of the reign Empson’s notorious activity was displayed in searching out and fining defaulters. The later years of the reign, fertile in financial expedients, produced also a revival of the royal claim for aids on the knighting of the king’s eldest son and the marriage of his eldest daughter. In 1504 Henry claimed both these aids, though Prince Arthur was dead and Princess Margaret had been married for some years. There was considerable opposition in Parliament, led, it is said, by Thomas More.² With characteristic tact Henry disarmed opposition, and contented himself with a smaller sum than that offered by the Commons.³

A third source of revenue was the customs duties. Henry’s first Parliament showed itself generous in this matter, and, following the precedent set in the reign of Richard III., granted tonnage and poundage to the king for life.⁴ The king’s far-sighted and disinterested commercial policy was rewarded by a steady increase in the customs duties, which by the end of the reign had reached a total of over £40,000, a rise of twenty-eight per cent.

But these sources of revenue were barely adequate. The old maxim “ that the king should live on his own ” could only be translated into practice by the most careful management in time of peace. The constitutional method of obtaining the money required for imminent or actual war or for any extraordinary expenses was by Parliamentary grant. There are records of only five such grants during the reign, and it is obvious, from the tone of the preambles, that these grants were still regarded as exceptional provisions for a national emergency, rather than as an ordinary part of the revenue of the Crown. The usual form of the levy was that of a tax of a tenth and fifteenth, which, though origi­nally arranged as an income tax on inhabitants of corporate towns and of rural districts—roughly corre­sponding to a tax upon personal and real estate- had been fixed since 1332 on the basis of that year’s levy, and consequently produced a sum of about £38,000. This form of tax was open to grave objec­tions. The changes in the centres of population and the decay of once flourishing towns necessitated very large remissions in the contributions assessed upon certain places. The levy therefore could not be col­lected in its entirety, and as the new towns were not separately assessed, it certainly did not represent the taxable capacity of the people. In his first Parlia­ment Henry VII. made an experiment of some im­portance, and tried to supersede the antiquated assessment by a new levy. It took the form of a grant of the tenth part of each man’s annual income from land, with Is. 8d. from every ten marks of personal property.¹ This attempt to supersede the old fixed levy proved a complete failure, probably through the absence of any suitable system of valua­tion and assessment, and the king, instead of the estimated £75,000, obtained only about £25,000. In the following year the old system was restored, a fifteenth and a tenth being voted to make up the deficit. In 1491 two-fifteenths and tenths were granted, and were followed by a rising in Yorkshire ; in 1495 Parliament was not asked for a new vote, but the crisis of 1497 produced two separate grants of two-fifteenths and tenths—about £120,000. This exceptionally heavy tax led to the march of the Cornishmen on the capital. The king found that the limit of Parliamentary taxation had been reached. Only once again in the remaining years of his reign did Henry ask Parliament for a grant, and this took the form of the feudal aids above mentioned.¹ Henry found that his power of imposing his will upon Parlia­ment had its limits, and he discovered easier ways of raising money that fostered instead of irritating his despotic temper.

Some of these were innocent enough. He devised his own very successful methods of making wars and rumours of wars a source of profit. The greater part of the large vote obtained from Parliament for the French campaign was saved by the Treaty of Etaples, which itself added a punctually paid French pension to the king’s income. The Scotch invasion was used in the same way.¹ Another irregular but not illegal device was that of granting new privileges to cities and trading companies in return for a money grant. London bought new privileges for £5000 in 1478, but in 1505 had to pay 5000 marks for a con­firmation of them.

The king was not too proud to embark in more obviously commercial speculations on his own account, and various notes of the profits obtained by royal trading in wine, wool, and tin have been preserved.²

In emergencies the king asked for and obtained loans from his subjects, from great cities, and from private individuals. He obtained loans from the city of London four or five times—amounting in 1487-8 to £6000—but these loans were always repaid.³

After the critical period of the reign was over, financial methods gradually degenerated. Arbitrary and novel financial expedients were substituted for the routine of Parliamentary grants. The king had the common-sense gift of adapting his methods to his circumstances. He walked softly in the early days of insecurity, but, his throne once secured, the auto­cratic bias of his race appeared. He became impatient of the constitutional methods that with small results brought bitter hostility. In finance as elsewhere the years 1495-8 are the turning-point, and the evils increased as the reign went on. Even in the time of Morton and Bray, however, financial methods were not above suspicion. The benevolence taken in 1491 in anticipation of the French war had the quasi-legal sanction of a Great Council. Private individuals who were reputed to be wealthy were approached by specially appointed royal commissioners, and asked to contribute to the king’s necessities definite sums fixed with reference to their supposed property. It is in connection with these benevolences that the Chancellor won unenviable fame as the supposed in­ventor of the profitable dilemma of “ Morton’s fork.” The assumption of a free-will gift barely veiled the true nature of these demands, but a few years later, in 1495, Parliament gave a legal basis to the tax and empowered the king to collect arrears.¹ It was a fatally easy way of raising money, produced large sums with the minimum of general discontent, and kept in check men whose wealth might have made them formidable.²

Benevolences, though strictly speaking illegal, were not glaringly so, and they had the sanction of custom. But in later years Henry’s methods became more and more questionable.

The darker side of the financial history of the reign gathers round the names of Empson and Dudley, described by Hall as “ two ravenynge wolves ” with a “ garde of false perjured persons apperteignynge to them.” Dudley was a lawyer of a good Sussex family, who had been made a member of the Privy Council soon after the king’s accession. He was a man of great ability. In his book the Tree of the Commonwealth, written in 1509, he warns the young king against the very evils with which his name is associated, denouncing them with the eloquence for which he was famous. Empson, though of humble birth—he was the son of a sieve-maker—had been chosen as Speaker of the Parliament of 1491. As early as 1496 a proclamation of Warbeck’s had pil­loried him as responsible with Fox for the exactions.

From the poverty of the people in general the large fortunes of merchants and others were beginning to emerge. These accumulations of capital were reached by the notorious activities of Empson and Dudley. The evil spread like a canker, and by 1500 they had reduced their practices to a system and were all-powerful in finance. The unscrupulous devices hitherto occasionally adopted grew into habitual ex­tortions. Together they “ turned law and justice into wormwood and rapine ” ; they were “ the king’s horse- leaches and shearers, bold men and careless of fame, and that took toll of their master’s grist.” This vivid phrase is illustrated by many a dark story of oppres­sion and wrong. Brutality and chicanery, espionage and blackmail, were the instruments of their in­genious wickedness ; they terrorised the rich and trampled on law and justice. The possession of wealth was punished as if it were a crime. They drew over England a net which few men of position or substance escaped. The estates of the wards of the Crown were crippled by the exactions of huge fines at their coming of age ; many manors were un­justly claimed as held in chief of the Crown, and owing to the years of civil war, proof to the contrary, if dared, was difficult. The worst feature of the whole sordid business was the perversion of law and justice by the infliction of enormous fines for the breach of old statutes that mouldered forgotten, and it is probable that Empson and Dudley were themselves the origi­nators of this policy of extortion under cover of the law that they carried to such shameful lengths. The worst features appeared after 1495, when an Act was passed allowing judges to initiate proceedings for minor offences on the information of private indi­viduals. As a result a vile mob of informers sprang up to drag innocent offenders against a forgotten code into the clutches of their money-making machine. Upon these “dishonest, cunningly-devised, and false accusations ” huge fines were imposed.¹ The perse­cution of William Capell, of Thomas Kneysworth, the Lord Mayor, and the ruin brought upon Sir Robert Plumpton, of which we have details,² gives us an idea of the treatment of a host of forgotten men who suffered from a similar abuse of the king’s office as the foundation of justice. The necessary verdicts were obtained from juries by a system of mingled terrorism and bribery. Letters came down to sheriffs directing them in the way they should go, obstinate jurors were fined and imprisoned, and the Privy Council dictated verdicts to the judges. The inventors of these corrupt devices were themselves corrupt—“ They preyed upon the people both like tame hawks for their master and like wild hawks for themselves,” and the victim who got caught in the new fiscal machinery could sometimes obtain his release by bribing one of the presiding mechanics. “ Noble men grudged, meane men kycked, poore men lamented, preachers openly at Paules Crosse and other places exclamed, rebuked and detested, but yet they would never amende.” In spite of the popular hatred of the king’s jackals, the system was continued to the end of the reign.

The fact that it was hugely profitable would per­haps have been sufficient for Henry, but even con­temporaries could see in the king’s methods something more than wholesale robbery. Polydor Vergil noticed that the king singled out the very wealthy for his attentions, more with a view of keeping them humble than from covetousness; and Ayala that the king feared that riches would make his sub­jects insolent,¹ Henry had to the full the Tudor jealousy of subjects who had great wealth or a great position. A phrase of More’s sums up the king’s attitude: “ No abundance of gold can be sufficient for a prince . . . whereas on the other part neade and povertie doth holde and keep under stowte courages, and maketh them patient perforce, takynge from them bolde and rebellynge stomakes.” He wished to see them all suitably humble, sensible of their dependence on royal favour and unable to compete with the magnificence of the Crown. It seems, how­ever, to be pushing the defence of his hateful methods too far to view them from the standpoint of a struggle with capital.² Though we may agree that the heavy fines which crushed possible opponents were not due to personal avarice, nothing can palliate the abuses which poisoned the stream of justice at its source.

The king’s genuine financial reforms come as a relief after the story of his extortions. When it came to a question of expending his ill-gotten gain, he dropped the character of a highway robber and found himself at home in that of a comfortable, thrifty merchant.

A considerable reform was carried out in Henry’s first Parliament, which provided that £14,000 yearly derived from Crown lands and customs duties should be appropriated to the support of the royal house­hold, and a sum of £2105, 19s. to the expenses of the king’s wardrobe.¹ The change was very popular. It removed the old grievances about excessive pur­veyance for the necessities of the court when on its travels, and did away with the peculations of court officials who had made very inadequate payments for the goods and provisions they took from the people. This system of appropriating fixed sources of re­venue to definite expenses was carried further. The customs of the Staple were assigned to the main­tenance of Calais, and a fixed revenue was allotted for the upkeep of the border forts of Berwick and Carlisle.²

This strict dealing with money was carried through all the spending departments. Accounts were minutely and rigidly kept, and the strictness required from officials bound the king himself. The “ Privy Purse Expenses ” are an example of his account- keeping, though Bacon’s story of the king laboriously jotting down accounts in a note-book he kept at his side, is a caricature of his carefulness.

As a result of savings and exactions, reforms and malpractices, Henry succeeded in his aim of accumu­lating a great treasure. Long before his death his reputation for wealth had spread through Europe. According to one report he had accumulated so much gold that he was supposed “to have more than well nigh all the kings of Christendom ”;¹ and yet at his death he left a huge hoard of treasure, as well as magnificent plate and jewels, to his son.²

In the later years of his reign there was a consider­able change in Henry’s constitutional methods. In spite of the control he had obtained over Parliament, he showed a tendency to govern without even such nominal check. Parliament was only summoned once during the last thirteen years of the reign, and when it met, in 1504, Henry announced that he did not mean to call Parliament together again without “ great necessity and urgent cause.” The reason may perhaps be found in his irregular but lucrative financial methods, and in the impatience of opposition that came from advancing age and familiarity with supreme power. Henry no longer needed Parliament as a subservient ally to give support to an usurping dynasty, and he shirked a conflict over finance as an unnecessary irritation to a powerful monarch whose rule was undisputed and undisturbed. The prestige of the Crown grew with every year that went by without a meeting of the people’s representatives. Parliament met so seldom that it took on the appear­ance of an exceptional and occasional part of the State machinery, the Crown representing the per­manent and vital part of it.

The king’s personal taste for autocratic government came to the front. By the increasing use of letters patent and proclamations he extended the sphere of his personal action. By proclamation he prohibited commercial intercourse with the Netherlands, and by proclamation allowed its renewal.¹ Every year he grasped more power.

His provision for the defence of his throne and kingdom was thorough and effective. In naval affairs he did his usual pioneer work. At his accession there were apparently only four ships owned by the Crown, there was no reserve of naval stores, and pirates roved the Channel unchecked. His reign is a very significant one in the history of the navy. He adopted the policy of building ships for use as men- of-war only, in order to have a nucleus to strengthen the hastily armed ships hired from the merchants. He added to the royal navy the two finest men-of- war ever seen in England, the Henry Grace a Dieu (afterwards known as the Regent) and the Sovereign. Both were built in England under the superintendence of Bray and Guildford, and were launched in 1488 and 1489.² The first dry dock in England was built by Henry at Portsmouth in 1496.¹ With character­istic economy the king adopted a policy of hiring out his men-of-war to merchants when they were not required for the royal service, and the Sovereign once took a trading voyage to the Levant, The effect of the Navigation Laws on the development of the merchant fleet has already been noticed.² Further, he inaugurated the bounty system, a bonus of about 5s. a ton being given to shipbuilders who constructed suitable vessels,³ began a naval storehouse at Green­wich, and started the manufacture of heavy guns in England, usually attributed to Henry VIII.⁴

The navy under Henry VII. became a weapon of offence, not a mere means of transport for troops. In the blockade of Sluys in 1492, and in the height of the Perkin Warbeck difficulty, it did valuable work. But the important point is not the actual exploits of the fleet—though they were creditable enough—but the beginning of the naval development, which, fol­lowed up by Henry VIII. and triumphing under Elizabeth, left to seventeenth and eighteenth century England the ambition for the command of the seas.⁵

Henry’s unambitious land policy made the develop­ment of the army less necessary, and therefore less striking, than that of the navy. Fortune as usual fought for the king. A great change in the art of war was going on. The increasing use of gunpowder reduced the glittering army of feudalism to impotence, and diminished the chances and therefore the frequency of rebellions. The strict watch and ward kept at Calais, Berwick, and the Tower of London—the gates and the key of the kingdom— did not escape foreign observers. In the Tower the king kept a great store of the heavy artillery that decided the fate of thrones, and the gloomy fortress on the river played a great part all through the Tudor period. The Italian observer reported that Henry meant to keep his hold on the realm he had won; he had shown in the crises of his reign “ that if worsted in the open field he would defend himself in the fortresses. . . . He did not mean to wager the Crown on the issue of a single battle.” ¹ By crushing the power of the great nobles, and by suppressing livery and maintenance, he secured control of the ordinary militia and left it without a rival. Thus he was able to put into the field a force which, with the help of a train of artillery, was sufficient to crush the various rebellions. The institution of the yeomen of the guard, the small company of “ proved archers, strong, valiant, and bold men,” that added dignity to the king’s person, attracted considerable notice at the time,² and was later the nucleus of the standing army. There are a few expressions to be found in contem­porary historians which hint at the employment of German mercenaries. Thus medieval traditions and modern methods went hand in hand.

But Henry’s military and naval arrangements were not the key to the situation. His was not a blood­stained military despotism; but a rule that, depending upon statecraft and the balancing of opposing forces, governing by persuasion and insinuation, brought the king into very intimate relations with his subjects, and only at the end showed the bold hand of tyranny. There are many glimpses of the w'ay in which the king’s compelling, if not agreeable, personality swayed events. Royal letters, comparatively few as they are, show how intimate the king’s relations with his sub­jects were. Those who helped him at critical moments received graciously worded letters thanking them for their good and agreeable service.¹ Henry’s influ­ence over those with whom he came personally into contact seems to have been very strong. The king evidently realised the extent of his persuasive power, and was anxious to subject to it men as diverse in character as James of Scotland, the Earl of Kildare, and the Archduke Philip. All the really responsible posts in the kingdom were held by men who constantly came into contact with the king. “ He was affable and both well and fair spoken,” writes Bacon, “ and would use strange sweetness and blandishments where he desired to effect or persuade anything he took to heart.”

But the king’s personal influence was used to coerce as well as to cajole. The true Tudor note, imperious, high-handed, threatening, is often struck in Henry’s letters. Sir William Say, who thought of overawing the next sessions by an “ unlawful assembly and conventicle,” received a peremptory letter from his sovereign, ordering him to come to the king “ to hear his mind in the matter.” ² The bailiffs of Lan­caster who had “ taken lyveries and conysaunces to the great damage of the town ” were terrified by a sharp letter from the king; the men of Leicester who “ of their obstinacie and frowardnes ” presumed to use their own stalls, shambles, and ovens instead of those “ bilded’ for their ease ” (and for the king’s profit!) were roundly rebuked.¹ The whole history of the king’s relations with the great and disaffected city of York are a splendid instance of his autocratic methods.² He did not hesitate to interfere with municipal elections, even in the capital itself, where in 1505 a properly elected sheriff was set aside, and the return of the king’s nominee at a new election ordered and secured.

The deterioration in the method and spirit of Henry’s government in his later years has already been mentioned. It seems as if the king’s character, which shone in adversity, was warped by success. The harsh methods, excusable in danger, became harsher when obedience invited a milder rule. To this period belong the things which have been blots on the king’s fame, the detestable financial methods, the spy system, and the base activity of the informers.

The power of the Crown threatened the liberties it had formerly guarded. A statute of 1495, passed by the Parliament which has so many valuable laws to its credit,³ had introduced the odious system of the in­formers, which was certainly foreign to English juris­prudence. The Act which was passed to provide against the corruption of jurors, authorised any indi­vidual to lay information before any justice of the peace, or assize judge, who could institute proceedings in his own court against the alleged offender, and try the case without a jury. The only safeguard against malicious prosecution was that the informer had to pay the costs of the person wrongfully accused, if he failed to make good his charge,¹ and it appears that this safeguard was often evaded.² By the statute of 1504, inflicting further penalties on maintenance, the same informer system was set in motion. Here we have the first appearance of the sinister machinery of espionage and paid informers which is frequently characteristic of despotism, and the first glimpse of the process by which the court of Star Chamber degenerated into the hated weapon of weak tyranny.

This system of “ secret spials,” the king’s “ flies and familiars,” has earned well-merited obloquy as an excrescence of foreign origin, alien to the English character, foisted by Henry on his people. This system of espionage, which grew out of the dangerous circumstances of the early years, when treason and rebellion were bred in rumour and whisper, suited the darker side of the king’s temper, and was continued long after the dangers that might have partially excused it were over. There are many evidences of its prevalence; Henry’s agents varied from the Scotch nobles, whose repulsive dealings with him have already been noticed, down to the “ monk with a berde,” whose investigations in Ireland met with their inextravagant reward. Even the courts of foreign princes harboured Henry’s spies, and the actions of the English refugees were watched and reported on.³ The man who spoke seditiously of the Crown—“ against our majesty royal ” is the significant phrase used—sat in the pillory and lost his ears.¹ Municipalities were ordered to put down “ contrivers of forged news,” the Bishop of Durham is ordered to search “ the caskettes, males, and tronkkes ” of suspected persons in his franchise.²

And yet such was the strength of his position, that his increasingly despotic rule became increasingly popular. His policy spared the common people and pressed hardly on wealthy individuals, depressed the great nobles and favoured the “ faithful commons,” preserved the constitutional forms of popular freedom, while in individual cases the weight of despotism wrested these forms to the king’s own ends. Working through the venerable forms of the consti­tution, the king allied himself with the most stable and at the same time the most progressive elements of society. Commerce and capitalism, the forces that have been conspicuous in the modem world, were enlisted under Henry’s standard. Every gift of nature and fortune marked him out for kingship, and every nerve was strained by this bold, self- willed, dominating man to secure his grip on the kingdom he had won. He never lost sight of this object. His diplomatic successes, his zeal for peace and chain of marriage alliances, his firm treat­ment of Ireland, and successful commercial policy, all added prestige and security to his despotism. Every success he gained abroad made him more formidable at home. When he died, the great work he had undertaken was done. He altered the balance of the English constitution for more than a century, and left to his successors the fabric of a despotism touched with the Tudor characteristics of popularity and success.

 

IRELAND: THE RENAISSANCE: VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY

 

Ireland at the accession of Henry VII. reproduced in an exaggerated form all the evils of anarchy and violence that were to be found in England. The central government, too weak to check disorder even in England, was powerless to repress outrage in distant Ireland. There tribal war flourished; the yoke of England lay lightly upon the people. The patriarchal system of clan government still remained among the Celtic tribes. The authority of the nominal govern­ment was non-existent outside the English Pale, a strip of territory about thirty miles wide stretching from Dublin to Dundalk along the coast nearest to England. Where the Norman conquerors had landed and first settled, their descendants, the Anglo-Irish nobility, still lived, maintaining their grip upon even this little fraction by building a chain of castles. But Irish influences had leapt the barrier, and the Anglo-Irish lords of the Pale became year by year less English in their habits and sympathies and less alien from the wild Irish who howled outside the Pale. The strife within the ring of castles was bitterer and more constant than the tribal wars without. The two great ruling families—the Butlers and the Geral­dines—had quarrelled with more or less violence for centuries, and the Wars of the Roses had added fuel to the flame. They, of course, took different sides, and attached themselves fanatically to the parties of the red and the white rose, whose fortunes cannot have affected them very deeply.

