J.P.Sommerville

Henry VII

Henry Tudor won the throne at the Battle of Bosworth. His hereditary claim to the throne was questionable, he was 28, unmarried and childless. His position looked far from secure. Yet, Henry managed to establish Tudor dynasty, which lasted for more than a century.

(1) The establishment of the Tudors:

Military competence: neutral nobles joined Henry VII at Bosworth because he was winning anyway. In 1487 at the Battle of Stoke he easily beat the forces of Lord Lovell, John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln, and Lambert Simnel - pretender to crown.

Lack of any really convincing rival to Henry VII. His most serious rivals were the four nephews of Edward IV - Henry VII dealt with them decisively:  1. John de la Pole was killed at Stoke. 2. Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk fled to the Hapsburg Court. The Hapsburg family was one of the most important royal dynasties in Europe from the 13th to the 20th centuries. Its members also came to rule Spain and its colonial possessions, the Netherlands, much of Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire. [See map] When in 1506, fortune placed Philip the Handsome, Archduke of the Netherlands in Henry VII's hands (his ship was wrecked on the English coast), he extracted concessions from him, including that he hand over the Earl of Suffolk. He incarcerated Suffolk, who remained in prison until 1513, when he was executed by Henry VIII. 3. Richard de la Pole eluded Henry VII's attempts to capture him. He took service with the King of France and survived till 1525, only to die in battle. 4. Edward, Earl of Warwick was the son of George, Duke of Clarence. Henry VII imprisoned him in the Tower and eventually executed him on flimsy charges in November 1499. His sister, Margaret survived till 1541 when Henry VIII executed her at age 68. Edward IV's two sons had conveniently been killed by Richard III, so Henry only had to worry about his daughters. He married the eldest, Elizabeth of York. (Edward's other daughters: Cicely Plantagenet married twice, and had two surviving children by her second husband Thomas Kyme; Bridget Plantagenet became a nun and died in 1517).

	Henry VII's uncle, Jasper Tudor was rich but no threat to Henry. Jasper was the brother of Henry's father, and Henry's claim to the throne came from his mother Margaret Beaufort.
	Margaret Beaufort later married Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby; his brother Sir William Stanley switched sides at Bosworth, helping Henry win; Sir William felt that Henry had not rewarded him sufficiently for deserting Richard III, and dabbled in treason. Henry promptly executed him.
	Other nobles also came to regret Henry's succession, and lent support to two Pretenders, Lambert Simnel, and Perkin Warbeck. The Hapsburgs and the French king also supported Warbeck but in England, Henry's secret service arrested Warbeck's supporters before they did any harm.

	Henry VII handed out very few new titles of nobility, preferring to reward servants by making them Knights of the Garter. The number of nobles fell accordingly:     Duke Marquess Earl Viscount Baron TOTAL 1487 3 1 16 4 30 54 1509 1 1 10 0 29 41
	Henry VII was careful to avoid letting great nobles become too powerful in their localities. For example, after 1489, he directly managed the estates of the powerful Percy family, whose heir was a child.  Henry did benefit from the disappearance of the greatest magnates: Warwick the Kingmaker (d.1471) had no male heirs; his inheritance was split between two daughters who married into the royal family, which thus acquired his wealth. Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham was very rich and with royal blood, but aged only 7 in 1485 so he posed no threat to the Tudors. When later he did become a threat, Henry VIII had him executed on trumped-up charges in 1521. Henry kept very close tabs on Thomas Grey, marquess of Dorset (stepson of Edward IV). For example, he forced him to enter into bonds  and recognisances, binding him to pay Henry large sums of money if he ever misbehaved.
	Henry prevented the emergence of new super-nobles by keeping an eye on noble marriage alliances to prevent any family becoming too powerful.

