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HENRY VII. 



by the marriage of Henry with the celebrated Mar- 

 garet of Anjou, daughter of Regnier, titular sovereign 

 of Sicily and other kingdoms, without the actual pos- 

 session of a single province. A renewal of hostilities 

 with France, deprived the English of Normandy, and 

 of every other possession in that country, except 

 Calais. In the unpopularity of the court, people 

 now began to look to the claim of Richard, duke of 

 York, whose mother, heiress of the house of Morti- 

 mer, transmitted to him the best title to the crown by 

 inheritance. The insurrection of Cade followed, 

 and the duke of York returning from Ireland, a great 

 party was formed in his favour, headed by some of 

 the principal nobility. He was thereby enabled to 

 remove his enemies from the king's person, and was, 

 by parliament, declared protector of the kingdom, 

 the imbecile Henry being, by this time, unable even 

 to personate majesty. The York and Lancaster 

 parties were now in such a state, that the sword only 

 could decide between them ; and that course of civil 

 contention commenced, the first bloodshed in which 

 occurred at St Albans, in May, 1455, and, as far as 

 the reign of Henry was concerned, the last in the 

 battle of Tewkesbury, in 1471. When the latter 

 took place, the king was a prisoner in the Tower, 

 where he soon after died ; but whether by a natural 

 or violent death is uncertain, although popular opinion 

 assigned it to the violence of Richard, duke of 

 Gloucester. Henry was gentle, pious, and well-in- 

 tentioned, but too weak to act for himself. Eton 

 college reveres Henry as its founder, as does likewise 

 King's college, Cambridge. 



HENRY VII., king of England, first sovereign of 

 the race of Tudor, was born in 1457. He was the 

 son of Edmund, earl of Richmond, son of Owen 

 Tudor and Catharine of France, widow of Henry V. 

 His mother, Margaret, was the only child of John, 

 duke of Somerset, grandson of John of Gaunt. 

 After the battle of Tewkesbury, he was carried by 

 his uncle, the earl of Pembroke, to Brittany, to seek 

 refuge, in that court, from the jealousy of the vic- 

 torious house of York. On the usurpation of Richard, 

 the young earl of Richmond was naturally adverted 

 to as the representative of the house of Lancaster. 

 In 1485, Richmond assembled a body of troops in 

 Brittany, and landed at Milford Haven, with no more 

 than 2000 hired foreign adventurers. He was im- 

 mediately joined by some leaders of rank, but had 

 only 6000 men when Richard met him at Bosworth, 

 with an army twice as numerous in appearance ; but 

 the defection of lord Stanley with his forces, who 

 joined Richmond during the battle, obtained for the 

 latter a complete victory. Henry was proclaimed 

 king on the field of battle, although it is not clear 

 upon what ground ; for had the title of the house of 

 Lancaster been superior to that of York, the Somerset 

 branch of it was originally illegitimate, not to men- 

 tion that the claim of his mother, on this principle, 

 was anterior to his own. Henry resolved, however, 

 to stand upon this ground, and the recognition of his 

 right by parliament ; and his coronation was made 

 to precede his marriage with Elizabeth of York, 

 eldest daughter of Edward IV. That marriage, 

 however, took place in 1486 ; but Henry, jealous of 

 his authority, and strongly imbued with party preju- 

 dice, was a stern and ungracious husband, and 

 regarded the Yorkists in general with great aversion. 

 He gave his confidence, indeed, chiefly to Morton 

 and Fox, both of the priesthood, and men of business 

 and capacity, from whom he expected more obse- 

 quiousness than from the nobility. Discontent, on 

 this and other accounts, soon arose, and an insurrec- 

 tion took place, headed by lord Lovel and the Staf- 

 fords, which was soon suppressed. The imposture of 

 Lambert Simnel, who, by the contrivance of Simon, a 



priest, was made to personate the earl of Warwick, 

 son to the duke of Clarence, whom Henry kept con- 

 fined in the Tower, followed. But Henry having 

 publicly shown the true earl of Warwick in the 

 streets of London, little credit was given to the im- 

 postor, and the king, collecting an army, met the 

 rebels at Stoke, in Nottinghamshire, and totally 

 defeated them. Henry spared the impostor Simnel, 

 and displayed his insignificance, by making him a 

 scullion in his kitchen. The project of France, for 

 annexing the province of Brittany, by marriage with 

 the heiress, induced Henry to declare war; but his 

 measures were so tardy and parsimonious, that the 

 annexation was effected. He then raised large sums 

 on the plea of the necessity for hostilities, and land- 

 ing a numerous army at Calais, in 1492, almost im- 

 mediately accepted a large compensation for peace. 

 The duchess dowager of Burgundy, governess of the 

 Low Countries, had encouraged the imposture of 

 Simnel, and now brought forward Perkin Warbeck, 

 said to be the son of a converted Jew at Tom-nay, 

 and a youth of parts and prepossessing figure. 

 This young man gave himself out to be Richard 

 Plantagenet, the younger of the two sons of Edward 

 IV., supposed to have been murdered in the Tower 

 of London, but one of whom, he alleged, had escaped. 

 The duchess pretended to be satisfied with the proofs 

 of his identity, and acknowledged him as her nephew. 

 The circumstances of his progress in England need 

 not be detailed here, any more than his confession of 

 imposture, and execution by the halter. Soon after, 

 the king fixed an indelible stain on his memory, by 

 the execution of the simple and innocent earl of 

 Warwick, for merely attempting to regain that 

 liberty, of which he ought never to have been de- 

 prived. Firmly settled upon the throne, Henry now 

 gained a high character among his brother monarchs, 

 many of whom sought his friendship and alliance ; 

 and among these was Ferdinand, king of Arragon, a 

 prince, in crafty and cautious policy, very much like 

 himself. After a long negotiation, he brought about 

 a match between the Infanta Catharine, daughter of 

 this sovereign and of Isabella of Castile, and his eldest 

 son Arthur ; and on the death of the latter, in order 

 to retain the dowry of this princess, he caused his 

 remaining son, Henry, to marry the widow, by papal 

 dispensation, an event which, in the sequel, led to a 

 separation from the see of Rome. He married his 

 eldest daughter to James IV. king of Scotland, fore- 

 seeing the unity of sovereignty that would probably 

 arise from it, and never omitted his favourite pursuit 

 of filling his coffers, employing Empson and Dudley 

 (q. v.), who practised all sorts of extortion and chi- 

 canery for this end. He, however, made some good 

 use of this treasure, by the advance of sums of money 

 to merchants, without interest, to enable them to 

 carry on lucrative enterprises, and promote an exten- 

 sion of commerce. He employed Sebastian Cabot, 

 who, under his auspices, discovered Newfoundland, 

 and part of the American continent. In the midst 

 of these, and further projects of national and family 

 aggrandizement, a decline of health began to inspire 

 him with uneasy thoughts of another world, which 

 he endeavoured to appease by alms and religious 

 foundations, and, as his end approached, even directed 

 restitution to some of the parties oppressed by the 

 exactions of Empson and Dudley. He died at his 

 palace of Richmond, in April, 1509, in the twenty- 

 fourth year of his reign, and fifty-second of his age. 

 The reign of Henry VII. was, upon the whole, bene- 

 ficial to his country. Being conducted upon pacific 

 principles, it put a period to many disorders, and 

 gave an opportunity to the nation to flourish by its 

 internal resources. His policy of depressing thj 

 feudal nobility, which proportionably exalted the 