The power of the English Crown was shadowy enough. English kings had borne the title of Lords of Ireland for hundreds of years; they had taken up the burden of responsibility without power, a burden, it must be confessed, they bore very negligently. It was the custom to delegate the power of the king to a Viceroy or Lord-Lieutenant, who was usually a member of the royal family. The Lord-Lieutenant, however, was but the shadow of a shade. The real power lay with another official. The plan had long been adopted of making the Irish govern themselves by appointing one of the Anglo-Irish lords as Lord- Deputy. It was the holder of this office who exer­cised the only authority that was recognised in Ireland, but the sword of justice in the hand of the Lord-Deputy did not reach beyond the English Pale. Even within the Pale it was the weapon of a faction rather than the arm of the law, and was quite as likely to be used against as for the far-off English king. Authority of a kind, however, the Lord-Deputy certainly had, and the office was therefore a bone of contention among the rival parties. Andre did no injustice to Ireland when he described it as “ a country of savages, a den of thieves and murderers, where there is neither peace, love, nor concord, but only treason and the foulest deeds.”

Thus Henry VII. when he had secured his hold upon England, was faced by an Irish problem as acute as any of its endless line has been. The state of Ireland was a menace to his scarcely established throne. If he were to be safe in England, he must make good his hold upon a country of which he was nominally lord, but where men of his race were safe only on the edge of the country, and where even within this strip the supreme authority was in the hands of the hereditary foes of his house.

Ownership of broad lands in Ireland had given the house of York some influence there. Richard Duke of York’s period of office as Viceroy was a brilliant memory. He had declared for an independent Irish Parliament; his son, the Duke of Clarence, had adopted a similar policy of conciliation, and tradition associated the Yorkists with the dream of Irish in­dependence. The Geraldines, who supported the Yorkist party, were the most powerful family in Ireland. One Earl of Kildare had been Lord-Deputy under Edward IV., and his son had held the office under Richard III. Their rivals, the Lancastrian Butlers, had been disgraced and attainted, and the head of the family, Thomas, Earl of Ormond, was living in England.

The king did not make any changes at first. The Duke of Bedford was given the empty title of Lord- Lieutenant,¹ and the outlawed Butlers were restored to their estates. The Earl of Ormond, who resided in England, became a member of the Council, was appointed chamberlain to the queen, and received a pension and other marks of royal favour. His bastard cousin, Sir James Ormond (who is often called Earl of Ormond by Irish writers), was practically the head of the clan in Ireland, and represented th absent earl.¹

Though the hostility of the Geraldines to a Lan castrian king was unpleasantly certain, Henry dare< not interfere with them. He confirmed the Earl o Kildare in his title of Lord-Deputy; his brother Thomas Fitzgerald, remained Chancellor of Ireland Thus the Yorkist party, defeated in England, wer< still supreme in Ireland, and ready to take any op portunity of thwarting the king. Lambert Simnel’: appearance was an opportunity, and Irish enthusiasn crowned him king in Dublin, and carried him ove] to make his ill-fated attempt on England.²

One or two towns, the most important of whicl was Waterford,³ had held aloof from the pretender but the rest of the country had flaunted its dis loyalty. Every one of note, from the Lord-Deputy anc the archbishop downwards, had dabbled in the plot Henry obviously could not punish the whole countrj as rebels; clemency was the only possible attitude Again he ignored what he could not punish, and the Irish rebels were not included in the attainders oi the English Parliament.⁴ Even after the battle oi Stoke had disposed of Lambert Simnel, the Geraldines in Ireland remained in revolt, and Dublin itself was in their hands. The loyal town of Waterford was rewarded by a letter from Henry himself, giving them permission to capture the Geraldine rebels and seize all their goods bound for Dublin.

In May 1488 the king made his first cautious move towards asserting his authority in Ireland. He en­trusted to Sir Richard Edgecombe, who seems to have been chosen for many delicate negotiations, the difficult task of trying to obtain some security for the future good behaviour of the Anglo-Irish lords. He was directed to receive and pardon those Irish who would submit and take a new oath of allegiance, and to proceed against rebels and traitors. He was also if possible—and this was given a very important place in the detailed instructions he received from the king—to induce the Earl of Kildare by the offer of a safe conduct to come over to England to visit the king. But Kildare excused himself, and Henry’s hope of trying the effect of his personal influence upon the rebellious earl was disappointed. Edgecombe’s mission was fairly successful. The mayors and corporations of Waterford, Kinsale, Drogheda, Trim, and even Dublin took the oath of allegiance, but he had a hard task with Kildare and his followers. The earl kept him waiting in Dublin over a week. When he at last arrived, Edgecombe received him without ceremony, “ and made not reverence and courtesy to him or his followers.” After “ many fayned and unreasonable delays,” the earl and his men, receiving promise of pardon, made their submission. In spite of Edgecombe’s “ right fell and angry words,” they refused to give surety for their good behaviour. “ They would rather become Irish every one of them,” they said, and Henry’s envoy had to content himself with drawing up a strictly worded oath. This did not please Kildare, and had to be modified. The earl, on 21st June 1488, having been “ shriven and assoiled from the curse that he stood in by virtue of the Pope’s Bull,” swore allegiance to Henry, holding his right hand over the host. His followers and the bishops did the same, and a general pardon was pro­claimed.¹ A solemn Te Deum was sung, the church bells rang, and the earl wore a collar of the king’s livery round his neck as he rode through the streets of Dublin When Edgecombe sailed for England at the beginning of August, the widespread disaffection in Ireland was masked under a decent veil of sub­mission and obedience.²

Kildare, emboldened by impunity, set up a reign of terror in Ireland. The Archbishop of Armagh, who, according to his own account, had remained loyal to Henry throughout the Lambert Simnel episode, wrote a letter of complaint bringing serious charges against the earl, and suggesting as a solution of the difficulty that he, the bishop, should be appointed as chancellor to keep the earl in check.³ At the same time Kildare had petitioned Henry for confirmation in his office of Lord-Deputy for a period of nine or ten years, with a salary of £1000. Negotiating through John Estrete, receiver of taxes in Dublin, Henry promised him a safe conduct and favourable consideration of his petition, on condition that he appeared at Henry’s court before the 1st of August 1491.⁴

Nearly a year went by before Kildare wrote, ex­cusing himself for his non-appearance in very dutiful language, on the plea that his presence in Ireland was necessary to settle the feuds between his cousins the Earl of Desmond and the Lord Bourke. He made many protestations of loyalty. “ I beseech humbley your noble grace to be my gracious lord, for I am and shal be durynge my lywe your true knight and never shal be proved otherwise,” and so on. Letters signed by other Irish lords supported his plea, and enlarged on his loyalty and on the fact that the north of Ireland would be destroyed by the king’s Irish enemies in his absence.¹ But almost at the very moment when these dutiful letters were being sent to Henry, Kildare and Desmond were involving themselves in further treachery. The support given by Kildare to Perkin Warbeck, when he appeared in Ireland in the autumn of 1491, has already been noticed.² The king at last felt himself strong enough to punish Kildare’s treachery, and on 11th June 1492, Walter, Archbishop of Dublin, was made Deputy in Kildare’s place. Sir James Ormond, who had been the leader of the army sent in the previous December against the Irish rebels, was made Treasurer, and Alexander Plunkett Chancellor of Ireland.³ All the Kildares were therefore deprived; Henry refused to receive Kildare’s messengers, and the disgraced earl had to intercede with his old rival, the Earl of Ormond, to use his influence with the king. He denied that he had “ aided, comforted, or supported the French lad,” and tried to excite Ormond’s jealousy about the favour shown by Henry to his “ base cousin.” ⁴ Henry remained firm, but Ormond was not strong enough to keep order. The old feud again blazed fiercely. Butlers and Geraldines wasted each other’s lands and rioted in the streets of Dublin.¹ A meeting of the leaders held in the cathedral ended in a free fight. Sir James Ormond took refuge in the chapter-house, and refused to leave his refuge until terms of agreement had been settled, and even then a hole had to be cut in the door through which Kildare and Ormond shook hands.

It was clear that there could be no peace in Ireland while Ormond was in authority and Kildare in dis­grace. The earl again sued for a pardon, which he received conditionally on 22nd March 1493, pro­mising to present himself in England before the 1st of October. A few days later the forfeiture of Kildare’s lands was annulled, on condition that he sent his eldest son to England within six months. This policy of subjecting the Irish lords to the influence of an English education was imitated and carried to much greater lengths by Henry VIII.

In May or June 1493, Kildare and several other Irish lords, including the Lord of Howth (to whose lively pen we owe an account of some of their meet­ings with Henry) arrived at the English court. He records a remark made by one of them, who, trembling with fear, was walking with some English lords in a procession. “ Sir,” he said to the Lord of Howth, “ there shall be no butchery done upon none of us this time, praise be to God, for the face of the axe is turned from us.” Henry was in no mood for executions, but he treated his late rebels to a touch of his ironic humour when he provided as their cup­bearer “ their new king, Lambarte Simnel.” “ None would have taken the cup out of his hands, but bade the great Devil of Hell him take before that ever he saw him.” “ Bring me the cup if the wine be good,” said the Lord of Howth, being a merry gentleman, “ and I shall drink it off for the wine’s sake and mine own sake also, and for thee, as thou art, so I leave thee, a poor innocent.” ¹ The other Irish lords had not the assurance that came from Howth’s loyalty (he had warned the king of Simnel’s “ mad dance ” and of Perkin Warbeck’s schemes), and they felt the sting of Henry’s mocking words, “ My masters of Ireland, you will crown apes at length.”

Though Kildare received a full pardon (22nd June 1493), he was not restored to the office of deputy, which was given to Lord Gormaston, one of the lords who had accompanied Kildare to London, while Ormond was given an annuity of £100 and the constableship of Limerick Castle.³ Kildare again visited England in November in the hope of being reinstated, but in this he was disappointed.⁴ Henry had resolved on trying another experiment. He abandoned the tradition of choosing the deputy from among the Irish lords, and resolved to appoint an Englishman of ability and tried loyalty, who would not be hampered in his treatment of Irish affairs by alliance with either of the rival houses.

On 12th September 1494, Prince Henry became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in place of the Duke of Bedford, and Sir Edward Poynings, who had already distinguished himself in Henry’s service, was ap­pointed Lord-Deputy.⁵ Two other distinguished Englishmen, the Bishop of Bangor and Sir Hugh Conway, were given the offices of chancellor and treasurer, and new chief justices were appointed. On 13th October 1494, Poynings landed at Howth with a force of 1000 men,¹ and at once marched against the rebels who had supported Perkin War­beck in Ulster. Both Geraldines and Butlers marched under his banner. This strange unanimity was not to last long. Before the campaign was well begun Kildare fell under suspicion. It was alleged that he and the Earl of Desmond were plotting with the King of Scotland against Henry, and the conduct of James Fitzgerald, who seized the castle of Carlow and defended it obstinately against Poynings, gave some colour to the charge. The divisions in his own ranks made Poynings give up his punitive expedition. After the capture of Carlow, he retired to Drogheda and summoned the Parliament which met on 1st December 1494, and passed the famous Poynings’Acts.² One statute provided that no Parliament should be summoned in Ireland until the cause of summons and the proposed legislation had been submitted to and approved by the king in council; and the Irish Parliament was then to be summoned under the great seal of England. The second statute provided that all Acts, “ late made within the said realm of England,” should be in force in Ireland.³ These statutes were of permanent importance, and governed the legislative relations of England and Ireland for three hundred years. The Irish Parliament became an echo of the king in council in England. Henry achieved in Ireland a legal foundation for the system of personal government, which lasted long after his work in England had been swept away.

Less attention has been given to the other legis­lation of the Parliament of Drogheda, which, how­ever, read in connection with Henry’s establishment of despotism in England, is curiously interesting. It struck at all the forces of disruption and disorder. Kildare was attainted for his recent treason, arrested, and sent to England.¹ An Act was passed providing that judges and other officials were to hold office at the king’s pleasure, not for life. Livery and maintenance were forbidden, family war-cries were prohibited, and licences to carry firearms had to be obtained from the deputy. Some of the pro­visions of the Statutes of Kilkenny, which had attempted to promote the spread of English cus­toms by legislation, were re-enacted. Another enactment shows the king’s anxiety to mark off the boundaries of the “ English Pale.” Every in­habitant of the marches of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Louth were to make a double ditch of six feet above ground on the side “ which meareth next unto Irishmen.” Further, an Act provided that no man who was not born in England could be constable of any of the eight castles of the Pale. The necessity for these provisions proves the weakness of the English colony in Ireland, and illustrates the cautious character of the king’s methods, which succeeded where a more ambitious policy would have failed.²

Henry had also attempted to deal with the financial problem. The royal revenue had greatly declined and Ireland did not even pay for the expenses of government. In 1495, William Hattcliffe, one of the clerks of account in the royal household, who had gained experience of the king’s methods, was sent over to Ireland, nominally as under-treasurer, but with very wide powers. He practically overhauled the whole system of expenditure, investigated the returns of sheriffs, and audited the lord treasurer’s accounts. His accounts, which are minute and curious,¹ deal with varied items of expenditure—the payment of English troops in Ireland, subsidies to Irish allies and the general expenses of government. Many payments to spies, who were generally priests or monks, are entered. One visited the marches of the Pale to report on the habits of the people there; another went to Munster to spy upon Earl Desmond, Perkin Warbeck, and other rebels, and so on.² The accounts include Hattcliffe’s personal expenses and detailed items like the price of the key of the Dublin customs house. In spite of Hattcliffe’s care, the revenue obtained from Ireland, though possibly adequate in time of peace, was insufficient in time of war or rebellion.

In July 1495, Perkin Warbeck was again in Ireland, and the country was in arms in his support. Poynings himself marched against him, but the joint attack of Warbeck and Desmond on Waterford was beaten off by the mayor and inhabitants before the king’s troops arrived.³ Reinforcements and supplies of money were sent over to Ireland, and Hattcliffe’s accounts show that the expenditure largely exceeded therevenue. Even when the pretender had gone, peace was not restored. The practice of employing Irish chiefs to fight against their rebellious fellow-countrymen made a state of war profitable to many. Sir James Ormond, that “ deep and far-reaching man,” lies under the suspicion of being at the bottom of many of the later disturbances. He found his profit in stirring up sedition, which he was later employed to put down.¹

The Geraldines also, incensed at Kildare’s deten­tion, were making raids on the English district and keeping the whole country in an uproar. The king found that the earl’s people gave him more trouble when he was in England than ever before, and it seemed politic to give him another chance of prov­ing his loyalty. The personal equation may have counted for something. The Booh of Howth gives several stories of Kildare’s stay in England. We are told that he was “ but half an innocent man without great knowledge or learning, but rudely brought up according to the usages of his country.” His blunt speech and unpolished manner—“ oft in his talk he thou’d the king and the rest of his council ”—seem to have amused the king. He was called upon to answer various charges brought against him by the Bishop of Meath, one of them being a riot when the earl chased him into a church and, finding him kneeling bare-headed in the chancel, “ By Saint Bride,” said the earl, “ were it not that I know that my prince would be offended with me, I could find it in my heart to lay my sword upon your shaven crown,” and so took the bishop. To charges of this kind the ear] protested he could find no ready answer ; “ the bishop was learned and so was not he, and those matters was long agone out of his mind, though he had done them, and so forgotten.” He took the opportunity to tell three “ good tales of this vicious prelate,” whereupon the king and his lords “ could not hold their laughter, but the earl never changed countenance.” The king advised him to choose a wise counsellor; and his answer introduces the story, which, though well known, must be repeated as one of the few which give a glimpse of Henry in his lighter moods. “ ‘ Shall I choose now,’ said the earl. ‘ If you so think good,’ answered the king.

‘ Well; I can see no better man than you, and by Saint Bride! I will choose none other.’ ‘ Well,’ said the king, ‘ by Saint Bride it was well requisite for you to choose so, for I thought your tale could not well excuse your doings unless you had well chosen.’ ‘ Do you think that I am a fool ? ’ said the earl. ‘ No,’ said he, ‘ I am a man in deed both in the field and in the town.’ The king laughed and made sport; and said, ‘ A wiser man might have chosen worse.’ ‘ Well,’ said the bishop, ‘ he is as you see, for all Ireland cannot rule yonder gentleman.’ ‘ No,’ said the king, ‘ then he is meet to rule all Ireland,’ and so made the earl Deputy of Ireland during his life, and so sent him to the country with great gifts.” ¹

Henry had the tact and instinct for judging men possessed by all the Tudors. Though tenacious of his dignity, he appreciated plain speaking from a bold man, and found a way of profiting by the daring that made Kildare formidable in opposition. Kildare’s attainder was reversed, he was restored to his titles and dignities and his appointment as Lord Deputy.¹ He had evidently fallen much under the king’s influence. He had married as his second wife Elizabeth St. John, Henry’s first cousin, and he left his son Gerald as a hostage at court. Hence­forward he does not seem to have wavered in his allegiance.

Hattcliffe’s accounts prove that the work of reducing Ireland to order was going on. A subsidy was col­lected at double the old rates, but there were still heavy expenses in maintaining the English troops and subsidiary Irish levies.²

The best evidence of the success of Henry’s Irish policy is the lack of support obtained by Perkin Warbeck when he reappeared before the city of Cork on 20th July 1497. In this most critical moment of a difficult reign, great issues hung on the fate of the adventurer’s last bid for fortune. The hope of Irish support was a vital point in his plans. That support, however, he failed to get. His former friends had been won over by Henry, and even Desmond failed him. The city of Waterford once more proved its loyalty, and fitted out four ships to give chase to Perkin. It was obvious that Ireland was no longer a happy hunting ground for traitors and pretenders. The city of Waterford received a letter of thanks from the king, a cap of maintenance, and the proud title of TJrbs intacta.³

For the rest of the reign; affairs in Ireland did not call for Henry’s interference. There were the usual tribal wars, but Kildare managed his country without appealing to the king. Henry reaped the reward of having put in authority a man who did not shirk responsibility. There is evidence that the king’s influence and authority over the deputy remained untouched, and Kildare carried out his policy of extending Anglo-Irish influences and of depressing the natives. His work was made easier by the death of his old rival, Sir James Ormond, in July 1497; this brought the end of the feud.

The king’s policy of Anglicising Ireland was pushed on rapidly. Cork was visited and garrisoned by Kil­dare, and the citizens were forced to take the oath of allegiance to Henry. A Parliament held by Kildare in 1498, after punishing the Irish who had supported Perkin Warbeck, passed Acts discouraging the use of Irish weapons. Dwellers within the Pale were to wear English dress and use English weapons, the native darts and spears being forbidden.¹

In 1503 Kildare again visited England at Henry’s order. The king was evidently convinced that his authority over Kildare was too well established to require a hostage for his good faith, and he allowed the earl’s eldest son Gerald, with his English wife, to return with him to Ireland. The wearisome story of the wars waged by Kildare in Ulster and Con­naught against a rebellious grandson can fortunately be omitted. The only point of importance is the increasing use of field artillery, which gave a great advantage to the troops of the deputy and made it easier to put down rebellion. In these wars Kildare’s side was the English side, and his victories meant the further spread of English influence. In the battle of Knoctoe, 1504, the deputy opposed to a wild Irish horde a small but comparatively disciplined force in which the representatives of peaceful civilisation—churchmen and lawyers—were too numerous for the tastes of many of his sup­porters.¹ Kildare gained a signal victory—“ The Irish durst not fight a battle never after with the English Pale,”² we are told—and his good service was rewarded by Henry. Kildare became a Knight of the Garter and his son Lord Treasurer of Ireland. A few years later, in 1508, he held a Parliament which granted a subsidy,³ and at Henry’s death his deputy’s authority was unchallenged in the Anglo-Irish dis­trict, which he is credited with having greatly en­larged. According to the Irish chronicler, “ Peace, golden peace, descended upon the country.” Even Ireland, “the standing failure of English sovereigns, had been handled by Henry not wholly without success.” ⁴ For the first time submission paid better than rebellion. The king had left his mark on Ireland.

There is an obvious danger of exaggerating the influence of the Renaissance on contemporary England, of throwing back to its first beginnings our knowledge of its effect in its later stages. In the beginning it was destructive, not constructive. It put men out of conceit with their traditional studies, habits, and ideals, without at first giving them anything in their place. Intellectual chaos was added to social up­heaval without any one being consciously the gainer. There was an absolute revolt against medieval mysticism. The Papacy and Empire lost the support of uncritical reverence for their age-long claims to universal dominion. Viewed in the light of religious speculation, ecclesiastical sloth appeared more blatant, but found no cure. The effect on the choicer spirits of the age was disturbing, the effect on the mass of the people was practically nil. It was not until long after the death of Henry VII., that the results of the Renaissance on English society could be seen. Yet the first movements of the new spirit are none the less interesting for being obscure.

