Henry VII of England: the New Concept King.

King Henry VII.

At 29 years of age, in 1485, Henry Tudor found himself King Henry VII of England.  He had spent years in exile, Richard III trying to convince various French royalty to betray him and bind him over to England where he could be summarily executed.  The experience had taught him how tenuous and unstable foreign alliances were by nature.  He hopped from duke to duchess to king like a young boy perilously hopping from stone to stone across a powerfully careening river.

Finally, Henry surrendered the idea of improving his circumstances in preparation for an invasion.  He cobbled together a small fighting force, while he still could, and embarked for England.  The odds of success were not good but they were only getting worse with the passage of time.  Better to be a dead traitor, as it were, than a pathetic, ever more tenuous exile.

Defeating Richard at Bosworth Field, won Henry more than it might have.  Much more.  So much more and so artfully that it raises the question: Did Henry plan to rule as he did from before he even won the  throne?  Did he have a much more analytical mind than anyone of similar stature among the English and European elite?  As he was being driven from pillar to post, was he already spending his quiet hours deciding how he specifically would rule such that he was not just another passing name associated with England’s debilitating chaos?

His first Parliament would have to be called immediately upon being crowned.[1]  Check.  In its desperation to finally have some peace, it would confirm him.  Check.  If he timidly asked for little, they would see his weakness.  If he demanded onerous exactions they would become his opponent.  He demanded much but not too much.  Check.  He needed to present reasons for his demands.  Scotland could be counted upon to rebel.  Check.  Dealt with vigorously, through largely psychological warfare, Scotland would quickly surrender and the bulk of the money would remain in the Royal exchequer.  Check.

That his closest and constant advisor was John Morton,[2] a man of great experience gathered from serving two previous kings, and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, one of the first great patrons of English humanism, explains a lot but surely not this thoroughly modern approach to practical analysis.  This was a more baldly secular intelligence.  Even the King’s religion smacks more of purpose than of sanctity.

No.  Henry VII had the modern habit of debating openly, and as an intellectual equal, with his closest advisors, but he had clearly taken matters farther than they.  He had absorbed the renaissance and humanism and in many vitally important ways already gone well beyond it at a time that it was just belatedly arriving at his country’s shores.

Yes.  He would perpetuate the feudal use of marriage.  But only because it was the wisest decision.  It was not a thing he was compelled to do by tradition but by situation.  To marry Elizabeth would bring together the two warring houses that had kept England in a state of chaos for some 100 years.

 

While so much of feudal tradition was so fruitfully dismantled under Henry VII, he had  the judgment to know what he must accept in order to reach his goals.  Some of it he surely found emotionally quite satisfying into the bargain.  Even more surely, he designed to accomplish the modernization of England while being paid for his exceptional product at a rate consonant with its value.[3]  Wealth equaled power equaled personal security and moderate pleasure equaled a continuation of England’s emergence from  insular backwardness.

Getting the very best value for his own money was every bit as important.  His subjects had to learn to outperform even for small profit.  Great profits would necessarily follow.  Though not directly from the exchequer of  their king.

While these methods were being put in place a very strange matter was winding through the politics of the realm.  The new king kept calling upon the Parliament for funds to fight a war with France.  Wars with France were popular in the country.  He didn’t really need much of an explanation in order to claim that the countries were at war.  But he did need a war in order to keep receiving large amounts of money at the behest of Parliament.

Henry had plenty of loose threads to tend to after having been provided sanctuary by the Britons and then the French.  His ambassadors were everywhere here and there  trying to seed the clouds.  Anne of Brittany was attacked by the French King Charles VIII.  Her father, Duke Francis, had sheltered Henry for many years.  But that refuge collapsed eventually and he was saved by the hospitality of the Regency of the French King, Charles VIII. 

Henry marched a small number of troops onto the border between the two countries.  Small skirmishes occurred for which he made excuses to each side.  With this, he signed a treaty with Anne.  He would come to her aid if his skirmishes hadn’t discouraged the French.  She would have to pay the expenses of his fighting force, in such an eventuality, however, and agree to marry only with his permission.

But still, in talks back on English soil, he lobbied for money to continue his Un-War against the French.  He sent ambassadors over to secure a favorable Un-Treaty, but, even with its resources being tied up in real war with Maximillian, the Holy Roman Emperor, it chose to believe it didn’t need Un-Treaties — it did not submit to blackmail.  Meanwhile, Parliamentary and direct war exactions continued to roll into the Royal exchequer.

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[1] Busch, Wilhelm.  England Under the Tudors: King Henry VII (1895).  tr. Alice M. Todd. 25.  “On the 7th day of November, after the king's coronation had taken place with great pomp and ceremony, the Estates of the realm assembled round him. Parliament was opened at Westminster in presence of the king, who, sitting on the royal throne, listened to an ornate speech from the Lord Chancellor Thomas Alcock, Bishop of Worcester.”

[2] Woodhouse, R. I.  The Life of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury (1895).  Woodhouse and others attribute all of the historically praised actions of the early years of Henry VII to Morton and disclaim all the later unpopular actions as Henry’s own.  There is no documentary evidence to support either claim.

[3] Woodhouse, 81.  Citing 1 Parliamentary History, 451.  ‘[The newly appointed Lord High Chancellor Morton] concluded by urging liberal supplies—"The rather for that you know the king is a good husband, and but a steward in effect for the public, and that what comes from you is but as moisture drawn from the earth which gathers into a cloud and falls back upon the earth again ".

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Henry VII REALLY Loved the Voide.  April 29, 2019.  “The Court indulged as often as an excuse could be offered to do so.”
• History of the Medieval Fork… or Lack Thereof. March 28, 2019. “The Italian and also most strangers that are commorant in Italy, doe alwaies at their meales use a little forke, when they cut their meate.”
• Hedingham Castle 1485-1562 with Virtual Tour Link.  January 29, 2019. “Mr. Sheffeld told me that afore the old Erle of Oxford tyme, that cam yn with King Henry the vii., the Castelle of Hengham was yn much ruine,…”
• Shakespeare’s Barnacles.  March 3, 2016.  “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
• The King's Esnecce.  January 13, 2019.  “It comes as no surprise, then, that when Maud’s son, Henry Plantagenet, Count or Duke of most of the western territories of France, and, by terms of the treaty, heir to Stephen, next rose to the throne as Henry II, he was quick to arrange for the safest possible means of transit across the channel.”
• Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.