Erasmus of Rotterdam

Henry VII's advisers

Earlier kings had often chosen advisers from highest nobility. Henry selected councilors on the basis of merit. His reign coincided with the growing influence in England of humanism; of which the most famous advocate was Erasmus of Rotterdam. Erasmus argued that social distinctions should be founded on virtue, not birth.

"... virtus vera nobilitas" - Virtue is true nobility

 

This attitude was encouraged by Henry VII and his chief minister (till he died in 1500), Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, John Morton.

Two thirds of the nobility attended council at one time or another, and some nobles held high office. From 1486 to1501 Lord Dinham was Treasurer, succeeded by Thomas Howard Earl of  Surrey 1501-22.
But many of Henry's closest advisers were drawn either from the clergy (Bishop Richard Foxe, Lord Privy Seal), or from the gentry (Reginald Bray and  Giles Daubeney).

At the end of his reign Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, were as powerful as they were unpopular. Henry appointed them to detect money owed to crown and secure its payment.

Henry VII had "...two instruments, Empson and Dudley (whom the people esteemed as his horse leeches and shearers) bold men and careless of fame, and that took toll of their master's grist.  Dudley was of a good family, eloquent, and one that could put hateful business into good language.  But Empson, that was the son of a sieve-maker,  triumphed always upon the deed done; putting off all other respects whatsoever.  These two persons being lawyers in science and privy councilors in authority, (as the corruption of the best things is the worst) turned law and justice into wormwood and rapine." (Francis Bacon)

 

Conditional reversal of attainders:
Nobles who had fought against the King were attainted by Parliament - this meant the forfeiture of all land and titles. In Edward IV's reign these attainders were soon reversed. Henry VII only offered partial reversals, with  further reversal conditional on good service.

Bonds and  recognisances:
Henry bullied important noblemen and gentlemen into entering into agreements with him, promising to do his will or else to pay large fines.  Roughly three in four nobles and thousands of gentlemen entered into bonds; and the sums involved were often extremely high.
 

English Baronial castles 1485
	At Henry's accession England was dotted with Baronial castles filled with armed retainers that could prove focal points of resistance to the crown's authority.

Earlier kings had persuaded parliaments to legislate against armed retainers; but nobles ignored the legislation. Henry VII was far more successful in asserting the state's monopoly of violence.

 

(3) Finance:

Henry VII bypassed the large and cumbersome Exchequer and used the Chamber, a department in the royal household to control royal finances. He took a close interest in its day-to-day business - closer than that of any other English monarch; Henry personally went over the state accounts, initialing every page.

Henry's close concern with balancing the books helped to increase revenue from royal lands, customs, forced loans, and parliamentary taxation. But this did not make him popular. Henry's financial policies provoked rioting in Yorkshire 1489 and rebellion in Cornwall 1497. Since Henry held the lands of both the Yorkist and Lancastrian branches of the royal family, plus the Kingmaker's inheritance, his income from land would anyway have been much greater than that of his predecessors. He also had no siblings to bestow land on.

(4) Foreign policy:

	Henry VII's reign coincided with the rise of a new power in Europe -Spain. It was united when Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile. Spain soon gained control of much of Italy.
	England was weak compared to France or Spain and Henry VII knew this and acted accordingly. He tried to preserve good relations with Spain. The treaty of Medina del Campo (1489) provided for the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella's daughter, Katherine (or Catherine), to Henry VII's eldest son, Arthur.
	Arthur died in 1502, but Henry used his control of Katherine's person to bring pressure on Spain.
	When Philip (the Hapsburg ruler of the Netherlands) and his wife Joanna were forced to land in England in 1506, Henry used the opportunity to extort highly favorable concessions from them - in particular a trade treaty with the Netherlands called the bad treaty (Malus Intercursus) because it was so biased toward English interests.
	Henry was careful to avoid expensive Continental wars, and instead directed his foreign policy towards enhancing trade. He even subsidized explorers, such as John Cabot, in the hope that this might bring in large returns from commerce.

In 1509, Henry VII died of lung disease at the age of 52.