From Italy, the Mecca of scholasticism, came the impulse for the emancipation of learning. Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the princely patron of Italian scholars, the bcnefactor of university libraries, had been the pioneer of the new learning in England. He was followed by a band of churchmen and scholars who went abroad to study the revived classical learning. Next came William Selling, and his disciples Linacre, Grocyn, Lily, and Latimer, who laid the foundations of the new learning in England. The beginning of the new reign and the first harvest of the Renaissance in England were almost simul­taneous. Linacre and Grocyn returned to England about 1490, and established the study of Greek at Oxford. A revival of learning and of activity at both the universities followed. New foundations became fashionable. The king’s mother founded two colleges at Cambridge—St. John’s and Christ’s. The Bishop of Ely founded Jesus College; the king himself gave large sums for the completion of King’s College, founded by his pious uncle, and endowed scholarships in the university. At Oxford, Brazenose was founded by the Bishop of Lincoln, and Corpus Christi by the Bishop of Winchester. Grocyn was followed in his humanist study of the Scriptures by

Colet, who is described by Vergil as distinguished by the virtue of his soul and mind and by the purity of his life and manners. He was honoured, he says, among the English almost like a second St. Paul the Apostle.¹ Thus it is in this reign that theological criticism made the first breach in the wall of medieval theology through which poured all the changes of the Reformation.

The critical spirit found a sphere of destructive action in the practice as well as in the theory of the Church. It was an age of great secularisation. From the bishops, Morton, Fox, and Warham, who were the king’s ministers, down to the humblest monks in the abbey of St. Albans, there is evidence that the churchmen of the late fifteenth century were escaping from the restrictions of the contemplative life. There had been no religious movement in England since the days of Wycliff. Learning was dead in the Church; the average churchman who had intellectual gifts employed them in the intricacies of a barren scholasti­cism, and the rank and file found an outlet for their energies in the ordinary pursuits of laymen. The ambitious man heaped up wealth; bishoprics were sold, pluralities were common, and he found it easy to buy his steps upwards. Men whose ambition took another form joined in the scramble for land which is a feature of the early Tudor period. Parsons quarrelled with their parishioners, and lawsuits be­tween the great abbots and their lay neighbours were frequent. Churchmen won an unenviable notoriety by their high-handed methods of dealing with commons and wastes, enclosing lands for their parks. Like his neighbour the squire, the abbot occupied himself hunting and hawking, and rode abroad attended by troops of servants wearing his livery.¹ The life of the average churchman was not worse, but it was not conspicuously better, than that of the laymen he mixed with. Many of the lower ranks of the clergy wasted their time and brought their calling into disrepute. The sermons preached by the friars at St. Paul’s Cross attacked the clergy for wearing lay dress, carrying swords and daggers, and frequenting taverns, and drunkenness and brawling were common. The Convocation of Canterbury in 1486 had to deal with the matter openly.² The language of the Act of 1485, which gave the bishops power to commit clerks to prison for immorality, suggests the prevalence of grosser evils.³

There was a constant complaint that church build­ings were allowed to fall into decay, that hospitality was neglected, that scholarship was dead, and that, owing to the decay of the universities, there were no longer any scholars to teach divinity or preach in cathedrals and monasteries. Venality spread like a canker through the Church. The popes, who sold bulls, benefices, indulgences, licences for non-residence —a crying scandal— and traded away their spiritual power for pence, found apt imitators on a smaller scale. Henry VII. rewarded his faithful ministers with bishoprics. He even thought of a bishopric for the rascally Spanish ambassador—and his nobles found Church preferment for their servants. Boys of ten or twelve who had obtained a master’s degree after a year’s study at Oxford or Cambridge became venerable archdeacons before they knew how to sing matins. “ Benefices,” writes Dudley in his Tree of the Commonwealth, “ are given not to the virtuous or the learned, but to such as can be good and profitable stewards of houses and clerks of your kitchens . . . and to such as can surely and wisely be receivers of your rents and revenues, and rather than fail will boldly distrain a poor man’s cattle and drive them to pound till they starve from hunger.”

But the corruption of the Church attracted the notice of these Renaissance scholars. Colet and Erasmus poured out a flood of destructive criticism. The follies and self-seeking of the clergy came under the lash of biting irony that had not spared the occupants of St. Peter’s chair. Dean Colet’s sermons at St. Paul’s were an outspoken attack against the corrupt lives of the clergy, and upon certain doctrines of the Church, which drew down upon him the censure of the Bishop of London. Colet was, however, saved from prosecution as a heretic by a powerful protector—Archbishop Warham. It was obvious that the new spirit was in the ascen­dant at Henry’s court, and its ultimate triumph was foreshadowed..

The new reforming spirit found another outlet in the visitation of the monasteries. Archbishop Morton had been one of the first Oxford scholars affected by Italian influences, and being impressed by the need for monastic reform, obtained from Pope Inno­cent a bull for a visitation. A terrible indictment was brought against the Abbey of St. Albans. Morton charged the abbot with having “ laid aside the pleasant yoke of contemplation and all regular observances, hospitality, alms, and other offices of piety. . . The ancient rule of your order is deserted,” he wrote, “ not a few of your fellow monks giving themselves over to a reprobate life. . . He accused the abbot of having appointed as prioress of the neighbouring and depend­ent nunnery a woman who had already been married, and who lived in adultery with the monks. All the worst charges brought by anti-Catholics against the monastic system were made in the case of this monas­tery. The abbot was said to have sold the common property of the abbey, cut down and sold the woods, taken away the jewels, and so on; and the Arch­bishop’s letter stated that “ the brethren of the abbey live with harlots and mistresses publicly and continu­ously within the precincts of the monastery.”¹ Similar scandals were revealed by the visitation of the diocese of Norwich. Incidental notices prove that similar disorders were rife up and down the country. The famous priory of Walsingham, which was much favoured by Henry VII., shared in the general de­moralisation. The Prior of Bath swaggered about followed by eighteen men wearing his livery, while his neglected church fell into ruin and decay. The Abbot of Malmesbury brutally ill-treated his depend­ents, the Prior of Sheen was foully murdered by one of his monks. Though serious vice was less common than secularisation, it was evident that the vital spirit of monasticism had fled.² The rapidity < with which the Reformation took root in England and the violence of the reaction against the faith of centuries are explained.

As the Church let its high standard slip, its influence declined. It had lost its spiritual and intellectual leadership, and England was ready for the seed sown by Renaissance scholars, the growth from which forced its way through the thickets of medieval scholasticism, and challenged the system of ecclesi­astical dominion that had made learning the monopoly of one dass.

But as usual in this reign of contrasts, old traditions flourished side by side with the new thought. While there might be toleration for new forms of inquiry, there was none for old forms of heresy. The Church that had abandoned her great ideals still claimed empire over the intellect. Heretics were ferreted out and set in the pillory, those who refused to recant being burnt at the stake. In 1494, a woman over eighty years of age was burnt at Smithfield for nine articles of heresy. In one case it appears that a priest convicted of heresy was converted by the exhortations of the king himself, “ whereof his grace had great honour,” but the stake still claimed its victim.¹ In many other places, Canterbury, Norwich, and Salisbury, and at Amersham in Buckingham, Lollardry seems to have flourished. Thus fires were burning at Smithfield, a few hundred yards from the spot where Dean Colet’s eloquence was stirring up a much more formidable revolt against Church doctrines.

Thus the influence of the Renaissance had spread from Oxford to the Church. The new monarchy was to prove a powerful agent in spreading the new ideas among the nobles and gentry, and ultimately among the middle classes. The Italian influences at court were considerable. The king employed many Italians in his service. Giovanni Gigli, sent to England as a papal collector, became Henry’s diplomatic agent at Rome, and was rewarded with the bishopric of Worcester. He it was who celebrated the king’s marriage with Elizabeth of York in an elaborate Latin poem. Silvestro Gigli, his nephew, was Henry’s Master of the Ceremonies, and later was resident ambassador at Rome, He was a man of letters, and corresponded with Erasmus. Peter Carmeliano, besides being Latin secretary and one of the king’s chaplains, seems to have been a court poet as well. He was followed as Latin secretary by Ammonio and Peter Vannes, both of whom were Italians. Adrian de Castello, the collector of Peter’s Pence in England, also passed into Henry’s service, be­came his agent at Rome, and later ambassador to Alexander the Sixth. Of all the Italians employed by Henry VII., the most famous was the historian Polydor Vergil, who came to England in 1501 as sub-collector of Peter’s Pence. He was taken into the king’s favour, became Archdeacon of Wells, and resided at court. His famous Anglicce Histories Libri, a book which marks a very great advance in English historical work, being carried out on a large scale and in a critical spirit, was begun in Henry’s lifetime and with his encouragement.

It was design, not chance, which led Henry to employ all these Italians. He found they understood and sympathised with his aims, as his backward subjects could not do, and they had had a diplomatic training of a kind unknown in England. Meanwhile the king reproduced—on a very modest scale, it is true—the patronage of literature characteristic of the Italian princes. Those few of his own subjects who reached any eminence in literature enjoyed court favour. The foremost of these was John Skelton, who wrote various poems on the royal children and became the tutor of Prince Henry, for whom he wrote the Speculum, Principis, a treatise which is now lost. His courtly poems gave little promise of the satiric power which he displayed later, in the reign of his pupil. Henry was ready to encourage any talent that displayed itself. Bernard Andre was retained to sing the king’s praises in pompous Latin, but his turgid rhetoric cannot be taken very seriously as literature. Distinguished men like Erasmus were welcomed at court.¹ The king spent considerable sums on buying books. He added a fair number of books to the royal library, paying as much as £25 to one Frenchman, and gave rewards to encourage the new art of printing.

The education of the royal children represented the triumphs of Renaissance ideals of culture at Henry’s court. Prince Henry—the young Octavius of England as he was called—was unusually accomplished. In his boyhood he was a type of the brilliant figures of the Renaissance period. He had great personal beauty, was extremely musical, a graceful dancer, a fine sportsman, no mean Latinist, and a very fair poet, without a touch of the intellectual torpor and lack of physical grace supposedly characteristic of the barbarous English.

The magnificence of the first of the Tudors was displayed after Italian fashions. The king bought Italian furniture, sent to Italy for cloth of gold and damask. Gorgeous church vestments were made and embroidered for him in Florence. Even the royal tomb was entrusted to an Italian, Pietro Torregiano, and its appearance in a chapel which is a masterpiece of English perpendicular work, is typical of the con­flict between medieval and Renaissance influences.

The same influences also reached England through the king’s diplomatic relations with Italian princes. Though there had been official communications on commercial matters between England and the State of Venice for a long time, the first formal embassy from Venice was sent to London in 1497. Henry was on very friendly terms with the Dukes of Milan, Ferrara, and Urbino. The last was honoured with the Order of the Garter. He occasionally exchanged presents with the King of England, Henry receiving on one occasion a painting by Raphael, which must have been one of the first examples of the Italian masters ever seen in England, where painting, except in the form of illuminations, was almost unknown.

Henry VII. was the first English sovereign since Henry III. who cared in the slightest degree for art. With his reign the long barren period ended, and a new era began.¹ He is believed to have invited the Flemish artist Jan Grossaert or Mabuse to England, though the portrait often ascribed to him, which is said to be that of Henry’s three children, is probably not by his hand. He certainly obtained the king’s patronage, and several pictures of the Flemish school, notably the portraits of Lady Margaret and the “ Marriage of Henry VII. with Elizabeth of York,” were painted by Flemish artists in London during Henry’s reign.

But it is from his interest in building and architec­ture that Henry’s ambition to be a patron of art is best realised. A beautiful palace arose at Richmond out of the ashes of the royal residence (itself built by Henry) at Sheen. New York was done at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and Baynard’s Castle was rebuilt. The noblest monument of all, the Chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster, which still holds the dust of the Tudor despots, is a glorious example of Gothic architecture, and its stately splendour is beyond all verbal tribute.

The king’s example was followed by his subjects; from his ministers Bray and Morton down to the citizens of provincial towns like Bristol, every one of wealth and importance built largely and splendidly.¹

Thus the light hitherto held by a small band of University men began to spread through England, and the motive power of this diffusion was the new monarchy. Henry VII. focussed the forces that during his reign transformed England from medie­valism to modernism. The despotism he established made the Crown the centre of society. His court became the spring of national activity, and gave a definite lead to society. The great princes of feudalism had been replaced by smaller men, above whom the king reigned in lonely splendour. The descendant of the feudal baron left his isolated castle to enter the king’s service. The social influences radiating from the king’s court reached the provinces, and the households of the nobles employed about the king echoed the ideas of the court.

“ From the prince,” wrote Sir Thomas More, “ as from a perpetual well-spring cometh among the people the flood of all that is good or evil.”² Henry VII. was the source of power, the creator of employment, the dispenser of office. The court led as a stepping stone to the great careers of arms, diplomacy, and administrative employment; and thus Italian influences at court found an ever widening sphere of influence. Even those who had no special leanings to scholarship, found the very fabric of their lives, their habits, customs, tastes and occupa­tions, the houses they lived in, and the clothes they wore, being imperceptibly but permanently changed by the influence of new ideas imported from the Continent.

In addition to the direct influence and imitation of the court, another force led to the spread of a liberal education. Posts in the king’s service were thrown open to men of the class hitherto shut out by birth from any hope of official employment. Diplomatic posts hitherto monopolised by foreigners were given by Henry to his subjects, and foreign diplomacy became more important during Henry’s reign than it had ever been before. Permanent embassies brought England more closely in touch with the Continent, and afforded opportunity of distinction to the ambitious. Stile, Savage, Wingfield, and above all Wolsey, were the front rank in the army of English diplomatists who have represented their country in the courts of Europe ever since, acting as a centre of cosmopolitan influences on their return.¹

It is no inconsiderable change that the statecraft of the new monarchy brought about. Military skill was no longer the only vital part of a gentleman’s training; if he was to succeed, he must be educated as well. The standard had been exceptionally low. The average nobleman read little, wrote indifferently, and spelt vilely;¹ even a merchant carrying on a con­siderable business could only just make himself intelligible;² the mass of the country gentry could neither read nor write. By throwing open a career to men of talent, Henry set on foot a movement, which by the reign of Elizabeth had filled England with the “ Italianate Englishman,” and had given even the middle classes some interest in literature.

Another great influence for popularising learning had been introduced eight years before the accession of Henry VII. Caxton had set up his printing-press in Westminster, and by the date of his death (1491), about 95 books had been printed. Caxton was followed by Wynkyn de Worde, and between 1477 and 1500 about 400 books were printed in England.³ The introduction of printing, though it had little influence at the time, is important of course as perhaps one of the strongest forces that has ever moulded the mind of the nation.

The reign of Henry VII. saw the beginning of mighty changes. The critical spirit was thrusting itself into all the dark places of medieval thought, questioning the foundations of accepted beliefs. Under this new influence medieval priestcraft and king­craft gave way to a new theology and a new monarchy. Feudalism and manorialism were replaced by the new divisions of capital and labour, and from the decay of communism sprang the triumph of individualism.

The voyages of discovery that took place in the reign of Henry VII. are interesting rather as the first chapter in the story of maritime adventure which carried the English trade and flag all over the world than for their intrinsic importance. Great daring and enterprise met with little practical result. It has often been said that Henry discouraged the adventurers, and, by his short-sighted greed, let slip a golden opportunity. But this seems to be a deduction from the theory of the conduct that could be expected from a man of avaricious temper rather than to be founded on fact. Henry certainly missed his first chance. He lacked imagination, and, sated with adventures in his youth, was disinclined to embark in speculation; but the Spanish success was a turning- point, and all the evidence goes to prove that he helped the later attempts generously as long as they had any reasonable prospect of success. Their failure was due, not to the king’s apathy, but to the chimera of the North-west Passage.

When Bartholomew Columbus appeared at the English court to try and enlist the king’s sympathy for his brother’s schemes, Henry had only been a few years on the throne, and all his resources were taxed by his difficult position. The idea of trying to find a new trade route to the East was sufficiently attractive for the king to promise help in an indefinite way. But Henry’s pre-occupations spelt delay, and in the meantime Christopher Columbus convinced Ferdinand, made his great voyage, and discovered the New World for the King of Spain. Henry learnt the result of Columbus’s voyage in 1493, and from that moment his attitude changed ; he had found out that the visionary scheme had resulted in profit to his rival, the King of Spain.

Meanwhile Henry’s own subjects had taken up the idea of finding a new route to the East. Trade with India had been cut off by the conquests of the Turks, and Englishmen were fired with the hope of dis­covering a North-west Passage, which would bring them again into touch with the riches of the East. It was this will-of-the-wisp which led the English adventurers to waste their strength in vain on the inhospitable shores of North-East America.

Brazil, the fabled isle of gold and spices, was another goal of their hopes. Bristol was the centre of the maritime spirit. If we reject as doubtful the story that Christopher Columbus sailed from Bristol to the North-west in 1477, we are on firm ground with the voyage of Thomas Lloyd from the same city in 1480, in search of Brazil. Ayala, writing in 1498, said, “ The people of Bristol have for the last six or seven years sent out every year, two, three, or four light ships in search of the island of Brazil and the seven cities.” ¹ The moving spirit in these adventures was John Cabot, a Genoese, who was therefore a man of some experience when he applied to Henry for help in 1495.² Henry was by this time aware of the importance of the Spanish discovery,³ and gave Cabot a much more encouraging reception than Columbus. On March 5, 1496, the king issued letters patent to his well-beloved John Cabot, citizen of Venice, and his sons, giving him power and authority to sail east, west, and north, with five ships under the royal standards and the flag of England, to discover any islands or territories hitherto unknown to Christendom. He was em­powered in the king’s name to take possession of and subdue any country he found, and rule it and its castles, towns, and villages, as Henry’s “ vassal and governor, locum tenens, and deputy.” All this the Cabot family were to do at their own expense. The profits they might retain for themselves with the exception of one-fifth, which was to be paid to the king, who graciously exempted them from customs duties on any merchandise they might bring back with them from the newly discovered lands.¹ Henry, however, was rather more generous than the terms of the letters patent suggest, and, “ at the besy request and supplicacion of Cabot,” he manned and pro­visioned one ship in the expedition,² which sailed from Bristol in May 1497.³ The results, however, did not come up to the sanguine hopes of the voyagers. On 24th June, they touched the mainland of North America, probably on the coasts of Labrador. On these frozen shores they discovered no “ castles, cities, or villages ” to be occupied in the king’s name, nor did they return rich with gold and spices. They sailed first south and then north-west without coming across any trace of human occupation except snares set to catch game and a needle for making nets. They were able to report, however, the existence of rich fishing grounds which would make England independent of Iceland.¹ The reward of £10 paid on 10th August “ to hyme that founde the new Isle ” is not the measure of Henry’s satisfaction, for Cabot received a grant of £20 a year to be paid from the customs of Bristol.² Cabot was styled the “ Great Admiral.” He was the man of the hour. “ These English run after him like mad people,” was the comment of a Venetian visitor.

Preparations were now made for an adventure on a much larger scale, which roused Ayala to protest to Henry that the land he was in search of was already in the possession of the King of Spain, “ But though I gave him my reasons,” he wrote, “he did not like them.” ³ Ayala and Puebla speak of the whole expedition as equipped by Henry, and recent research has supported this view.⁴ The king realised that great issues were at stake, and proved it by giving his support during these very critical years.

Cabot’s second expedition of five ships sailed in the spring of 1498, with the object of revisiting the recently discovered land, and attempting to open up trade with it.¹ John Cabot seems to have died during the voyage, and one ship damaged by storm had to put back into an Irish port. The voyage cannot have been a great success. No reference to the adventurers’ return has been found, though we know that the squadron was expected back in September 1498, and that Sebastian Cabot returned in safety. He is never heard of again, however, in Henry’s employment.² The king had lost interest in voyages of discovery; the results of his attempts to share with Spain the riches of the New World had been disappointing. He gave no support to the subsequent voyages made by Bristol citizens,³ which all being directed to the north-west failed to find the “ Spice Islands.” They opened up the Newfoundland fishery, however, and this attracted the king’s notice. In 1501 he granted a patent to three Portuguese merchants residing in Bristol to sail on voyages of discovery under the royal flag.⁴ The language of the patent suggests a revival of the king’s hopes. They were empowered to take possession of any land they found, to carry English subjects to settle there, to govern the new lands, appointing deputies to govern towns and cities, and make and execute laws. The patentees were to enjoy the office of King’s Admiral, were to have exclusive rights of trading for ten years, and of importing gold, silver, and precious stones. Further, they were empowered to punish any one who visited the new land without permission. This expedition must have reached America or Newfoundland, for in the following year there were in London three men found by the Bristol merchants in an “ Iland ferre beyonde Irelond ; the which were clothid in Beestes Skynnes, and ete Raw fflessh, and Rude in their demeanure as Beestes.” ¹ Their wildness, how­ever must have yielded to the civilising influences of fifteenth-century London with some rapidity, for two years later two of them, who were kept by Henry at Westminster, were “clothed like Englishmen and could not be discerned from Englishmen.”² In September 1502, the Bristol merchants “ that have bene in the New founde Launde ” were granted £20 from the king’s privy purse.³ Some members of the expedition obtained another patent in December 1502, similar to the first, but with an extension of the time of exclusive trading to forty years, and the voyages continued till the end of the reign.

