HENRY 



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hoped to secure the succession for 

 themselves, as they ultimately did 

 in the person of Henry VII. The 

 opposition to them was headed by 

 the king's uncle, Humphrey, duke 

 of Gloucester, and, after his death 

 in 1447, by Richard of York, the 

 grandson of Edmund Mortimer. 

 In 1445 Henry married Margaret of 

 Anjou, who allied herself with the 

 Beauforts. 



After Gloucester's death, Richard 

 was the nearest prince of the blood 

 and the heir presumptive to the 

 throne until the birth of a prince of 

 Wales in 1453. The basis of the 

 strife between the Yorkist and 

 Beaufort factions was the fact that 

 the king was very nearly an im- 

 becile and occasionally quite insane, 

 so that York claimed the right to 

 exercise the authority of the heir. 



From 1453 onwards (the third 

 phase of the reign) the rivalry be- 

 came increasingly acute York 

 acting as Protector of the Realm 

 when the king was quite mad, the 

 queen's party regaining the ascend- 

 ancy when he recovered. The com- 

 ing War of the Roses was fore- 

 shadowed in the battle of St. 

 Albans, May 22, 1455, which was 

 followed by a temporary reconcilia- 

 tion ; but in 1459 open war broke 

 out. York, after a victory at North- 

 ampton where Henry "was taken 

 prisoner, July 10, 1460, claimed the 

 crown for himself in virtue of his 

 descent from the elder brother of 

 John of Gaunt ; but he accepted a 

 compromise, by which the crown 

 was left to Henry during his life, 

 but York, instead of the prince of 

 Wales, was recognized as his heir. 



York was killed atWakefield,Dec. 

 31, 1460. H.is son Edward seized 

 the crown with the aid of the earl of 

 Warwick, and crushed the Lancas- 

 trians at Towton, March 29, 1461, 

 from which year dates the reign of 

 Edward IV. Meanwhile Henry had 

 escaped from his captors and found 

 refuge in Scotland. In 1465 he was 

 caught again and imprisoned in the 

 Tower. In 1470 Warwick revolted 

 against Edward, drove him out of 

 the country, and again set Henry 

 on the throne. But in 1471 Ed- 

 ward returned, finally crushed the 

 Lancastrians at Bar-net, April 14, 

 and Tewkesbury, May 4, where the 

 prince of Wales was killed, and 

 secured his throne by secretly put- 

 ting Henry to death, May 21, 1471. 



Henry was the gentlest and most 

 pious of men, and most earnest in 

 the spread of education. To him 

 England owes many educational 

 foundations, notably those of Eton 

 and King's College, Cambridge. 

 See The Houses of Lancaster and 

 York, James Gairdner, 9th ed. 1896; 

 Henry the Sixth, repr. of J. Blac- 

 man's Memoir, M. R. James, 1919. 



Henry VII (1457-1 509). King of 

 England. Henry Tudor, earl of 

 Richmond, born at Pembroke 

 Castle, Jan. 28, 

 1457, claimed 

 the throne as 

 representing 

 the House of 

 Lancaster 

 through t h e 

 Beauforts, le- 

 gitimated de- 

 scendants of 

 John of Gaunt, 

 father of Henry 



BB 



Henry VII, 

 King of England 



IV. He overthrew and slew Richard 

 III at the battle of Bosworth, Aug. 

 22, 1485, was formally recognized by 

 parliament as the legitimate king, 

 and secured the position of his pos- 

 terity by marrying Elizabeth of 

 York, the eldest daughter of Ed- 

 ward IV, whose brothers had been 

 murdered by the last king. 



The young earl of Warwick, the 

 male representative of the Yorkist 

 line, was shut up in the Tower. 

 Lambert Simnel, a pretender who 

 personated Warwick, was made the 

 figurehead of a Yorkist revolt 

 which was easily crushed. A more 

 dangerous pretender was Perldn 

 Warbeck, who claimed to be the 

 younger of the two princes mur- 

 dered in the Tower by Richard 

 III. He was finally captured in 

 1497, and both he and Warwick 

 were executed in 1499. 



Henry's great task was the re- 

 establishment in England of a 

 strong government in the control 

 of the crown. To this end the first 

 necessity was to destroy the power 

 of the remnant of the nobles left by 

 the War of the Roses. This Henry 

 effected by heavy fines and con- 

 fiscations which filled the royal 

 treasury and helped him, after 

 1499, to dispense with pail laments 

 which until then he had summoned 

 frequently. The laws forbidding 

 the nobles to maintain retainers 

 were strictly enforced. 



Henry avoided foreign wars, re- 

 lying upon diplomatic action and 

 alliance with the rising power of 

 Spain as a check upon France. 

 Partly in order to raise the middle 

 class as a counterpoise to the nobles 

 Henry directed his policy to the 

 expansion of commerce, though he 

 used its restriction as a weapon 

 against political adversaries on the 

 Continent. He died at Richmond, 

 April 22, 1509, leaving his successor 

 an unprecedented accumulation of 

 wealth. See Lives, J. Gairdner, 

 1889 ; G. Temperley, 1919. 

 , Henry VIII (1491-1547). King 

 of England. Henry, second son of 

 Henry VII, born at Greenwich, 

 June 28, 1491, succeeded his father 

 in 1509, his elder brother Arthur 

 having died in 1502. Having ob- 



tained a papal dispensation, he 

 married his brother's widow, Cath- 

 erine of Aragon. His reign falls 

 into two definite periods, the 

 first, that of Wolsey's ascendancy, 

 ending in 1529. The second is 

 marked by the complete establish- 

 ment of the royal supremacy, in 

 which Henry's principal agent was 

 Thomas Cromwell. 



The young king was inveigled 

 into a war with France by Ferdi- 

 nand of Spain and the emperor 

 Maximilian, but the war came to 

 nothing. In the course of it a Scot- 

 tish invasion was crushed at the 

 great battle of Flodden, Sept. 9, 

 1513. Henry found in Wolsey a 

 minister to whom he could safely 

 entrust the control of state affairs ; 

 though the king's own will was 

 always supreme. The cardinal 

 sought to make England the 

 arbiter between the two powerful 

 young European monarchs, Francis 

 I and Charles V ; but it was pro- 

 bably against Wolsey's will that 

 England in 1522 sided with Charles 



in his war with Francis, playing 

 therein no very effective part. 



Wolsey's fall was brought about 

 by Henry's determination to marry 

 Anne Boleyn, and for that purpose 

 to procure the nullification of his 

 marriage with Catherine of Aragon. 

 In 1529 Wolsey failed to procure 

 the papal sanction for the di- 

 vorce, and was in consequence 

 dismissed, with rank ingratitude 

 for his faithful service. His policy 

 of holding the balance between 

 Charles and Francis fell into abey- 

 ance ; Henry subordinated all else 

 to coercing the pope. 



Supported by the parliament, 

 which he summoned with that end 

 in view, and probably guided by 

 Cromwell in the methods he adopt- 

 ed, Henry compelled the clergy to 

 acknowledge him as supreme head 