As we have seen, they were only partially success­ful. In spirit and object they were worthy of the voyages of the Elizabethan period; they hoped to plant English settlers beyond the sea,⁴ and acquire new land for the English Crown, but the contrast of actual achievement with these high hopes is pathetic. The explorers found no territory suitable for commerce or colonisation, though the fact that such a develop­ment was contemplated is very interesting. A few rare animals, Newfoundland hawks, “ wild cattes,” and “ popyngays ” presented to the king, and the unhappy “ wilde men ” who dragged out their exist­ence in Westminster, these were the only tangible results of the voyages of the reign. They had, however, a certain importance. To have reached the mainland of America before Columbus was no slight achievement. The experience learnt from the disappointments of these early voyages made the deeds of the Elizabethan seamen possible. John and Sebastian Cabot were the pioneers of a great host of mariners who led England to find her destiny on the seas and to found the first among “ all the British dominions beyond the seas.”

It is easy to undervalue the effect of these early voyages upon the thought as well as upon the practice of the succeeding generation of Englishmen. Added to the revelations of the scientists, they annihilated men’s preconceived ideas of the universe. Astrono­mers and geographers taught that the earth “ far from being the centre of the universe was itself swept round in the motion of one of the least of its countless systems.” ¹ Much that men had believed to be true was proved to be false. The cloud that from the beginning of things had hung thick and dark round the borders of civilisation was suddenly lifted.

LAST YEARS : 1503-1509

 

At the end of 1503 Henry felt at last secure. “ The king’s estate was very prosperous ; secured by the amity of Scotland, strengthened by that of Spain, cherished by that of Burgundy ; all domestic troubles quenched, and all noise of war (like a thunder afar off) going upon Italy.” ¹ Henceforward the story of the king’s reign loses dramatic interest. The struggle for the throne was over. England was safe and growing in prosperity; the House of Tudor was despotic in England, and a power abroad. Meaner ambitions filled the king’s last years. The history of the reign is no longer filled with “ roughe and sharpe battailes, pernicious seditions, strife, tumulte, and the deathe of many noble and meane persons,” but with “ the contencion of familiar thinges, the gnawinge at the hartes and the freatinge of myndes and vowes ”² —in short, with all the intricate manoeuvres of a rest­less and elaborate diplomacy.

In the beginning of 1504 Henry’s fifth Parliament met. It was probably summoned by Henry in order to strengthen his hand in dealing with Suffolk. On January 25 it was opened by a speech from Arch­bishop Warham, who had followed Morton as Chan­cellor. Acts of attainder were passed against Suffolk and his friends, and the measure by which concessions were made to the Hanse merchants^s was probably designed to procure Suffolk’s surrender. Though the Act had no very important consequences, being ignored as soon as Suffolk’s departure from Aix in April 1504 made the alliance of the Hanse merchants useless, it is a striking proof that Henry anticipated grave danger from the earl’s manoeuvres.

The exile’s recent adventures made the king uneasy. He had remained a long time at Aix, eating his heart out in inactivity, overwhelmed by debt, and harassed by his creditors. Maximilian only gave him just enough help to keep his head above water. Early in 1504 there was a change in his position. Attracted by the specious promises of Duke George of Saxony, who hoped to use the exile in negotiating an alliance with Henry, Suffolk fled from Aix in April 1504, leaving his brother Richard behind him as a hostage for the payment of his debts. Misfortune still pursued him. On his way through Gueldres with a safe conduct he was seized by Duke Charles of Gueldres and kept in close confinement in Hatten.¹ Duke Charles was at this time struggling to throw off the overlordship of the Duke of Burgundy, and, like the Duke of Saxony, he hoped that the possession of Suffolk might win him the English alliance. Henry was certainly desperately anxious to get hold of Suffolk. In the light of after events, it appears that the king overrated the danger, but he was no prophet, and the head of Perkin Warbeck, who had shaken his throne, still mouldered on London Bridge. In the autumn of 1504 there were rumours that Henry intended to pay the Duke of Gueldres a large sum for Suffolk’s surrender, and he urged that Spanish influence should be used to obtain it, “ thus enabling him to make an example of him to his kingdom.” Henry’s relations with Philip were becoming difficult. Philip was annoyed at the suggestion that Henry should pay the Duke of Gueldres for Suffolk’s surrender, as he knew the money would be used against him. New duties had been imposed by Philip upon English mer­chants.¹ Henry retaliated, and there was bitter feeling on both sides. Suffolk meanwhile remained at Hatten.

Meanwhile negotiations for the Spanish marriage were dragging on as usual. In April 1503, a horrible rumour had reached Isabella, that a marriage between the king and his daughter-in-law had been mentioned in England. Isabella expressed her disgust in round terms. “ It would be a very evil thing,” she wrote, “ the mere mention of which offends the ear; we would not for anything in the world that it should take place. Speak of it as a thing not to be endured.” The report originated with the garrulous de Puebla, and seems to have been founded on gossip alone, and even then his story was that a marriage be­tween Henry and Katherine was much “ talked of in England,” not that Henry contemplated such a step.² One historian, however, accepts de Puebla’s words as a proof that Henry contemplated marrying Katherine, and uses some strong words about the “ monstrous proposal—an outrage upon nature.” In the absence of any confirmatory evidence, and in view of de Puebla’s spiteful knack of making baseless charges, Henry’s innocence of this intention can be presumed.

Katherine’s position in England waiting for the delayed betrothal was not very dignified. Isabella was anxious to extricate her from it. The preparations for her departure—a feint before—were to be pushed on in earnest.¹ Isabella also rather quaintly proposed to dispose of Henry’s rumoured intentions with regard to Katherine by suggesting another lady as the object of his attentions in the person of her niece the Queen of Naples. By the summer the difficulties had been adjusted for the moment, and a marriage treaty, already drafted in September 1502, was ratified by Henry (June 23, 1503).²

Ferdinand, Isabella, and Henry bound themselves to use their influence at the court of Rome to obtain a papal dispensation for the marriage between Henry and Katherine, who had become related in the first degree of affinity through the previous marriage between the latter and the late Prince Arthur. The question as to the consummation of the marriage, now raised for the first time, derives considerable importance from later events. The inquiries made by Ferdinand and Isabella in England led them to believe that the marriage had not been consummated, and Ferdinand announced this to his ambassador in Rome, explaining, however, that the terms of dis­pensation must be made to cover the possibility of an actual union having taken place, in order to avoid any objection on the part of the English, “ who are much disposed to cavil.”³ The other provisions followed the precedent of the treaty for the marriage of Katherine and Arthur, the instalments of the dowry already received being taken in part payment of the dowry due for the second marriage.¹ The betrothal ceremony followed two days later. The treaty was confirmed by Ferdinand and Isabella in September, and by Henry in the following March.²

Ferdinand’s formal ratification contains eulogistic words about Henry: “ He possesses all and every virtue of a great king; his faithfulness especially is so great that he would prefer to die rather than break his word.” His private letters to his ambassador show that he was genuinely pleased at the treaty, and, though he thought its terms rather unfavourable to Spain, the value of the English alliance outweighed these disadvantages. The King of France had made an attack upon Rousillon, and Ferdinand hoped that Henry would help him in accordance with the treaty. He appealed for 2000 English infantry, and revived the old lure of the conquest of Guienne and Normandy. Isabella’s letters breathe the same spirit of satisfac­tion. She spoke of the great love she had always borne Henry, and urged her ambassador to spread abroad reports that Henry was going to send a considerable body of troops to Spain, “ because as you will see such tidings and rumours will inspire France, and will produce a favourable impression in Italy.” Henry’s letters of the same date are very different in tone.

At the risk of labouring the point unduly, the complete change in the relative positions of England and Spain must be noticed. The situation from 1485 to 1497 is reversed, and in 1503 it is the prestige of the English alliance that is considered worth some sacrifice by Ferdinand and Isabella. It becomes the normal thing for them vehemently to urge Henry to assist them, and for the latter to adopt an attitude of irritating indifference. Many of the delays were deliberately introduced by Henry. The key to his difficult policy in this matter was his desire not to lose his strong position. As long as the marriage was put off and Katherine remained dependent upon him, he had the whip hand of Ferdinand and Isabella.

There was considerable delay in obtaining the papal dispensation. For this Henry was not responsible. Two Popes, Alexander VI. and Pius III., had died in rapid succession, and on 1st November 1503 Julius II. had been installed as Pope. Time went on, and in spite of the urgent representations of the Spanish ambassador, the dispensation was still delayed. The new Pope consented to send an informal brief to com­fort the dying Queen of Spain in her last days, but the formal bull was still withheld. He excused himself to Henry, who with flattering haste had despatched an embassy to congratulate him on his elevation, and give him his “ filial and Catholic homage,” on the plea that the case needed full investigation.¹

It is a mistake to suppose that Prince Arthur’s death was the end of Katherine’s brief happiness, and that henceforward she was made miserable by Henry’s cruelty. The exact opposite was the case for some years. Henry continued to treat Katherine in the spirit of his promise to her parents. In July he was providing money for her household at the rate of £100 per month, and ordering that if any surplus remained it was to be given to the princess to spend as she liked. A little later, when Katherine had an attack of ague, Henry took her with him to Richmond and then spent a fortnight with her, at Windsor, “ hunting deer in the forest nearly every day.” When she had another and more serious attack, Henry wrote a very affectionate letter to her from Sheppy Island, asking anxiously for news of her, assuring her that he loved her as his own daughter, and was ready to do anything for her that might give her some pleasure.

The Spanish ambassador Estrada wrote telling Ferdinand and Isabella of Henry’s kindness to Katherine. In the same letter he gives an interesting reference to the king’s method of training his heir. “It is quite wonderful how much the king likes the Prince of Wales. He has good reason to do so, for the prince deserves all love. But it is not only from love that the king takes the prince with him ; he wishes to improve him. Certainly there could be no school in the world better than the society of such a father as Henry VII. He is so wise and attentive to everything, nothing escapes his attention. ... If he lives ten years longer, he will leave the prince furnished with good habits, and with immense riches, and in as happy circumstances as man can be.”

A little later Katherine wrote asking Henry to settle the quarrels between various members of her house­hold ; but he excused himself from the task, saying that, as Spanish subjects, they were not under his jurisdiction. Yet in spite of this disclaimer, he secretly settled the matter, Donna Elvira’s control over the household being confirmed. The king was anxious that Katherine should not know of the part he had taken in it; “ he did not wish to cause dis­satisfaction to the princess in anything.” Donna Elvira was the proud recipient of a present from the king—a St. Peter in gold to be used in a head-dress— a special mark of favour hitherto given by Henry only to royal ladies. Every scrap of evidence that remains proves that Henry was kind and considerate to Katherine. De Puebla’s gossiping letters give a vivid picture of the king’s attitude at this date. The question of his marriage was again brought up. Henry professed that he had not made up his mind to take another wife, but he asked “such very particular questions ” about the Queen of Naples, that de Puebla wrote requesting that a picture of the said Queen, “ portraying her figure and the features of her face, should be made as quickly as possible and sent over to England.” ¹

The king and his council seemed pleased at the suggestion of the marriage with the Queen of Naples, and de Puebla wrote: “ He lauded your highnesses above the cherubim.” Henry, however, declared he was not going further without obtaining more parti­culars about his proposed bride, “ for your Highnesses must know,” wrote de Puebla, “ that if she were ugly and not beautiful, the King of England would not have her for all the treasures in the world, nor would he dare to take her, the English thinking so much as they do about personal appearance.” Henry was anxious to send an embassy to Valencia to make a personal report on the lady. De Puebla opposed this, explaining his action when writing to Ferdinand thus, “ I have never seen an ambassador who has gone hence to Spain, and who has not come back disgusted with the country, owing to the inconvenience of travelling, which in England is like going from one wedding to another.”

The air was full of marriage rumours. Henry had begun to think about another possible bride, the recently widowed Duchess of Savoy. A match be­tween the Princess Mary and the eldest son of the Archduke Philip had been proposed, and—what was very disquieting to Ferdinand and Isabella—a French ambassador had been sent to England to propose a marriage between the Prince of Wales and Margaret of Angouleme.¹ All this made Ferdinand very uneasy, and he surpassed himself in attempts to gain from Henry the closer alliance to which he was unwilling to commit himself. A letter of his dated November 24, 1504, just after Estrada returned to Spain, abounds with flattering expressions of his regard for Henry.² He enclosed a copy of the papal dispensation, and a decree allowing English ships the same rights and privileges of freighting in Spanish ports as Spanish ships, this concession being made “ on account of the very great love and the bond of indissoluble alliance and friendship which exists between us.” ³ Two days later Ferdinand’s whole position had been changed.

On November 26, 1504, on the very day that her daughter Katherine was writing an anxious letter saying that she could not be satisfied or cheerful until she heard from her mother, Isabella of Castile died. The effect of her death illustrates Bacon’s description of her as “ the corner-stone of the greatness of Spain that hath followed.” It brought another change in the shifting quicksands of European politics. Henceforward Ferdinand and his son-in-law Philip struggled for the possession of Castile, which, as it passed by descent to Isabella’s daughter Juana, Philip claimed to rule in her right. He took the title of King of Castile, and prepared to set out with Juana for their kingdom. Ferdinand, however, under the terms of Isabella’s will, had been appointed regent during Juana’s absence, and he hoped to retain the chief authority there.

The threatened separation of Castile and Aragon had a considerable effect on the tortuous policy of Henry’s later years. He gradually drifted away from the alliance with Spain, which had been the keynote of his former diplomacy. Ferdinand was now a much weaker ally, and there were ominous signs of a coalition against him. Henry had no wish to find himself “ left to the poor amity of Aragon,” and feared that “whereas he had been heretofore a kind of arbiter of Europe, he should now go less and be overtopped by so great a conjunction.” ¹ Henry had never really trusted Ferdinand ; they had known each other too well for mutual confidence, but since the marriage of Katherine and Arthur their diplo­matic relations had been marked by great surface cordiality. From the date of Isabella’s death this disappears, and Henry’s attitude to Ferdinand varies with the security of the latter’s hold upon Aragon. Their altered relations reacted in a very unfortunate way on the position of the Princess Katherine. Henry’s mind was filled with much more glittering schemes, and she had become the pledge of an alliance that had ceased to attract. She became a pawn in the very ugly game played by Henry and Ferdi- ¹ Bacon, op. cit., p. 226.

nand, and her happiness was sacrificed to their knavish intrigues. The removal of Isabella’s per­sonal influence over Ferdinand had almost as bad an effect on Katherine’s position as the material loss of the kingdom she had ruled. Ferdinand, who seems to have cared little for his children, added to his daughter’s difficulties by withholding the later instalments of the marriage portion, and by leaving her without money. Neither of the kings wished to undertake to provide for her. Henry would acknow­ledge no responsibility for her support as long as the marriage portion was withheld. She was between the upper and the nether millstones. Kindness, however, prompted Henry to go beyond his denial of legal obligation, and he provided for the prin­cess’s necessities to some extent. A man of more generous temper would, no doubt, have done this without haggling about the marriage portion. But Henry was not a man of generous temper, and Katherine’s necessities became a lever to extort from Ferdinand the later instalments to which he was bound.

For some time after Isabella’s death both the competitors for Castile were bidding for Henry’s friendship, and he hoped to gain Philip’s friendship without abandoning the alliance with Ferdinand. He was still thinking of the bride proposed for him by Ferdinand and Isabella. In the summer of 1505 Henry’s envoys, John Stile and two others, were in Spain visiting Valencia to report on the lady’s charms. The “ curious and exquisite enquiries ” they were directed to make remain on record,¹ and their answers suggest that they were impressed with the serious nature of their embassy and quite devoid of any sense of humour. Henry’s minute inquiries they answered with equal minuteness. With scrupulous honesty they refrained from crediting the royal lady with any charms which had not been revealed to their inquiring eyes. They would not commit them­selves to any opinion as to her height, because she sat on a cushion, and because of the height of her slippers. Their report, which reads like a police description, stated that she was not painted but had a very fair and clear skin, a somewhat round and fat face, “ the countenance cheerful not frowning, and steadfast not light.” The envoys felt justified in assuming, from the ends of the queen’s hair that were to be seen under her kerchief, that the rest was brown in colour. Her eyes were “ brown, some­what greyish, her nose arched in the middle. . . . She is much like nosed unto the queen her mother.” The king’s long list of questions left nothing uncata­logued—forehead, lips, teeth, arms, hands, neck, fingers, and so on. Henry was told how much she ate and what she drank, that she understood French and Latin, but could not speak either language, and that she was not known to have any personal blemish or deformity. A careful picture was to be painted by a competent artist, and if the painter found that he had omitted “ any feature or circumstance ” of the lady’s visage, he was to alter the picture to a perfect likeness. It is interesting to notice that Henry, in spite of his reputation for austerity and avarice, drew up twenty - three questions dealing with the lady’s personal charms, and only one as to her worldly possessions. The answer to the last cannot have been considered very satisfactory. The jointures of the queen and her mother in the king­dom of Naples had been confiscated, and they were dependent upon an allowance of fifteen or sixteen thousand ducats made to them by Ferdinand.

The same ambassadors who made this confidential report were directed to go on to Ferdinand’s court and make careful inquiries as to the state of affairs in Spain, Ferdinand’s position and prospects, and the attitude of the nobles towards him. They were instructed to say that Henry was in good health, that he was “ right joyous and merry, his realm in good peace and tranquillity, and his subjects in due obeisance and wealthy condition, established in peace, quiet, and restfulness with all outward princes,” and were to be lavish in assurances of Henry’s loving attitude, and of the “ firm band of amity and kind­ness that had connected their wills.” They reached Ferdinand’s camp in Segovia on July 14th, and pro­ceeded to collect information for the twenty-two articles of their report. The questions set down for them to answer are an interesting example of Henry’s diplomatic methods, and of his anxiety to be posted up with first-hand information. The gist of their long and valuable report was that Castile could only be secured through Juana, whose authority as heiress of the kingdom was reverenced more than Ferdinand’s. As to Henry’s reputation in Spain, his envoys were able to assure him that he was regarded by many of the nobles as one of the wisest and mightiest princes of the time, but frankly added that many of the nobles and gentlemen had “ no know- liche of yowr grace nor of yowr reame, the whiche thynke that ther ys no land butt Spayne.” Henry had inquired about the personal appearance and habits of the brother sovereign with whom he com­municated so often but had never seen, and was told that Ferdinand was a finely built man, very strong for his age (about fifty-six), with a fresh complexion and a smiling countenance. He had lost a tooth in front which made him lisp, and he had a slight cast in his left eye when speaking or smiling. There were rumours about his marriage, but the envoys had been told by one of the king’s chaplains that he had been advised by his physician not to marry because of “a certeyn diseas the whiche he hathe under his syde.” He was the master of a great treasure, which he kept in a strong castle.¹

Before Henry received the report of these envoys, he had gone a little further in the direction of the alliance with Philip, and was weighing in his mind the attractions it offered. But before throwing in his lot with Maximilian and Philip he was anxious for trustworthy information about their real attitude. He instructed one of his envoys, John Savage, to make careful inquiry as to whether Maximilian sincerely offered his daughter to him, or whether he was playing the hypocrite.²

About the same time (June 27, 1505) there was a curious little scene at Richmond. Young Prince Henry, on the eve of his fifteenth birthday, made a solemn declaration before Fox, Bishop of Winchester, that he had been contracted during his minority to the Princess Katherine, and that, being now near the age of puberty, he refused to ratify the marriage contract, and denounced it as null and void. This declaration was signed by Prince Henry and by six witnesses. It seems certain that it was not a per­sonal protest on the part of Prince Henry, but a political move of the king’s, who wished to postpone the wedding owing to Ferdinand’s altered position and the other alliances proposed for his son.¹ At that very time French ambassadors were in England negotiating for Prince Henry’s marriage with Mar­garet of Angouleme,² which had been discussed at intervals since 1502. Henry professed himself anxious to be related by marriage to Louis, “ the prince he loved most in the world ” ; but he proposed himself, not Prince Henry, as bridegroom for Margaret of Angouleme, who was then about thirteen. Louis seems to have been quite content with the substitu­tion. He promised to give his niece a dowry of 100,000 crowns—more than the sum given to a daughter of France—and gave assurances that he would use his influence to obtain the surrender of Suffolk.³ In October rumours of a French match were abroad in England. It was said that Henry thought of marrying Louise of Savoy, Margaret’s mother, and that he had also been offered a French and a Spanish bride. In addition, the king was said to be secretly discussing two marriages for Prince Henry—one with Eleanor, the daughter of Philip, and the other with the daughter of the King of Portugal. The Portuguese ambassador reported that it was likely that the marriage with Katherine would be undone, as it weighed much upon the king’s con­science.⁴ This anticipates the appearance of the royal conscience that played such an important part in the next reign.

Thus half the crowned heads of Europe were in­volved one way or another in negotiations for an alliance with Henry. “ He will make his choice where best he may,” wrote the Portuguese ambassador. Other observers doubted whether he was in earnest in many of these plans, and whether he was not de­ceiving the kings of France and Spain for his own purposes, especially with a view to obtaining the surrender of Suffolk. His desire to obtain the hand of Margaret of Savoy seems to have been genuine enough, but the lady had no liking for the proposed match. Negotiations, however, were continued. Maxi­milian sent ambassadors to England in August, bring­ing with them two portraits of Margaret and the news that Suffolk was in the hands of the Archduke Philip.

Relations with Spain were not improved by com­mercial difficulties. Some English merchants trading to Seville had been refused permission to export goods thence in their own ships in spite of Ferdinand’s recent decree, and eight hundred English sailors had appeared before the king at Richmond, “ all ruined and lost.” According to de Puebla, Henry fell into a great rage, and reproached him bitterly. “ The words which came from his mouth were vipers, and he indulged in every kind of passion.” In a few days however, Henry had recovered his temper and sent de Puebla a present of a buck.¹

De Puebla seems to have flattered himself that the negotiations with the archduke would come to nothing owing to his unpopularity in England. He tells a curious story of how he checkmated Katherine, who had been quite won over by Maximilian’s am- ¹ Berg., Nos. 438, 439, 442 ; Mem. of Hen. VII., p. 436.

bassadors, and who wrote a secret letter to try and induce Henry to agree to meet the archduke and the Queen of Castile at Calais on their way to Spain. De Puebla declared to Katherine, “ with tears run­ning down his cheeks,” that this suggestion of an interview was due to the machinations of Don Manuel (the treacherous brother of her mistress of the robes, Donna Elvira), who wished to injure Ferdinand. Katherine was persuaded to write another letter to Henry contradicting the first, which de Puebla rushed off to deliver personally.

By the end of the year Ferdinand and Henry had drifted still further apart. Ferdinand had made peace with France,¹, and was on the eve of marrying Germaine de Foix, niece of Louis XII., who re­nounced in her favour his claims to the kingdom of Naples. Thus the great cause of dispute between France and Spain was removed, and Ferdinand’s smooth announcement that he and the King of France had named Henry as the “ guardian of the treaty ” could not conceal the widening breach. Henry on his side was gravitating towards the arch­duke, and rumour declared that a league between Henry, Maximilian, Philip, James of Scotland, and perhaps the Pope had been formed.

Suffolk’s claims were still causing Henry intense irritation. The Venetian envoy wrote that he was a great thorn in Henry’s side, “ for he knows that the people of England love and long for him, and one day or other he might do the King of England much mischief.” He had passed into Philip’s power by the capture of Hatten in July 1505, and the submission of the Duke of Gueldres. There was great excitement in the Netherlands, where the feeling against England was very strong owing to renewed commercial difficulties. Philip’s subjects hoped “ to put a curb into the mouth of the King of England,” but their master’s attitude was a disappointment. His relations with Henry were becoming cordial. The negotiations for the hand of Margaret were continued, and twice during 1505, in April and September, Henry lent large sums of money to Philip for the purpose of his voyage to Spain.¹ The prob­able explanation is that Henry was anxious to see the King of Castile in Spain acting as a check upon Ferdinand, whose recent marriage with Germaine de Foix threatened a Franco-Spanish entente. The rumoured coalition mentioned by the Venetian am­bassador was beginning to take shape. Henry was ranging himself with Burgundy, Castile, and the Empire against Aragon and France.

Meanwhile the unhappy Suffolk had another change of gaolers. Philip, unwilling to offend Henry by keeping his rebel, had returned him to Duke Charles. He remained for some months in prison in Gelder- land, where he was already heavily in debt. He wrote many pitiful letters to Philip in his extraordinary spelling, asking Philip to order his release. “ Ef I vare the fardes yend of the vord I veld be at ys comand ment to fovel fele ys plessor,” &c.² In the autumn of 1505 he was again handed over to Philip and kept in strict captivity in Namur.¹ At last, in the beginning of 1506, Suffolk, wearied with vain promises and disappointed hopes, beset with creditors on all sides, made up his mind to try and settle the matter with Henry himself. He did not abandon his lofty claims. His communication took the form not of an appeal for pardon, but of negotiation for a treaty. Envoys from “ the Duke of Suffolk of England ” were sent to treat with duly authorised persons to be appointed by Henry as to the settle­ment of the troubles in England which arose from the disagreement between him and the king. He asked for restoration to his estates and to the dukedom of Suffolk, and for help to recover his liberty. There was a provision that the agreement should be signed by Henry and the Prince of Wales and confirmed by Parliament.² But on the very day that Suffolk drew up these precious instructions (January 28, 1505-6) his fate was settled by an arrangement between Philip and Henry.

A fortunate accident had thrown an opportunity of meeting Philip and Juana in Henry’s way. After waiting long for a favourable wind, they had sailed on the 10th of January, “ with great pomp passing the narrow seas,” but after four days in the Channel the high winds increased to a “ terrible hurricane,” the same “ hidyous wind ” that blew the golden eagle from the vane of St. Paul’s. The guns and everything movable were thrown overboard, the ship heeled over, Philip narrowly escaped being swept overboard. Fire broke out three times on the ship, which, driven before the gale, at last reached land at Portland. The other ships of the fleet were scattered. The one on which the Venetian am­bassador sailed put in at Falmouth, which he described as “ a wild spot where no human being ever comes save the few boors who inhabit it.” He reported that the Cornishmen were a barbarous race, speaking a language so different from that of Londoners that the latter could not understand them any better than the Venetians.¹

Philip at once sent to inform Henry of his arrival, “ calling him father,” and suggesting, in spite of the advice of his suite, that he should take the op­portunity of visiting him. Henry welcomed the suggestion. It was one of the occasions upon which he loved to dazzle all eyes by his magnificent court and win fair opinions by the display of princely generosity. The neighbouring gentry were ordered to attend and entertain the royal guests. Servants, palfreys, and litters were sent to Portland, and on January 31st Henry received Philip at Windsor Castle. He rode out to meet him, and the two princes saluted and embraced each other bareheaded. Henry treated his guest with splendid courtesy. A week of stately ceremonial and lavish entertainment followed. There were several private interviews between the two kings, who vied with each other in their courtesies, conveying and reconveying each other to their lodgings with much polite show. The King of Castile was introduced to Princess Katherine and to Princess Mary. Katherine danced in Spanish array; Princess Mary also danced, and played upon the lute and the clavegalles, to every one’s great ad­miration. The week passed pleasantly, hunting deer in the forest, playing tennis, “ horse-baiting,” hawking, and wrestling between Englishmen and Spaniards. On the 9th of February Philip was invested with the Order of the Garter. After the ceremony the treaty of alliance, binding both parties to mutual defence and to a surrender of rebels, was signed by Henry and Philip, who swore to it on the gospels and the sacrament.¹ Prince Henry then received the Order of the Golden Fleece.²

Philip visited Richmond and London before he left. He parted from Henry on Monday, 1st March, and made his way to Falmouth to join the queen and his suite. The visit had been a great success.³ There does not seem to be much proof of the story that Henry made capital out of Philip’s misfortunes and wrung concessions from an unwilling guest, though his host’s personal influence, calculated splendour, and generous treatment⁴ may have induced Philip to make arrangements which he afterwards regretted.⁶

A treaty for the marriage of Henry and Margaret of Savoy, signed by Philip on March 20, 1506, was very favourable to Henry. Philip’s sister was to have a dowry of 300,000 crowns, and to receive from Philip yearly the sums of 18,850 crowns and of 12,000 crowns in satisfaction of her jointure from her two previous marriages. Maximilian and Philip were to use all their influence to induce Margaret to consent to the marriage. The treaty also provided for a strict alliance between the two princes, and that all rebels and fugitives should be given up by both monarchs. Philip signed the treaty on behalf of Maximilian also, and promised that he would confirm it within four months.¹ The commercial treaty (April 30), which accompanied it was even more favourable to England, and in fact contained so many concessions that Philip was reluctant to ratify it.²

Neither treaty contains any provision as to the treatment of the Earl of Suffolk. There are several conflicting accounts on this point. Bacon gives a vivid story of Henry’s private conversations with Philip on the subject of “ that same harebrain wild fellow my subject, the Earl of Suffolk,” but unfortunately his report seems to be imaginative. There is also no authority for the statement of an eye-witness who described Philip’s reception that “ unaxed the King of Castile prof erred the king to yield Edward Rebell.” According to another account, Henry gave a “ solemn promise in writing sealed with his seal ” that Suffolk should receive a full pardon for all his offences. The Venetian ambassador relates that Henry had given a promise and public oath to pardon Suffolk and restore him to his estates. Hall, following Vergil, also states that Henry “ promised faithfully of hys awne offre to pardon Edmund de la Poole of all paynes and execucions of death.” The truth lies somewhere between these different reports.

Philip sent one of his suite to conduct Suffolk to England. He was handed over to the English garrison at Calais on March 16th, arrived in England on 24th March—nearly a month before Philip sailed —and was at once lodged in the Tower. His life was spared as Henry had promised, but he remained in prison until the end of the reign.

The treaties signed by Philip were valueless until they were ratified. The confirmation of the marriage treaty, though anxiously expected by Henry, was not made until 2nd September, and there was obviously no intention of ratifying the commercial treaty. In spite of this, Henry had been doing his best to fulfil his obligations to Philip, and in the summer of 1506 wrote offering to help his ally against the Duke of Gueldres, who had again rebelled.³ Maximilian, however, had to give Henry the unwelcome news that he had failed to persuade his daughter Mar­garet to agree to the marriage. He had written personal letters and sent ambassadors. The duchess said that, “ though an obedient daughter, she would never consent to so unreasonable a mar­riage ” ; but he thought her reluctance was due to the machinations of the French foxes, and promised Henry that he would not give up until he had obtained her consent, and that he would pay her a personal visit for that purpose. Henry wrote rather coldly in reply that he was sorry that Madame Mar­garet made so many difficulties about the treaty of marriage, hinting that he might accept “ one of the great and honourable matches that were daily offered to him on all sides.”¹

Meanwhile the situation in Spain needed careful watching. Philip had reached Castile safely, but found himself opposed at every point by Ferdinand. It was the ambition of each to govern Castile in right of Juana. Her character was another difficulty. Already before she left Flanders there were sinister rumours that she was mentally unsound. The reports about her became more and more unfavour­able. The Venetian ambassador, who in September 1506 had reported that she bore herself “ like a sensible and discreet woman,” and, in January 1506-7, that she showed great bravery during the storm at sea, wrote in March that her “ intellects were not sufficiently sound for the burden of government.” ² From this time all the reports harp on the same string, and it is impossible not to suspect that Philip took the worst possible view of his wife’s malady owing to her constant quarrels with him and her expressed determination to rule Castile herself. Un­prejudiced observers like the Venetian envoy, who saw Juana while she was at Falmouth, used language which hints at a dark conspiracy between Ferdinand and Philip to deprive Juana of the government on the ground of her incapacity. The ambassador wrote in April 1506 that Philip and Ferdinand had arranged “ to circulate a report before she arrived in Spain that she was unfit to govern,” with a view to preventing the Castilian nobles, who were de­votedly attached to her, from insisting on the queen governing them in person. It was notorious that Philip and Juana got on badly together, and the theory of a plot between husband and father-in-law seems probable enough on the face of it.¹ In June Philip was thinking of shutting her up in a strong fortress, a measure from which Ferdinand dissuaded him. Philip and Ferdinand certainly made friends in the summer of 1506, the basis of their agreement being that they were to govern Castile jointly, Juana being excluded on the ground of incapacity.²

In September the whole situation was changed by Philip’s death at the age of thirty. The prospect that Ferdinand would attempt to exclude Prince Charles from Castile roused all the latent hostilities of Europe. It was rumoured that the King of France would support Ferdinand’s action, and Maximilian wrote to Henry in great alarm, begging for his help and for a loan of 100,000 crowns to defend the young archduke’s dominions. Henry saw that the un­ratified treaties he had made with Philip were so much waste paper after his death, but, while he hastened to disclaim any further interest in the war in Gelderland, he showed an inclination to cling to his friendship with Maximilian in hope of the marriage with Margaret. A new commercial treaty was also considered. The other side also made a bid for his alliance. French ambassadors hastened to England to offer the daughter of the Duke of Angouleme to Henry in marriage, but Henry refused this offer, not having given up hope of the Duchess Margaret. There is ample evidence of Henry’s estrangement from Ferdinand. The usual recrimi­nations about the marriage portion had taken on a very bitter tone, and Ferdinand excused himself on the plea that the remaining part of the portion was in the hands of the late Queen Isabella’s trustees, that he was absent in Italy, and that Juana was unable, through her “ unspeakable affliction ” at the death of her husband, to sign an order.

The Princess Katherine was the unfortunate scapegoat of their hostility. In December 1505 she had appealed to Ferdinand for money in vain, and she declared that she and her servants had not a single maravedi except for food. She complained bitterly that de Puebla’s letters were “ full of calumny and lies,” and that he was the cause of all her suffer­ings. In the spring and summer of 1506, she had several severe attacks of fever.¹ In April she wrote that she was in debt for food, and that Henry, owing to the non-payment of the marriage portion, refused to pay her debts, though she asked him with tears. Her people were ready to beg, and she herself had for six months been near death.

It is difficult to reconcile these bitter complaints with the friendly tone of Katherine’s letters to Henry and his to her. Henry wrote in October putting a house at Fulham at her disposal, as she thinks it will improve her health to be so near him. If she prefers any other house, she has only to say so and it will be kept for her. Next year her posi­tion was improved by a new marriage scheme, which promised to add another link to the weakened chain of the Anglo-Spanish alliance. It is from one of Ferdinand’s letters to Katherine, written in March 1507, that Henry’s proposal that he should marry Philip’s widow, Juana, is first mentioned.¹ The golden crown of Castile outweighed the attractions of the proposed marriage with Margaret, and although negotiations for that marriage were continued, Henry’s chief efforts between 1507 and 1508 were secretly directed to the new scheme.

Henry’s attitude in this matter has been made the subject of many hard words. He has been repre­sented as a monster who was willing to marry a maniac in order to snatch at a crown, but a review of the evidence disposes of the most revolting part of the story.² Until Henry received a letter from Ferdinand early in 1508, he had no reason, as far as we know, to think that Juana was mad. Before the date of that letter he had been told of nothing except the infirmity alluded to by de Puebla. Henry was certainly guilty of a lack of delicacy in being anxious to marry a woman who was rumoured to be weak-minded, but the very fact that Juana, with a kingdom for her dower, was incapable of ruling tempted Henry shrewdly to try and marry her and rule Castile in her right. His attitude was no out­rage upon contemporary feeling in the matter of royal marriages or upon the standards of a coarse age. When Ferdinand forwarded the darker details of Juana’s state of mind—the story of her insane de­votion to her husband’s unburied corpse, and so on— the negotiations were allowed to drop.³ Another aspect of the affair seems to be evidence of Henry’s declining powers. It was strange if he believed that Ferdinand was sincere in the proposal for the marriage. He must have known that Ferdinand, after his ex­perience with Philip, would do anything to prevent his daughter marrying another prince who would try to exalt Juana’s authority at his expense. Was Ferdinand likely to neutralise the union of Castile and Aragon ? The insincere diplomacy of the period makes it difficult to know what Henry really believed; but though it is conceivable that, he was playing with this, like other marriage schemes, in order to strengthen his diplomatic position, the simpler explanation that he was in earnest about the match is the more probable. He certainly was not suffi­ciently sanguine about it to make it his only scheme. As usual, he had two strings to his bow. As his hopes of the Castile marriage faded, his suit for the hand of Margaret of Savoy became keener. He was certainly sincere in his efforts for this match, which harmonised with the drift of his later policy, steadily setting away from Spain.

Just before Easter in 1507, Henry had had a severe attack of quinsy, which for six days prevented him from eating and drinking, and weakened him so much that his life was despaired of, but he had made a rapid recovery. Within a fortnight he was receiving ambassadors and discussing some of his many marriage schemes, and by the late summer he was quite restored to health.¹ De Puebla wrote on 5th October 1507 that the king spent every day hunting and hawking, that since he recovered from his illness he had been better and stronger than ever before, and was even growing stout. The same letter describes Prince Henry as “ already taller than his father, with limbs of gigantic size. There was not a finer youth in the world.”¹

At the same time the scheme for a marriage between Henry’s daughter Mary, and Philip’s son Charles, which had been mooted during Philip’s stay in England, began to take definite shape. Fear of France made Henry’s alliance very desirable to Maximilian, and throughout the autumn of 1506 am­bassadors discussed the three points of the alliance— the confirmation of the unwelcome commercial treaty, the marriage of Mary and Charles, and the marriage of Henry and Margaret.

By the spring an agreement had been reached, and in May 1507 a treaty was made which was con­siderably less favourable to England than the un­ratified treaty. The fact that Henry was prepared to accept this proves that he appreciated the value of the proposed match between Charles and Mary.² In September 1507 the complicated nature of the situation is illustrated by the fact that envoys from France, Flanders, Denmark, Scotland, the Pope, the King of the Romans, as well as the Spanish ambassador were with Henry at Woodstock. France had declared war upon Burgundy, and all the powers were anxious to make Henry take sides definitely. Both marriage projects were under discussion; and though the king wrote a letter to the Duchess Margaret promising to use his influence to prevent France from attacking Burgundy, and sent her a present of six horses and some greyhounds, he continued the secret negotiations for the marriage with Juana.¹ A propos of these presents to Margaret, de Puebla suggested to his master that Henry would much appreciate a gift of black and chestnut Spanish mules, and would probably present Ferdinand with some English and Irish hackneys in return. A little later the confusion of open and secret schemes for marriage alliances was increased by the reopen­ing of negotiations for a French marriage, the pro­posal being that Prince Henry should marry the sister of the Duke of Angouleme. Nothing came of this, but it was utilised by Henry, who, by prac­tice, had gained a conjuror’s dexterity in keeping half-a-dozen things in the air at the same time, to put pressure on Ferdinand, who began to think that, after all the years of waiting, the marriage between Katherine and Henry might never take place.

In September 1508 Henry’s hopes of a marriage with Margaret received a severe check. Maximilian had written to her in September 1507 begging her “ to amuse Henry with false hopes and prevent him allying himself with France and Spain.” Margaret had evidently suggested that she might consider the Prince of Wales as a suitor, but Maximilian told her that they would never consent to that, and he tried to win her over to consider Henry’s suit favour­ably by suggesting that she might remain ruler of the Netherlands, and spend three or four months of the year there. Accordingly in October, Mar­garet sent a “ very loving letter ” to Henry, which he at once read to de Puebla.² But when Henry pressed his suit, Margaret’s real decision had to come out. In vain Maximilian painted the advantages of the English match in glowing terms, and referred to Henry as “ a pattern of all the virtues ” ;¹ Margaret made her refusal very plain, though she tried to soften it by saying that she was fully aware of Henry’s noble qualities, and would never marry any one but him. She pointed out, however, that she had already been married three times, and that she feared she would never have any children, and would therefore displease the King of England. She also referred to the marriage portion suggested by her suitor as exorbitant. It was obvious that she had made up her mind, yet Henry did not give up hope.²

In the other scheme for uniting the royal houses of Austria and England he was more fortunate. On 21st of December 1507 the treaty for the mar­riage of Prince Charles and Princess Mary was signed, and was accompanied by a treaty of mutual alliance between Henry and Charles. The Princess Mary was to receive a dowry of 250,000 crowns. The betrothal was to take place before Easter 1508, the marriage was to follow within forty days of the prince’s fourteenth birthday, and three months later the princess was to be sent to join her husband.³ The match was celebrated by great rejoicings in the capital, and by tournaments. Andre wrote a song in honour of Madame Marie to celebrate the occasion.

Henry was delighted at his success. His diplomacy had gained a great triumph. An heiress of the house of Tudor was to marry one of the most powerful princes in Europe. He wrote that his realm was now “ environed, and in manner closed in every side with such mighty princes, our good sons, friends, confederates, and allies,” that it was perpetually established in wealth, peace, and pros­perity.¹ A comparison with the state of England at his accession some twenty years earlier is a striking comment on the king’s rare words of exultation. But the alliance was very irritating to Ferdinand. A treaty which profoundly affected his interests had been signed by Henry without consulting him. It was too late to interfere, but he did not conceal his annoyance. The tone of his letters was very bitter. Yet, much as he would have liked to, he could not afford to quarrel with Henry. The match was still in danger. The Prince of Wales was not much in­clined for it, and the king’s indifference was obvious. He spoke of the King of Aragon as a “ stout French­man,” and dropped hints of some scheme by which the Emperor might rule Castile, apparently as regent for Juana and Prince Charles, and deprive Ferdinand of his influence there.

In the face of this danger Ferdinand had to try and conceal his resentment at the match between Charles and Mary, and push on the marriage be­tween Henry and Katherine by every means in his power. He wrote to his ambassador about the scheme for an Anglo-French match, and said that if Henry broke faith with him he would make a worse war upon the King of England than on the Turks. These threats, though not for publication, show the feeling of exasperation which filled Ferdinand at Henry’s growing independence and indifference.

On August 7, referring to Henry’s very rigid atti­tude about the marriage portion—he had demanded payment in cash, and refused to accept a valuation of the princess’s plate and jewels—Ferdinand al­luded to his extreme covetousness, and said that he would break entirely with him were it not for the Princess of Wales. He feared being cheated. In dealing with people of “no honour and of indif­ferent character,” it was necessary to take great precautions; Henry’s demands were against all right and charity. He even hinted that Katherine might be poisoned in order to get hold of her marriage portion ! Arrangements for its repayment were to be made that Henry might be freed from the temp­tation of killing Katherine. The whole tone of the letter is bitterly hostile, and the strangest contrast to the former flatteries.

The recall of de Puebla and his replacement by Fuensalida (now governor of Membrilla), who had arrived in England early in 1508, had added to the friction. Membrilla irritated Henry by adopting an independent attitude very different from the pliancy of de Puebla. Henry actually announced that as the dowry had not yet been paid the marriage should not take place. He refused to give Membrilla an audience, and the palace guard refused him admittance.¹ Both sides seemed to be drifting towards war.

The position of Princess Katherine at this moment was extremely painful. Her letters are filled with pathetic complaints of the humiliations she was forced to endure.² She wrote that she was absolutely penniless, that she had been obliged to sell her property, and that she was dependent upon the king’s charity. Revolting as Henry’s conduct appears, something can be said in extenuation of it. Ferdinand must share the responsibility for his daughter’s unhappy plight. He refused either to contribute to her support, or to pay the remainder of the marriage portion. Henry felt that he was being cheated, and what he gave to Katherine he gave grudgingly. In justice to Henry, and without any attempt at special pleading, it must be noticed that there were scandals in Katherine’s household which throw some doubt upon her complaints of dire poverty.

When Membrilla arrived as ambassador he found a state of affairs in the princess’s household which reflected little credit upon Katherine and much upon Henry’s forbearance.

In 1506 the princess had appointed as her con­fessor a certain friar, Diego Fernandez, who rapidly obtained an influence over her that was very injuri­ous to her reputation. She made him her chancellor, distinguished him by many marks of favour, and admitted him to an extraordinary intimacy. The whole court was seething with scandal about her imprudent conduct, and Membrilla felt bound to communicate the affair to his master. He wrote that the whole of the princess’s household was governed by this young friar, who led her into many errors.¹ He described the friar as “ young, light, haughty, and scandalous in an extreme manner.”² Henry himself had been obliged to remonstrate sharply with Katherine. Slander already connected the name of the princess with the friar, “who had neither learning, appearance, manners, competency, or credit.” “ The King of England and all the English,” wrote Membrilla, “ abhor to see such a friar con­tinually in the palace and amongst the women.” It is curious to notice that within five days of the date of Membrilla’s report Katherine wrote bewail­ing her miserable position. She complained that Henry had treated her differently ever since Fer­dinand’s alliance had lost its importance to him. She had been obliged to sell her household goods to provide herself with money. Henry had told her that he was not bound to provide either for Kathe­rine or her servants, but that the love he bore her would not allow him to do otherwise. Katherine was anxious to pay some of her servants who annoyed her and send them away, but her greatest afflic­tion was not having the means adequately to maintain her confessor, the best that ever a woman in her position had, and so on. She complained that the ambassador had quarrelled with the friar, and the latter’s threat to leave her reduced Katherine to a pitiable state of distress.¹ She implored her father to order the confessor to stay with her, and to write asking Henry to have the confessor “very well treated and honoured.”² It is difficult to dis­cover the truth when the only reports we have come from interested parties, one bent on condemning, the other on eulogising the friar. But, apart from the inherent improbability of the ambassador daring to write absolutely untrue reports to his master, the friar’s own letters show him to have been a man of great coarseness even in a lax age, and he himself re­ported facts proving that the princess confided in him to an extraordinary and very unbecoming extent.

Further, the unsuitability of the friar for his position in the princess’s household is proved by the fact that he was in later years (1515) convicted of im­morality.¹ It is difficult, therefore, not to concur in the ambassador’s rather than in the princess’s estimate of the confessor. His influence over Kathe­rine did not improve her relations with Henry, but we find the latter acting with considerable for­bearance. We have on record a striking instance of the friar’s influence. In defiance of the king’s express wish, and obeying the friar’s commands, the princess refused to go to Richmond to meet the king. The English gentlemen who had come to escort her had to go to Richmond without her, leaving her alone with the friar and her servants. On the following day she made her appearance at Richmond, accompanied only by three of her women, the friar, and two servants. Henry was not un­naturally displeased at conduct which was undig­nified, if nothing worse, and for three weeks he took no notice of Katherine, and did not send to inquire for her when she fell ill. The ambassador himself paid a tribute to Henry’s forbearance, and admitted that he had blamed the king unfairly, that he wondered not at what he had done but at what he refrained from doing, especially as he was not of the temper readily to allow disobedience. Further, the ambassador’s letters let fall a hint that gives another explanation than Katherine’s of the necessity that forced her to sell her plate. The princess, he wrote, was with difficulty prevented from selling a piece of plate every day to satisfy the follies of the friar. Within a fortnight the princess had sold gold plate for two hundred ducats, and had nothing to show for it. It had all gone in books and in the friar’s expenses. The case against the friar is strengthened by the fact that the next Spanish ambassador corroborates Membrilla’s view of the situation. He speaks of the friar as the worst man he had ever known. It is obvious that in the unfortunate differences between Henry and Katherine the fault was not entirely his.¹

Meanwhile the Pope was again pressing the claims of a crusade against the Turks. Henry, as we have seen, had preserved a sympathetic but judiciously non-committal attitude to the question. He had been lavish in expressions of interest, and had even helped the cause by a handsome contribution, but his cautious temperament had prevented him from throwing himself heartily into the Papal schemes.² But as Henry neared the end of his life, his real piety triumphed over his caution.

The steady advance of the Turks filled Eastern Christendom with dread. In 1506 Henry had been chosen by the Knights of Rhodes, who were the vanguard of resistance to the Turks, as their “pro­tector, champion, patron, and defender throughout the whole Christian world and in his own famous kingdoms.” ³ In the following year, urged perhaps by his sharp attack of quinsy, Henry showed signs of justifying this complimentary title by definite action.

In a letter written from Greenwich on 15th May 1507,⁴ to the Pope, Henry explains that ever since his accession he had been intent on the universal peace of Christendom. He had never cherished dreams of foreign conquest, not through lack of military resources, treasure, and power, but because he was averse by nature to the shedding of Christian blood. He was now bound to nearly all the princes of Christendom by treaties of alliance and ties of blood. He begged the Pope to restore peace to Christendom, and, that being done, to proclaim a crusade against the infidels, and invite the Christian princes to send ambassadors to Rome to settle the practical details of the proposed joint campaign. The Holy Father, who was wise and strong in body and mind and obeyed by the princes of Christendom, would earn eternal glory if he avenged the humilia­tion of centuries on the detestable infidels. In July the Pope wrote in reply complimenting Henry on his letter (which he had read ten times himself and then read to the Cardinals), but throwing cold water on the suggestion of an assembly of ambassadors at Rome, as previous experience of such assemblies had shown that the Christian powers always failed to agree as to who should command, what places to attack first, and so on. He suggested that help might be sent to those Christian princes who were already fighting against the infidels.¹ Henry took the Pope’s hint, and suggested to Ferdinand that he might send an army of the renowned English bowmen to help him against the Moors. A joint expedition from Spain, Portugal, and England might do wonders; and it was believed that a force of English bowmen could in a few years conquer the whole of Africa. Ferdinand’s reply was not enthusi­astic. He put off the proposed war in Africa “ till his other affairs should have been arranged.” Henry’s new-found zeal was not dashed, and in September he wrote another long letter to the Pope, urging the joint expedition upon him in the strongest terms. He suggested that “ a trinity of kings from the west ” might lead the advance eastwards towards the Holy Sepulchre, and promised, with every appearance of sincerity, that even if no other prince was forth­coming, he, Henry, would undertake the war in his own person.¹ Nothing came of this appeal, however, the Pope being occupied with more mundane cares until April in the last year of the king’s life, when Julius II wrote again to revive the scheme for an attack upon the Turks. The appeal came too late; the dying king was unable to accede to the Pope’s request. During the stormy zenith of his career Henry had felt an impulse to take up the burden of a Christian prince in defence of Christendom against the Turks, but except for his pecuniary contribu­tions it remained an impulse only. The defence of his kingdom and the settlement of his dynasty ab­sorbed all his attention until late in life, when success brought him leisure, and illness reminded him of the claims of religion—too late.

In the same year there was friction between Eng­land and Scotland. The marriage between James and Margaret had been a great success from the political point of view, though the bride herself seems to have been miserable enough. Henry had been able to count upon Scotch neutrality and sometimes on Scotch sympathy in his relations with foreign powers. James, for instance, had adopted a very correct policy in the question of the Earl of Suffolk,² and in 1505 he had agreed not to revive the old alliance between Scotland and France.¹ In spite of this, however, French influence was still strong in Scot­land, and in later years, the traditional policy of stirring up strife with England was revived. James IV. was led to take up the cause of Duke Charles of Gueldres, and even wrote to Henry (8th Janu­ary 1507) threatening to abandon his alliance with England if Henry supported the Duke’s enemies. Further, James had interfered in Ireland, in support of O’Donell. The growing unfriendliness was emphasised in January 1508, when Henry arrested the Earl of Arran, who was travelling through England without a passport on his way back from France. There had been many complaints before of this practice of Scotchmen travelling in disguise through England, but James strongly resented Arran’s detention.²

The dispute gave Thomas Wolsey, one of Henry’s chaplains, his first diplomatic employment. He was sent to Scotland on January 23,1507-8, and Arran was allowed to leave England. The great difficulty was the attitude of the Scotch nobles. James seems to have been loyal to the English alliance, but the traditional friendship with France was much more popular in Scotland. Wolsey’s diplomacy, how­ever, succeeded in reconciling Henry and James, and the friendship between England and Scotland was not broken until the next reign.³

In the summer of 1508, it was rumoured that Maximilian was thinking of one of his sudden changes of policy, and, lured by the hope of alliance with France, contemplated abandoning the lately arranged marriage between Charles and Mary, in order that the former might marry the Princess Claude of France, to whom he had once been betrothed. Henry had again been seriously ill in February 1508, and it was rumoured that he was in the last stages of consump­tion. He did not intend, however, to let slip the threads of his policy, and, though reluctant to break with France, hoped to hasten the postponed betrothal ceremony between Mary and Charles.¹ It was these conflicting aims that gave Wolsey a second opportunity of distinguishing himself. In August 1508 he was sent into Flanders by Henry. Of the details of this mission we have no account, but Wolsey evidently succeeded in overcoming for the moment Maximilian’s inclination to France. In October he was again in the Netherlands discuss­ing the inevitable difficulties about the Princess Mary’s dowry, and trying to stir up opposition to Ferdinand’s government of Castile.² Henry’s letters to Wolsey prove that even in November 1508 he still clung to the hope of a marriage with Margaret. On 7th November he wrote to his “ dear and beloved cousin ” an affectionate letter, and told his envoy that if he married the duchess he would be quite contented to make his abode in Burgundy for a good space every year, and that if the government was not entrusted to him and Margaret jointly, he, Henry, would be quite willing to let her go there to stay whenever convenient.

At last, after a long delay, which was very annoy­ing to Henry, Maximilian’s envoys arrived in Eng­land, and a proxy marriage between Charles and Mary took place at Greenwich on 17th December.¹ The ceremony was followed by arrangements as to the repayment by Maximilian of the loan from Henry.²

Strangely enough, the last few months of Henry’s life saw a reversal of the whole diplomatic situation. The isolation of Ferdinand and the coalition against him, upon which Henry prided himself, gave way, and the king’s triumph was shattered. Events in Italy gave a new direction to the ambitions of the princes of Europe. Ferdinand had secured his hold upon Naples, and by a successful campaign in 1507 Louis XII. had regained his influence in North Italy. Maximilian chose this moment to renew his claims to imperial dominion in Italy, and found himself re­sisted in his design by France, Spain, and Venice. But while he pursued these shadowy schemes, the revolt of the Duke of Gueldres, assisted by France, was endangering the substance of his hold upon Burgundy. At this crisis the alliance with England, concluded in December 1507, was very valuable.³

All Maximilian’s plans failed, however. He failed in Italy, and he failed in Gelderland. Louis XII. also had ambitious designs in Italy, which were thwarted by the opposition of Venice. Common interests drew Louis and Maximilian together, and after a great deal of secret negotiation, the two princes agreed to abandon their mutual hostilities in favour of an attack on Venice. The change was fatal to Henry’s schemes.

The diplomacy of Europe centred round the con­ference at Cambrai between Margaret of Savoy and the Cardinal d’Amboise, representing Maximilian and Louis. Though English envoys attended the conference at the special invitation of Margaret, they were only concerned with the state of affairs on the surface and knew nothing of the secret nego­tiations which were transforming the diplomacy of Europe. The question of Gelderland, the osten­sible reason of the conference, was indeed settled by the appointment of the Kings of England, France, and Scotland as arbitrators. Henry’s instructions to Wingfield, based on the situation as known to him, were quite beside the point. The absorbing interest of the conference was the settlement of the Italian question, in which England was not concerned.

Wingfield was urged to press for the dissolution of the alliance between the King of France and Ferdinand, to try and deprive the latter of the regency of Castile, and obtain his exclusion from the treaties at Cambrai. He was to declare Henry’s willingness to accept an alliance with France, to be strengthened by a marriage with a French princess.¹ Henry was obviously out of touch with the situa­tion.² On December 10, 1508, the formation of the League of Cambrai joined France and Maximilian in common hostility to Venice, and a little later the Pope and Ferdinand were also admitted into the League. It was a bitter disappointment to Henry; instead of being a member of a coalition designed to attack Ferdinand, he found himself almost the only power not included in the League.

But Henry was not the man to acquiesce in even momentary exclusion and isolation. In spite of his increasing physical weakness, the king patiently set to work to rearrange the threads of his policy. For­tunately there was no disposition to exclude him from the League. He received an invitation to join it, but the prospect of dismembering the republic of Venice, which had led the powers of Europe to drop mutual animosities, had no lure for him.

The threatened republic appealed urgently to him for help. In January 1508-9, they had found out about the League of Cambrai. Their consul in Lon­don was directed to approach Pietro Carmelianus, Henry’s Latin secretary, and try and avail himself of his favour with the king, “ who had always loved the state as his special friends.” In this crisis of their fortunes no effort was to be spared to attach Henry to their side. The envoy was to point out that France meditated the ruin of Italy, hoped to obtain the imperial crown for Louis, and the chair of St. Peter for the Cardinal of Rouen. They were persuaded that Henry would interfere to save them, “ both of his goodness and because of the safety of the whole Christian world.” On 30th January an ambassador was sent to England charged with the duty of informing Henry of the “ deep rooted and detestable greediness ” of the King of France, and of his ambition to become “ monarch of the universe ” and of his other “ unbecoming and immoderate cravings.” Henry and Venice both realised that the only hopeful line of policy was an attempt to detach Maximilian from his recent alliance with

France. Maximilian’s conduct had been thoroughly characteristic. His recent alliance with Henry and a three years’ truce with Venice he had broken without scruple, to pursue one of those ambitious dreams which had been the bane of his life.

By the time the Venetian ambassador reached London in March, Henry was too ill to give him an audience, though he expressed his good intentions towards the republic. He had already written to Maximilian to try and adjust his quarrel with Venice. A short time afterwards the King of France declared war against Venice, and the French and Papal forces attacked its territory, but Henry died before this news reached him.¹

Henry’s final communications with Ferdinand in the last months of his life remain to be noticed. After the failure of his attempt to isolate Spain, there was a return to the friendly tone character­istic of their former relations.

In January and February 1509 Henry wrote to John Stile, his envoy in Spain, directing him to inform Ferdinand that the long-delayed marriage should soon take place, and Ferdinand replied that he would send an ambassador with powers to settle the question of the dowry. Stile reported that great efforts were being made, however, to detach the King of Spain from the English alliance. Ayala said that he used all his influence in favour of England, and that he was not carried away by the anti-English party in Spain. Stile, however, admitted frankly enough that the Spaniards were “ wondrous close, subtle, and crafty far passing his understanding,” and evidently distrusted Ayala. Stile’s position seems to have been very uncomfortable, and he wrote that he would have had as good cheer and company as ambassador to the Turks or to Barbary as he had there. The upshot of it all was that Ferdinand agreed to forget his displeasure at the betrothal of the Prince of Castile without his consent on condition the marriage between Henry and Katherine was immediately concluded. He declared that he and the King of England had been and were now great brothers and friends. This last despatch, which Henry never lived to read, dealt as usual with the time-worn topics of the dowry and the marriage portion. The long negotiations between Henry and Ferdinand ended on a familiar note.¹

Rumours of Henry’s illness had been carried all over Europe in the spring of 1509. His malady, which was a form of consumption, took a turn for the worse in March. “ Perceiving that death was not far off tarrying,” a general pardon was proclaimed to all who had offended against the king’s laws, thieves and murderers alone being excepted.² By the end of the month the king was in great danger. On the 14th of April he was reported to be in extremis, and on the 21st of April, “ so consumed with his long malady, that nature could no longer systeyne his lyfe,” Henry VII. died at Richmond in the fifty- third year of his age.³

His will, which was dated March 30, 1509, is of considerable interest. It breathes the spirit of a genuine and simple piety. He expressed his wish gives an account of the king’s last painful days, when “ for the space of xxvii houres ... he laye continually abiding the sharpe assautes of deth.”

to be buried in Westminster Abbey, “ the common sepulchre of the kings of this realm,” in the chapel that he had begun to build anew, where daily masses were to be said for his soul and the souls of his wife and ancestors. He left £5000 to finish the chapel and provide for the carving of the royal arms and badges on windows, walls, doors, arches, and vaults. He directed that his funeral should be carried out “ with special respect and consideration to the laude and praising of God, the welthe of our Soule and somewhat to our dignitie Royal, eviting alwaies dampnable pompe and oteragious superfluities.” Money was left to provide for ten thousand masses to be said for the king’s soul within one month after his death. £2000 was to be distributed to the poor, the sick, and to the prisoners, who were to be asked to offer prayers for the king’s soul, “ so that oure Soule may fele that as thei loved us in our life, soo thei may remember us after our deceasse.” Pro­vision was made for payment of the king’s debts and for the satisfaction of wrongs done by the king or by his order.¹ Bequests were made for founding chantries and almshouses, hospitals at York and Coventry, for the repair of highways and bridges, and for various “ dedes of merite, almose, pitie, and charite.” The king’s signature was dated the 10th of April, ten days before his death.

The pomp and ceremony with which the king had surrounded his state appearances lent dignity to his funeral.¹ On Tuesday, May 8th, the king’s body was brought from Richmond to London, and in the evening a stately procession, lit with torches innu­merable, passed slowly through the streets of the capital to St. Paul’s. The king’s coffin lay under a golden canopy on a chariot drawn by seven horses, their black velvet trappings emblazoned with the arms of England. The coffin was covered by an effigy of the late king, crowned and in Parliament robes, and bearing the sceptre and orb ; at the head and foot sat two mourners. The king’s courser, led by Sir Thomas Brandon, followed his dead master. “ A noble knight, the mourner,” bore the king’s standard behind the coffin. Then followed the Duke of Buckingham, the temporal lords and barons and the abbots and bishops on horseback, judges in their robes, and a long procession of monks and friars, singing dirges as they walked. The king’s steel helmet with its golden crown was borne by a Welsh knight. Sir Edward Howard wore his armour and bore his battle-axe reversed, and the caps and swords sent by three Popes were borne by esquires. When the cathedral was reached, the coffin was borne up through the nave by fourteen men of the king’s guard, “ because of its great weight,” and lay that night before the high altar of the cathedral under “ a goodlie curious Light of Nine Branches.” On the following morning, after three masses and a sermon by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester,² the king’s body was taken in procession to Westminster.

That night the dead king lay there in state, the gloom of the abbey being pierced by a space of light round the coffin, near which stood “ the most costly and curious light possibly to be made by man’s hand, which was of twelve principal standards.” On the morrow (Thursday, 10th May) the late king’s armour, his helmet, shield, and sword were given as offerings. Even his courser was ridden up through the abbey and offered at the altar. The Duke of Buckingham and the other nobles laid palls on the bier, “ in token of their homage, which they of dutie ought to do unto the king.” When the effigy and the palls were removed, the wooden shell was re­vealed covered with black velvet adorned with a huge white cross. Within was a leaden coffin bear­ing the inscription, “ Hie jacet Rex Henricus Sep­timus.” The coffin was laid in the vault by the side of the queen’s. The absolution was pronounced, earth was thrown upon the coffin by the archbishop; the lord treasurer, lord steward, and other officers of state broke their staves and threw them into the vault, the heralds took off their tabards, “ cryinge lamentably in French, ‘ The noble King Henry the Seaventh is deade. ’ ” A moment later the shouts of the heralds acclaimed his successor, “ God send the noble King Henry the Eighth long life.” There, in the centre of the gorgeous chapel that is a monu­ment to the dignity and splendour of his proud race, lies the dust of the founder of the Tudor dynasty, “ a king who lived all his tyme in the favour of fortune, in high honour, riches, and glory, and for his noble actes and prudent pollecies worthy to be registered in the booke of fame.”

 

PERSONAL: IMPORTANCE OF THE REIGN

 

“A dreary life and a dreary reign.” That is the summary of a modem sketch of King Henry.¹' It is a strange comment on a life of which the strange vicissitudes recall the fabled adventures of heroes of romance, and on a reign that, beginning with the achievement of a crown from the hawthorn bush on Bosworth field, saw the first voyages into the New World, and gathered the first harvest of the Renais­sance. Yet the comment is not a novel one. It follows the general tradition that clothes the reign with a pall of impenetrable dulness. The cry is that the reign lacks dramatic interest, that it is a bleak interlude between the death struggles of feudalism and the great political and social convul­sions that followed. Historians one after another dwell on the importance of the period and bewail its dulness ; ² it is the one thing apparently that may legitimately inspire their eloquence. The reign certainly suffers from the fact that it came between two periods of violent catastrophe. It was a time of experiment not yet confirmed, of discovery not yet verified ; and when the curtain falls on Henry VII. there is a feeling that it is but a prelude to a much more stirring play. But the reign does not lack the interest of a gallant and successful struggle against odds that at first seemed overwhelming. It is rich, too, in the promise of great beginnings, the end of which still lies out of sight. The reproach of dulness ought not to cloud the reign that made the glories of Elizabethan England possible.

Yet, after all, it is easy to explain this lack of interest. There is a strange absence of detailed contemporary evidence.¹ The half-seen figures of Henry and his ministers seem to struggle dimly in a twilight world of their own, and to be separated by more than a generation from the robust figures of their descendants, who play their parts on a well-lighted stage. Even the fact that Henry had Bacon for his biographer does not entirely atone for the lack of the intimate, revealing details of the king’s character. A grey mist still lies between him and us ; form but not colour has come down to us. What we know, too, of the people of the period is not arresting. The picture lacks those gallant and heroic figures that loom larger than life on the canvas of history. No amount of special pleading can make Henry VII. a hero of romance ; his ministers were all prosaic figures. Practical common sense seems to be their dominant characteristic. Morton, Fox, and Bray were men of sound ability, but there was no brilliance, no flash of genius, to relieve their humdrum usefulness. With Empson and Dudley we get a note of more striking colour, but their villainy took the unromantic form of sordid chicanery, base alike in method and motive. Even the one great crime of the reign—the execution of Warwick—is not of a character to arouse strong feeling, and lacks the sinister interest of a personal motive. Even the romantic career of the “ White Rose ” is touched with the prevalent absence of heroism. Perkin Warbeck’s gallant figure was the mask of an ignoble spirit, tainted with the baseness of personal cow­ardice. Neither the king’s mother nor the queen are particularly interesting.¹ The ability of the former was directed in uninteresting channels, and the queen had beauty, grace, and piety, but little character.

In spite of the tradition of repellent hardness that clings round it, the study of Henry’s strange com­plex character is curiously interesting. The portrait that Bacon drew still holds the field,² and no attempt to sketch the king’s character can stand without borrowing from his nobly worded study of this “ Solomon of England,” a study “ which nothing extenuates but sets down naught in malice,” of a man who, whether he was great or small, was at all events the mainspring and origin of the whole policy of the reign. It is the picture of the politic king that Bacon draws for us with his master hand—remote from human feelings, guiltless of love or hatred, without pity and without resentment, without pas­sion and without weakness. No one can deny that it is a striking figure, grey, relentless, and inhuman, that looms across the intervening centuries. But at the risk of blurring this clear outline, the evidence inaccessible to Bacon must be remembered. The lines of his splendid sketch must be modified. The king was more human than he has been portrayed, less aloof, less mysterious, less impressive, perhaps. It is like an attempt to replace a magnificent painting by a faithful photograph, a sacrifice of art to truth.

The dark, stern, secret figure Bacon has made us familiar with had a less sinister side which is re­vealed to us by contemporaries. Many of the qualities for which they praised the king, and which seem most alien to Bacon’s account, have the support of hard fact. He was neither harsh nor unkind. Considering how few are the original records that survive, the amount of evidence that exists to prove this is remarkable. Royal letters, letters patent, and royal accounts bring before us unques­tionable proof of his generosity and benevolence. In gratitude to those who had helped him or any of his house he is never wanting; ¹ he was com­passionate to victims of accident, redeemed debtors from prison, undertook the support of poor children. He paid the debts of traitors, and pensioned those dependent on them. He raised a tomb to King Richard’s memory and supported the widows of Lord Fitz Walter and of Perkin Warbeck. Bacon’s theory that he had an ineradicable hatred of the House of York is disproved by his generous treatment of Northumberland, Surrey, and a crowd of lesser men. The old picture of the harsh and sinister despot gives way to that of a king who was both kindly and con­siderate. He admitted his subjects to intimate per­sonal relations, and gave ear to their petitions. JTo take at random from a month of his life : he dealt with the woes of a disappointed lover, deceived by the “ nygromancer,” who had promised to help him to the woman he desired, he gave his protection to the wife of a lunatic, and interfered to protect a nun who had suffered ill-usage.¹ He did not forget his schoolmaster or the son of his old nurse. We find him giving £l “ to one that had his hand smyten off,” 6s. 8d. / “ to one that was hurt with a gunne,” and so forth.

He was not difficult to approach, and as he jour­neyed through his kingdom came into contact with many of his poorer subjects. Thus we hear of him drinking ale in a farmer’s house, stopping to watch the reapers in a field and giving them a tip of 2s., giving 3s. 4d. to a woman who approached him as he rode to Canterbury to give him “ a neste of leverets.” It is a homely picture which shows the king in a less forbidding light. It was also his custom and that of the queen to accept graciously a variety of small offerings brought to them by their subjects, giving them small rewards. The poor woman who brought a present of “ butter and chekins,” and the girl who brought almond butter (for use on Good Friday, when ordinary butter was forbidden), received small gratuities. “ A fool for bringing a carp ” was paid 12d., and a woman who brought two glasses of water to the king on one of his rides was given five shillings. Among the innumerable offerings were apples and oranges, cherries and strawberries, “ posies of flowers,” venison, rabbits, quails, wood­cocks, cock-pheasants, tripe, “ puddinges,” “ aqua vite,” malmsey wine, a fresh sturgeon, a nightingale, a pomander box, a pair of clavicords, rose-water, and cocks for fighting at Shrove tide.²

Again, the tradition of the king’s ascetic aloofness has to give way before the records of his court. Con­temporary descriptions have been preserved of many of the great ceremonies of the reign, the king’s coro­nation, the coronation of Elizabeth, the christening of Prince Arthur, the marriages of Arthur and Mar­garet, the creation of Prince Henry as Duke of York, the funerals of Arthur and Elizabeth, and of the king himself.¹ From them all we get the same im­pression of great splendour and dignity, of stately symbolism and ecclesiastical ritual. The Tower of London was the royal palace on many of these ceremonial occasions. Westminster Abbey was the scene of coronations, and St. Paul’s of national thanksgiving when the king appeared in triumph to give thanks for victory. The Thames plays its part in many of the pageants; with its barges furnished with “ baners and stremers of silk richly besene ” and its thousands of swans.²

The king’s private account book, Elizabeth’s privy purse expenses, and the Roll of the Great Ward­robe take us behind the scenes and show us the material upon which the king relied for his effects. The king himself made a magnificent figure at all the great ceremonies of the reign, and seems to have had a pronounced taste for gorgeous clothing, and above all for jewels, on which, between 1491 and 1505, he spent over £100,000.³ Even on comparatively in­formal occasions Henry was richly dressed. The Venetian ambassador found him at Woodstock dressed in a violet gown lined with cloth of gold, his collar enriched with many jewels, and his cap with “ a large diamond and a most beautiful pearl.” ¹ He led his army into France in a magnificent suit of armour, the helmet gleaming with pearls and jewels bought specially for it from the Lombard merchants. The nobles aped the king’s tastes, and glittered with goldsmith’s work and with “goodly chaines of fine gold.” On one occasion the Duke of Bucking­ham wore a gown of needlework set upon cloth of tissue and furred with sable, valued at £1500, and the gold trimming alone of Sir Nicholas Vaux’s gown was worth £1000.² The king encouraged all this, and often gave pieces of rich silk or velvet to his nobles, such as “ forty-one yards of riche satin to make the Earl of Oxford a gowne,” ³ and honoured with his presence the weddings of many members of his court.⁴

The Ordinances of the Household (1494) reveal the ordinary surroundings of Henry’s daily life.⁶ The ceremonial of the court was designed to set the king in a niche apart, invested with every cir­cumstance of pomp and dignity. The directions are much more minute than those for the household of Edward IV., and it is not fanciful to see in the increas­ing strictness of etiquette evidence of studied design.¹ The king made his public appearances with great pomp and under a cloth of estate. The furniture and decoration of the* royal palaces became increas­ingly luxurious. The descriptions of the hangings of rich tapestry and cloth of gold, of carpets and cushions embroidered with Tudor devices, of cupboards of rich gold plate, and of the elaborate furnishing of the royal bedchambers show a marked advance.² The king kept a splendid table, at which seven or eight hundred people dined daily.³ The menu at the state banquets usually included certain popular dishes, shields of brawn in armour, venison, pheasants, swans, peacocks (appearing in the glory of feathers and tail), capons, “ crane with cretney,” “ lamprey in galantine,” “ pike in Latymer sauce,” “ perche in jellie dipt,” snipes, quails, larks, partridges, and “ conies of high grece.” The sweets included cus­tards, “ marchpayne royal, and tarte poleyne.” Each course was finished by a Sotelte, an elaborate device in pastry representing allegorical figures.

The splendour of Henry’s court had more than a personal significance. It was designed to invest the new dynasty with the glamour of royal state and dignity, to catch the eye of Europe and suggest the strength of vast wealth. It was no accident when a newly-arrived ambassador or envoy found the court in full dress, everything marvellously well ordered and served, and the queen jewelled and sur­rounded by magnificently apparelled ladies.¹ Henry fully realised the effect of the trappings of royalty on the popular mind, and took care not to destroy his growing prestige by impromptu appearances in public. His state appearances were calculated to impress the minds of spectators, and be magnified by rumour in the country. His long progresses through the disturbed parts of England had the same end in view.²

Henry set the example of royal magnificence that became characteristic of the Tudor sovereigns, reign­ing at a period when royalty reached its climax in England. This outward pomp did much to foster the growing reverence for royalty, to set it on a pinnacle far above the subject, to create the atmos­phere of devoted loyalty to the throne that found its expression in the Elizabethan period.

To harmonise with the gloomy colours he has chosen, Bacon denies to Henry any relaxations. “ For his pleasures,” he says, “ there is no news of them,” and, while admitting that the court was en­livened by “ triumphs of justs and tourneys and balls and masks,” ³ suggests that Henry was “ rather a princely and gentle spectator than seemed to be much delighted.” According to Bacon he spent his leisure time making “ notes and memorials of his own hand, especially touching persons, as whom to employ, whom to reward, whom to inquire of, whom to beware of, what were the dependencies, what the factions, and the like,/keeping, as it were, a journal of his own thoughts,’/ but though this fits in aptly with Bacon’s view of Henry’s character, there are other accounts of the way in which the king spent his leisure which are a great contrast to this theory of gloomy seclusion.

Henry was an ardent sportsman, and took every opportunity of getting away from the cares of state for a few weeks’ hunting in the royal forests. He hunted in the New Forest, at Enfield, Waltham, and Woodstock, as well as at Windsor.¹ He jousted, shot at the butts, played tennis, dice, cards,² and “ chequer board,” was interested in bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and cock-fighting. Besides splendid tournaments, banquets, and “ goodly disguisings,” we hear of “ plays in the White Hall,” Twelfth Night processions, and the good sport provided by the “ Abbot of Mis­rule,” when special efforts were made “ to cause the king to laugh.” Morrice dancers and tumblers, conjurers, little dancing girls, and rope walkers vied with “ a Spaniard that played the fool ” (and received £2 !) and “ a felow who distinguished himself by eating of coales.” His idle hours were enlivened by the wit of one or another of a troop of court jesters, Scot and Dick “the master fools,” Peche the fool, Dego the Spanish jester, the “ foolyshe Due of Lancastre,” and others.¹ Henry certainly had a considerable sense of humour and a ready wit, sardonic and ironical though it may have been. Monstrosities of one kind or another seem to have had a special interest for the king—“ the grete Walshe child,” “ the littell Scottisman,” the “ grete woman of Flanders,” and so on. The king also had a collection of wild animals to which he occasionally added. The famous lions and leopards were kept at the Tower.²

Like most Celts, Henry was very musical, and never travelled without taking in his train some of his minstrels, trumpeters, harpists, or pipers. The queen and the princesses also kept their bands of musicians. On all his progresses Henry was received with music, and had many opportunities of enjoying and paying for “ incidental music ” of the most varied kind. On one occasion the king gave £l “ for a child that plays upon the recorders ” ; another time “ the Waytes ” received 10s., William Newark was given £1 for making a song, and children singing in the garden at Canterbury received 3s. 4d. Harpists, homists, violinists, organists, and trumpeters all received gratuities. The royal children were all musical, and there are many entries of sums spent on instruments for them.

Henry was not without a touch of Celtic romance and imagination. He was proud of his Welsh an­cestry and his mythical descent from the old kings of Britain. The red dragon of Cadwallader flaunted on the royal banner. His first-born son was given the name of the traditional hero of Britain, and was born in the ancient city of Winchester, the scene of some of Arthur’s exploits. Celtic clanship made the king mindful of the Ap Thomases and Ap Rhyses who had supported him, reward the Welsh rhymers, remember St. David’s day, and so on Many details of the king’s surroundings reveal his fondness for symbolism. The Tudor colours of white and green appeared everywhere, the Tudor arms and the red and white Tudor rose on everything from altar vest­ments to cushions and the king’s portraits. The Tudor device of a crown in a hawthorn bush recalled the coronation on Bosworth Field.

Too little has often been said on the king’s attempt to spread an air of culture and refinement about his court.¹ He gave his patronage to literature and the arts, rewarded poets and ballad-makers, bought rare books, encouraged printing, and raised for him­self a lasting monument of stone. He shared the spirit of adventure and discovery, kept an alchemist at work within the Tower, and rewarded a man who made gunpowder.² Thus the records prove that the old idea of Henry as the penurious and ascetic king must be abandoned. He was no sinister, savage despot, with no mind "above the tortuous tricks of a suspicious tyranny, but a gracious, liberal-minded monarch, with a marked taste for splendour and pageantry, a more or less conscious imitator of the methods of the Italian despots.

Henry’s relations with his family have given rise to some discussion, and here, too, Bacon’s view must be qualified. “The domestic history of his more famous son is not more thoroughly repulsive,” writes one great authority.¹ The theory to which Bacon has lent the support of his great name, that Henry treated his wife badly and her mother worse, long held the field,² but is now so discredited that it is hardly worth dwelling on. The evidence of documents and of contemporary historians contradicts the absurd and untrue statements that have been made. Henry restored Elizabeth’s mother “ to her fame as a woman and her dignity as a queen.”³ She was Prince Arthur’s only godmother, and was sometimes present at court on state occasions.⁴ The other story—about Henry’s unkindness to his wife—has been disposed of in the same way. There is no shadow of support for the theory that Henry was jealous of her position as heiress of the House of York. Eliza­beth received every possible mark of honour and favour. All her public appearances were surrounded with great state, the Yorkist colours of murrey and blue were displayed in the liveries of her attendants, and the white rose of York was emblazoned on the trappings of her palfreys.⁶ On the day of her coro­nation, which was unusually gorgeous, the queen was allowed the monopoly of public attention, Henry being an unseen spectator of the scene. The king’s fair wife was the central figure of all the ceremonies of his court and shared in all its amusements.¹ There is evidence that the royal pair were on thoroughly good terms with each other. Their letters were affectionate, they were constantly together, and Henry treated her very generously in money matters. They often gave each other little presents, and the queen with her own hands adorned Henry’s helmet with jewels, and embroidered his Garter mantle.² No one can read the simple, touching story given by the herald of the grief of the royal pair at the death of Prince Arthur, and continue to believe in the old story of Henry’s hatred of his Yorkist queen. “ When the king understood that sorrowful heavy tidings he sent for the queen, saying that he and his queen would take their painful sorrows together. After that she was come, and saw the king, her lord, and that natural and painful sorrow, she with full great and constant comfortable words besought his grace that he would first after God remember the weal of his own noble person, the comfort of his realm and of her. . . . Then the king thanked her of her good comfort. After that she was departed and come to her own chamber, natural and motherly remembrance of that great loss smote her so sorrow­ful to the heart, that those that were about her were fain to send for the king to comfort her. Then his grace, of true, faithful, and gentle love in good haste came and relieved her, and showed her how wise counsel she had given him before, and he for his part would thank God for his son, and, would she should do in like wise.” ¹ Henry’s ability and energy left Elizabeth no scope for political action (for which she was unfitted by character and cir­cumstance), but as daughter, wife, and mother she seems to have been all that is tender and womanly.² Erasmus describes her as brilliant, witty, and pious. ' According to Andre she was deeply religious and widely charitable, and generous to all who had served her.³ Some of her habits showed a very frugal mind. Her gowns were often mended, re­lined and retrimmed, but in spite of these economies, owing to her generosity, she was constantly in debt and had to be helped by Henry.⁴ On her early death the king ordered that this most gracious and best beloved princess should be buried with great pomp, and then “ privily departed to a solitary place to pass his sorrow, and would no man should resort unto him.” ⁵ John de Giglis’ rhapsody about “ the illustrious maid of York, most beautiful in form, whose matchless face, adorned with most enchant­ing sweetness shines,” seems to have been more d propos than many courtly effusions.

Emery Walker, Photo MARGARET BEAUFORT, COUNTESS OF RICHMOND AND DERBY 1441—1509

From the painting,'by an unknown artist, in the National Portrait Gallery

 

Henry’s mother was a really able woman, “ strict and stately, a woman of great experience and of many husbands,” ¹ but her activity found little scope in politics after Henry’s accession. She employed her talents on matters of court ceremonial, became a patron of literature, and founded a professorship at Oxford and a college at Cambridge. Fisher dwells much on her piety and asceticism.² Ayala thought she had considerable influence with Henry, more than pleased the queen, who, though popular, was powerless. Bacon’s account is that “ his mother he reverenced much, heard little ” ; but in the absence of further evidence all theories about the extent of her influence over Henry are equally admissible, and may be equally wrong. All we know is that Henry re­paid her devotion by the gift of his rare affection.³ Erasmus has left a charming picture of the life of the royal family at their favourite palace of Richmond. All Henry’s children were well educated, most of them were accomplished and musical. The young Prince Henry, a handsome boy, already showing signs of a high spirit, strong will, and haughty temper, had been well educated, and treated Erasmus to a Latin speech, to which the mortified scholar, taken un­awares, could make no apt reply.⁴

Henry’s treatment of Katherine has already been discussed,⁵ and it appears that, though there were faults on both sides, Henry’s natural kindliness was warped to some extent by a desire to get the better of Ferdinand and by Katherine’s own imprudence. The king’s relations with his family, therefore, bear scrutiny better than is common in royal houses, but he does not seem to have cared much for any one outside his family.

He was constitutionally indifferent to women. No records of his gallantries have come down to us. Yet he was a keen critic of feminine beauty. His curiously minute inquiries into the physical charms of many of the fair and royal ladies of Europe (his ambassadors had to satisfy him on more than twenty points) are in piquant contrast to what we know of the “ grave and reverend churchmanlike king.” A solid dower would not satisfy the elderly widower on the look-out for a rich young wife; the heiress must be a beauty as well. Henry is really amusing for once, even if unconsciously so. But he was a man of contrasts, and the story of his pursuit of Juana of Castile, though shorn of its most revolting aspect, reveals much more than his usual indifference. It shows us Henry in one of his most inhuman moments, almost brutally absorbed in his “ politic ” schemes.

But all these details of Henry’s private life, which seem so much at variance with Bacon’s grey-toned study, do not detract from its essential truth. Though sharing in the amusements of a splendid court, he remained intellectually alone. His great aim was kingship, his passion was statecraft. It is not strange, therefore, that history has dwelt little on the gentler features of Henry’s character. They were no addition to the driving power that made and kept him king. The history of a reign chequered by privy conspiracy and rebellion was little affected by the fact that the king had genial manners, a lively humour, and a deep affection for his few intimates.

The contrast between medievalism and modernism characteristic of the period appears in the charac­ter of the king himself. In external characteristics, like much of the England of his day, he was medieval, a strict and pious churchman, a mighty hunter, and a founder of religious houses.¹ /Henry’s piety was undoubtedly sincere. Vergil states that the king gave generously to religious objects, and never let business or lack of time prevent him from hearing two or three masses daily ; that he gave alms in secret, following the Christian precept, maintained an almoner in his household, and secretly gave large sums of money to provide masses for his soul and for the welfare of the whole realm.² He prayed much, we are told, and on Church festivals especially re­cited the canonical hours, and in the hour of triumph he never forgot to give thanks; his religion went beyond mere . outward observance. He founded many religious houses and chantries,³ and went on pilgrimages to the famous shrines of the kingdom.⁴ In his will Henry directed that a kneeling figure of himself in golden armour, holding in its hands the crown of England, should be given to each of these shrines; and a golden figure of St. George, weighing 140 ounces, set with diamonds, rubies, pearls, and sapphires, to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. Among his most cherished relics were a piece of the Holy Cross brought from Greece, the leg of St. George captured by Louis of France at the siege of Milan, both of which the king left in his will to the altar within the railings of his tomb at Westminster. The king never forgot what he called “ the- seven works of Mercy, Pitie, and Charitie.” He endowed almshouses, and to pro­vide for the care of the poor, the sick, and the dying he founded Savoy Hospital, “ because there be fewe or noon suche like commone Hospitallis within this our Reame, and that for lack of theim infinite nombre of pouer nedie people miserably dailly die, no man putting hande of helpe or remedie.”¹ Henry was an obedient son of his Holy Father the Pope, and re­ceived from three Popes in succession the conse­crated cap and sword which distinguished him as a prince of the Church militant. His minister, Morton, was made a cardinal, but he failed to obtain the canonisation of his late uncle, Henry VI., for which he had been very anxious. In the midst of rebellion at home and threatening intrigue abroad, he had made considerable sacrifices of money for the Crusades.²

All the more sinister by contrast appear his dark medieval traits, the secretiveness, superstition, and suspicion that increased with advancing age. He trusted few men, suspected many. He had been plunged too early into the bitter waters of adversity, and as a fugitive exile, eating the bread of depen­dence at the courts of France and Burgundy, had learnt to watch and school himself until repression had killed all spontaneity. He was “ a dark prince and infinitely suspicious.” ! Yet the system of espionage he introduced into England had the excuse of political necessity, “ he had such moles perpetu­ally working and casting to undermine him,” and nothing is heard of any attempts to entrap men like the contemporary activity of the Inquisition in Spain or of the Medici family. The king gave no personal countenance to informers,¹ and his spies only worked where treason was known to be in the air.² But the character that had been moulded and hardened by adversity was warped by this continual suspicion in the day of triumph. “ His continual vigilance,” we are told, “ did sometimes suck in causeless suspicions which few else knew.”_v Superstition, too, had a strong hold on the king’s mind. Priests and astro­nomers often appeared at court armed with “ prog­nostications ” and prophecies of approaching doom. At times the ghosts of his dead past seemed to peer and beckon over the king’s shoulder; the execution of Warwick was a sacrifice of the king’s hatred of bloodshed to his panic-stricken dread of a prophesied danger.

But these were defects of his later years; in his prime he showed a very modern and tolerant spirit. He had the faculty of looking at men and events with a half-humorous detachment. No catastrophe could disturb him. Rebel subjects threatening the capital, a Scotch army crossing the border, a pretender on the high seas bent on invasion, failed to rob the king of his presence of mind. No succession of dangerous plots unnerved him, no ingratitude incensed him, no sudden gust of anger obscured his statecraft. He was patient in adversity and in victory unrevengeful. Bacon speaks of Henry as “ a merciful prince,” and notices his aversion to bloodshed. “ His pardons went both before and after his sword,” he writes; and Hall also alludes to his “ merceful pitie.” But there is much more to be said of a tenderness for human life that is startling in view of the contem­porary tradition of brutality. Henry’s attitude to rebellion was really original. He shook himself free of the cruelty that had stained the civil wars, when victory for one side had meant death and confisca­tion for the other. He abandoned the proscriptions hitherto associated with tyranny. The axe of the headsman and the dungeons of the Tower were rarely employed in comparison with former reigns. Poli­tical impostors met a scornful clemency that empha­sised their ignominy. The executions of his reign were so much measures of political necessity that they seemed to Bacon but slight blots on the king’s fame. Warwick, Stanley, and Audley were the only important victims sacrificed by a king who had taken up the blood-stained sceptre of Richard III. Henry had a short memory for the former deeds of men who gave him their support, and thus he won over the nobler spirits to his side. The king denied to the Yorkist cause the strength that comes from martyrdoms. The battle of Stoke was the last great baronial conflict on English soil, and Warbeck’s im­posture, though it had the dangerous support of foreign princes, brought no outburst of Yorkist enthusiasm in England. In all this Henry showed a spirit that would be called generosity in another king. But again the strange contrasts in the king’s nature obscure his nobler qualities. He did not demand blood as the price of rebellion, but cash. A swarm of collectors of fines and compositions settled down like flies on rebellious counties, and the appreciation of princely clemency is obscured by a memory of his unroyal bartering of pardons for pence. Again, the success of this unrevengeful habit of the king’s as a measure of policy obscures the fact that it arose not from calculation but from a mind averse to blood­shed, a kindly temper that abhorred severity, and a lofty magnanimity that would not stoop to revenge. And yet this tolerance, this modern judicial spirit, had its unfortunate side. It marked out the king’s intellectual loneliness. The times were those of intense partisanship, bitterness had accumulated in the faction fights of the Roses, and the king’s cold tolerance was alien to the contemporary spirit.

Vergil, who seems to have been a very acute observer, notices Henry’s sensitiveness to public opinion—a very modern trait. He was anxious to make a good impression ; “he did not forget that his life was watched by the eyes of many.” But the fervid loyalty that Henry schemed and contrived for eluded him. His total lack of enthusiasm made his character non-magnetic. He was too cautious, too calculating, too cold. There was no flash of daring to beat upon men’s minds and fire enthusiasm. His appeal was to the head, not to the heart. Though he gained the confidence and support of his people, he did not win their love. ! He was a patient, secret, very lonely man, with a strength of will and character that won him success, not sympathy. He had no favourites, hardly any friends. There is no record of a strong personal attachment.

He had all the Tudor self-will and impatience of being ruled ; his ministers were servants first and counsellors afterwards. As Bacon put it: “ He was of an high mind, and loved his own will and his own way, as one that revered himself and would reign indeed. Had he been a private man he would have been termed proud, but in a wise prince it was but keeping of distance, which, indeed, he did towards all, not admitting any full or near approach to his power or to his secrets. For indeed he was governed by none. . . . He had nothing in him of vainglory, but yet kept state and majesty to the height.” ¹

He was too strong to fear ability in others, and could employ as his servants the ablest men in the kingdom, being confident of his own power of keeping them as tools. “ Neither did he care how cunning they were that he did employ, for he thought himself to have the master reach.” This self-confidence was not misplaced. Of all his counsellors, only one, Sir William Stanley, fell from loyalty to treason. Henry’s faithfulness to his servants is noticed by Bacon. No minister of his became the scapegoat of an un­popular or abandoned policy.

Another of the modern traits in Henry’s character was his freedom from insularity. This was ap­preciated by foreign observers. Ayala wrote that the king, not being a pure Englishman, desired to employ foreigners in his service, which was checked by the diabolical and unequalled jealousy of his English subjects. His exile had familiarised him with the continental spirit, and he knew how much England missed by lack of intercourse with the world beyond the Channel. Therefore, as we have seen, he welcomed foreign influences at his court, and, most important of all, began the practice of keeping resident ambassadors at the European courts.

On the much discussed question of Henry’s avarice, Bacon has a few words that anticipate the modem verdict. He paints for us no vulgar miser, but a wise prince intent at first only on escaping the poverty that crippled contemporary rulers, and in later years carrying carefulness about money to excess through “ nature, age, peace, and a mind fixed upon no other ambition or pursuit.” Contemporary opinion ac­quitted him of “ gredy desire of riches or hunger of money.” As we have seen, he could spend mag­nificently. His heavy exactions were dictated by policy, not greed. Ayala had heard from the king’s own mouth that “ he intended to keep his subjects low, because riches would only make them haughty,” and politic motives encouraged the recovery of those he had shorn. As Vergil put it, he wished to see their plumes grow again. “ He mervellously enriched his realme and himselfe, and yet left his subjects in high wealth and prosperity.”

Many of the qualities that made Henry a good king have made him an unpopular man. He was too businesslike for his kingly office. Thrift is the most repellent of all the virtues, and thrift on the throne seems stationed too high. This. may have something to do with the feeling of cold dislike that has gathered round King Henry. His good deeds are unheroic, his bad deeds were not great crimes, but sordid actions for which some politic extenua­tion can be found. It is impossible to become en­thusiastic in praise or blame, it is even difficult to allot either without reservation. The king was neither virtuous nor vicious, but lived an average life in a moderate way. It was not until premature old age had gripped the king that the darker shades in his character became prominent.

One great historian even compares him unfavour­ably with Maximilian, and asserts that while morally Henry was far the superior, every one likes Maxi­milian better.¹ But is this so ? Can we honestly prefer the glittering pinchbeck of the proudly styled King of the Romans to the stern figure of the founder of the most characteristic dynasty that ever wore the crown of England, the maker of modern England, the forerunner of our naval greatness ? If we do, it is strange indeed.

But in the region of intellect much bolder language can be used. The king’s ability was marvellous.

There is no doubt of the reputation that Henry won for himself. If we leave out of account the panegyrics of courtly historians, it is clear that he left behind him “ a name which was the admiration of the succeeding age.”² To Bacon he was the Solomon of England; to Burleigh he was a storehouse of all heroical virtues ; to Stow “ a prince of marvellous wisdom, policy, justice, temperance, and gravity.”

Hall, following Vergil, gives the contemporary opinion with no uncertain voice. He was “ of wyt in all thynges quycke and prompte, of a pryncely stomacke and haute courage. In great per els, doubt- full affaires, and matters of weighty importaunce, supernaturall and in maner devyne. . . . He was sobre, moderate, honest, affable, courteous, boun­teous, so muche abhorring pride and arrogancy, that he was ever sharpe and quicke to them which were noted or spotted with that crime.”

Bernard Andr6, in his usual style of tedious pane­gyric, compares the king’s difficulties to the twelve labours of Hercules, and finds a parallel in each case. Richard III. is the Erymanthian boar, Margaret of Burgundy the Amazons, Perkin Warbeck in Ireland is Cacus hiding in a cave, the factions of the red and white rose are the Hydra, and so on. The fact that a court poet was capable of imaginative glorification of his patron is not specially significant, but even the most captious critic can find some meaning in the parallel. It is not an empty flattery, but a rendering, in the taste of the time, of a very real tribute to the king’s success.

Fisher’s eulogy on the king’s personal gifts—his quick and ready wit, his retentive memory, wide experience, and gracious speech—contains another eloquent summary of his successes. Leagues and confederacies he had with all Christian princes ; his mighty power was dread everywhere, not only within his realm, but without also ; his people were to him in as humble subjection as ever they were to king, his land many a day in peace and tranquillity.” ¹

His reputation abroad was, as Bacon points out, even higher than it was at home. “ Foreigners noted that he was ever in strife and ever atoft,”/ In his later years the reports of foreign ambassadors are uniformly couched in the same tone of admiration for the king’s wisdom and belief in the strength of his position. The Spanish envoy reported that the king was rich, had established good order in England, and kept the people in such subjection as had never been the case before. “ His good fortune,” wrote the Italian visitor, “ has "Been equal to his spirit, for he has never lost a battle. From the time of William the Conqueror no king has reigned more peaceably than he has, his great prudence causing him to be universally feared.”

He came to the throne with a reputation for wis­dom, and the years spread round him the glamour of success. This valuable growth of prestige Henry fostered by bringing into play his personal influence, by no means a negligible factor, dazzling the eyes of ambassadors and envoys by a display of wealth and splendour, winning them over by his gracious bearing. “ He put them into admiration,” writes Bacon, “ to find his universal insight into the affairs of the world. ... So that they did ever write to their superiors in high terms concerning his wisdom and art of rule.” ²

Henry loses nothing by comparison with his foreign contemporaries Ferdinand, Louis, Charles, Maximilian, and Philip. He was by far the ablest of them all. His task was harder, and he accomplished more than any of them. Whether we regard methods, morals, or achievements, the balance must be in favour of the Tudor.

Was Henry a great king ? The answers to this question have been very different. Bacon seems rather to under-estimate than over-estimate the king’s ability. He regards him as an opportunist, dexterous in evading danger rather than provident in prevent­ing the cause of it, near sighted rather than long sighted; and to this psychological weakness more than to the pressure of circumstances Bacon attri­butes the constant perils and dangers which menaced him. “ The perpetual troubles of his fortunes (there being no more matter out of which they grew) could not have been without some great defects and main errors in his nature, customs, and proceedings.” But, with all deference, it seems unfair to burden the king’s character with responsibility for the troubles which made care and watchfulness a neces­sity. Further, he declared that Henry lacked lofty aims, and that his achievements were inconsiderable when viewed in connection with the manner in which he was endowed by nature and fortune. An oppor­tunist he certainly may have been, with the gift of snatching gain from circumstances, but it is idle to deny that he had one great aito to which all else was subordinated—that of founding in England a dynasty that could claim and enforce obedience, gain and use power; and this aim, though it lacks the glamour of a disinterested ideal, has certainly the dignity of practical utility. Bacon’s complaint is really a reading of the reign in the light of the political theories current in his own time.

Another great historian, after asking the question whether Henry was a great king, returns a doubtful answer. He finds in him none of the “self-denying devotion which gives itself for the people”—no impulsive well-doing. And yet these things, though perhaps the qualities' we might look for in a good man, would have been defects in a great king placed in Henry’s position. It was not “impulsive well­doing” that England needed, but the conduct based on coldly reasoned foresight that Henry gave her. Self-denying devotion would not have been as useful to England as the heavy hand of a determined despot, When Henry came to the throne, weakness and disorder were arresting facts that made a practical aim faithfully pursued more valuable than the most enlightened theories. No weak hand could have led the divided and distracted nation, but Henry VII. was the strongest of all the heavy-handed Tudors. Not swayed by sudden personal caprice like Henry VIII., not subject to moods of irresolution and inde­cision like Elizabeth, his strength of will and pur­pose seemed superhuman. When the chance he had waited for long came at last, it found him prepared, and he fortified his position with all the arts and all the dogged grip of a successful adventurer. What he once grasped, he held for always ; he never lost ground, but inch by inch pushed forward.

The eloquent sentences in which Bishop Stubbs qualifies Henry’s greatness seem to prove it. He cannot be denied the title of a great king; whether he was a good man is a matter of opinion, whether he was an attractive one is generally negatived. He had none of the arts of the demagogue, but all the qualities of the despot. He was a statesman first of all, and as a statesman he must be judged.

“What he minded, he compassed,” and success crowned his fine struggle to bring order out of anarchy. He found England weak, he left it strong ; he found it divided, he left it united. He founded a dynasty, and left to his son the example of successful despotism, a strong title, a great treasure, a subservient nobility, a dependent Church, a submissive Parliament, and a popular policy. From the blood­stained horrors of dynastic strife there emerged an England of fair promise.

Unfortunately, while a master mind has empha­sized the grey tones of Henry’s character, chance has made us familiar with a very sombre portrait of the king’s person. Most of the existing pictures show a grey, wasted face with set, harsh features furrowed by suspicion and anxiety, a steely grey eye, and a pinched, forbidding mouth. But all these pictures have the same original, the cast taken after death for his monument. Of the king in his prime we have no picture, and the contemporary accounts of Henry’s beauty, his golden hair and brilliant complexion, seem almost unbelievable. Yet they all agree in essentials. Hall, following Vergil, whose authority as a contemporary is unchallengeable, wrote of Henry as a man “of body but leane and spare, albeit mighty and stronge therwith, of personage and stature somewhat hygher then the meane sorte of men be, of a wonderfull beutye and fayre complexion, of countenaunce mery and smylyng, especially in his communication.”

But the familiar portraits of the king, painted when time and his “sorrowful life” had set their mark upon him, are full of character. It is a strong, bold, hard face, the face of a man acute and penetrative, cold and determined, of a leader of men not of a popular hero, a man to be obeyed and feared, not loved. Strength not sympathy, watchfulness not generosity, are written in the much-lined face.

Even if there be a difference of opinion about Henry’s personal character, there can be none about the importance of the reign. It is a historical com­monplace that the end of the fifteenth century marks the line between medieval and modern Europe. Though obviously no such line of demarcation can be scientifically accurate, the history of the reign of Henry VII reveals the constant contact and conflict of things new and old, both in fact and theory. A Crusade and a voyage in search of the North-West Passage come together; a law forbidding usury, and an enormous expansion of the credit system; an in­vasion of France by the king in person, reviving the memory of the triumphs of Crecy and Agincourt, and an anticipation of the modern attempt to secure peacc by maintaining a balance of power in Europe.

It is almost impossible to read the reign in the contemporary spirit. It is easy to exaggerate the immediate effect of events which later proved to be of immense importance ; there is a constant tempta­tion to read too much of the future into the events of the time. To us the reign appears a time of be­ginnings, of fresh starts in nearly every branch of human activity ; but the points which contemporaries —not being prophets—dwell upon are the details of conspiracy and the incidents of diplomacy. The germs in which the history of modern Europe was hidden escaped them. Dying medievalism and aspir­ing modernism were in contact, but the friction pro­duced only a spark here and there, no illuminating flash to make its mark on the contemporary imagina­tion. We have not, therefore, on anything but the king’s personal character the verdict of the men of his own day.

There is an irrational but irresistible feeling of disappointment that no dramatic events ushered in these great beginnings. Their effect during the reign was insignificant, and occasionally—as in the case of the printing press, which at first almost smothered creative literature—bad. Mighty changes of prin­ciple were introduced, but the principle long lay buried under a series of empirical experiments. The Cabot voyages set the ships of England on the course which was to found the world empire of a great naval power, but for practical purposes they were little more than unsuccessful commercial specula­tions. The New World of the West was discovered by accident in an attempt to find a new route to the old trading grounds of the East, and the failure of that attempt appeared more significant in the reign of Henry VII. than the continent discovered by chance. The same point is to be noticed about the Renaissance : the spirit of modern Europe was there, but it was at first inarticulate. The visible links with the past attracted eyes which could not see, as we do, the links leading on to a mighty future. In another aspect the reign began a period which ended only with the Napoleonic wars, a period dominated by the territorial ambitions of rival European states. Europe was in the throes of a great separatist movement. The old bonds of the Papacy and the Empire were giving way, and the separate states of Europe were pushing their oppos­ing way in a world which had lost its old boundaries by the geographical discoveries. The admitted ten­dency of modern writers to exaggerate the effect of national character on history need not obscure one of the most interesting points in the reign—the emergence of a self-conscious national spirit with keen ambitions. In England, national replaced local patriotism, and hardened rapidly within natural frontiers.

The political rise of the middle class, whose influ­ence on history before the age of great revolutions is a purely English phenomenon, is another new feature. The strength of the English House of Commons during the centuries that followed the death of Henry VII was an exception to the usual position of the third estates in other European countries. This development, which has been an ingredient giving a marked flavour to the development of national character, was due in great measure to the Parliamentary despotism of Henry VII and his descendants.

Sixteenth-century English history is the era of triumphant personality. The sovereigns of the Tudor line drove their personality deep into history, and the stamp of those bold, strong figures is printed deeply for all time. Personal character became a potent force, but the period of its triumph was the result of the work done by the uninspiring founder of the mighty dynasty. The slow, secret, patient work of Henry VII. laid the foundation upon which his successors reared the glittering fabric of their domi­nating personalities. He was the ancestor in character as well as in fact of that curiously individual family. In his complex nature we find most of the characteristics of his descendants—the ruthless strength of his son as well as the literary interests of his grandson, the narrow piety of Mary and the com­mon sense and commercial spirit of Elizabeth—and from him they inherited the delicate tact and instinct for popularity common to them all.

In spite of the lack of contemporary recognition, it is hardly an over-statement to say that every force—political, social, religious, and intellectual— which moulded the history of England for some four hundred years appeared first in the reign of Henry VII. We have seen the founding of the Tudor despotism, the creation of a royal navy, the revival of learning, the introduction of the printing press, the beginning of modern diplomacy, the appearance of national self-consciousness; we have seen the anticipation of the mercantile system, of the idea of the balance of power, of the rise of the middle class, and of the dissolution of the monasteries. Finally, the voyages of discovery heralded the dawn of a new age, in which the Atlantic replaced the Mediter­ranean and England became the central fortress of civilisation instead of its last outpost on the edge of the unknown.