Henry VII

by S B Chrimes

  Some of these magnates had for their own purposes pursued ‘Home Rule’ policies in the past and some of them had not been averse to trying to break the connection with the Crown of England altogether. Henry VII’s cautious and statesmanlike approach to the problem, perhaps influenced by his knowledge of some analogies in Wales,3 manifested in the enactments of Poynings’s parliament and his winning over of the eighth earl of Kildare, removed this threat and terminated the Irish version of ‘The Wars of the Roses’. He could scarcely have attempted more.

  1 Henry, son of James I, was created prince in 1610 but died in 1612. His second son Charles was so created in 1616. After Charles’s succession to the throne, there was no prince of Wales until 1688, his son and heir never having been so created.

  1 Sir G. Edwards, The Principality of Wales, 1267–1967 (Caernarvonshire Historical Society, 1969), esp. App. C, 35–9.

  2 S.R., I, 55–70. cf. some observations by S. B. Chrimes, King Edward I’s policy for Wales (National Museum of Wales, 1969).

  3 Edwards, op. cit. 39.

  1 Penry Williams, The council in the Marches of Wales (1958), which largely supersedes C. A. J. Skeel’s work of the same title published in 1904, pp. 3–6. See also the list of lordships in the latter work, App. IV, 290–3, based on the list in the act of 1536 (27 Henry VIII, c. 26).

  1 C.P.R., 1476–1485, 368.

  2 ibid. Henry VII, I, 47.

  3 ibid. 85–6.

  4 Materials, II, 541–2.

  5 T. B. Pugh, The marcher lordships of South Wales, 1415–1536 (1963), 257–8, and App. 3; which corrects Penry Williams, op. cit. 10; and G. R. Elton, England under the Tudors (1955), 66, on this point.

  6 Penry Williams, op. cit. 6–9.

  7 C.P.R., 1467–1477, 283.

  8 ibid. 283, 365, 366.

  9 ibid. 401.

  10 Penry Williams, op. cit. 7–8.

  1 C.P.R., 1467–1477, 429.

  2 ibid. 574.

  3 ibid. 574, 603.

  4 Penry Williams, op. cit. 9.

  5 Pugh, op. cit. App. 3.

  6 ibid. 257.

  7 C.P.R., Henry VII, I, 438, 441.

  8 ibid. 453.

  9 Penry Williams, op. cit. 10.

  1 C.BR., II, 295.

  2 R.P., VI, 522, 532. See generally, T. B. Pugh (ed.), ch. XI, Glamorgan county history, III (1971); and R. A. Griffiths, The principality of Wales in the later Middle Ages: the structure and personnel of its government, 1, South Wales, 1277–1336 (1972)

  3 B. P. Wolffe, The Crown lands, 46.

  1 T. B. Pugh, The marcher lordships of South Wales, 1415–1536 (1963), 29–30; and ‘The indenture for the Marches’ (between Henry VII and Edward Stafford (1478–1521), duke of Buckingham), E.H.R., LXXI (1956), 436–41. I am indebted to my former pupil, Mr David H. Thomas, for providing me with a transcript of part of the indenture with William Herbert, earl of Huntingdon, from ‘Herbertorum Prosapia’, Cardiff Public Library MS. 5.7, 78–9.

  2 Pugh, ibid. 438–9. The duke of Buckingham’s failure to observe parts of the agreement brought a severe rebuke from Henry VIII in 1518.

  1 2 Henry IV, c. 12; S.R., II, 124.

  2 2 Henry IV, c. 20; S.R., II, 124.

  3 4 Henry IV, c. 31 ; S.R., II, 140.

  4 4 Henry IV, c. 32; S.R., II, 140.

  5 4 Henry IV, c. 26, 34; S.R., II, 140.

  6 2 Henry IV, c. 19; 4 Henry IV, c. 26; S.R., II, 124, 110.

  7 25 Henry VI.

  8 21 James I, c. 28.

  9 The charter does not appear on any patent roll, but is printed in full in Arch. Camb. (1847), 202–6. Mr J. Beverley Smith has called attention to this document in his article ‘Crown and community in the principality of North Wales in the reign of Henry Tudor’, W.H.R., 3 (1966), 145–71, esp. 157–8. Confusion has no doubt arisen because the heading given to the article in Arch. Camb. implies that the Inspeximus merely recites and confirms the charter to bondmen granted in 1507, whereas in fact it confirms also this charter of 1504.

  1 C.P.R., Henry VII, II, 434.

  2 ibid. 464–5.

  3 ibid. 471.

  4 ibid. 434–5; printed in full in Arch. Comb. (1847), 215–22, from the Bangor register, cf. J. Beverley Smith, loc. cit. 157.

  5 The letters patent were witnessed by the king himself at Westminster, 3 March in the twenty-second year of his reign. The significance of the additional sentence printed in Arch. Camb., loc. cit. 222, ‘Per ipsum regem et de data praedicta auctori-tate Parliamenti’ (by the king himself and of the date appointed by the authority of parliament), has been misunderstood. There was of course no parliament of Henry VII’s after 1504 and there is apparently no reference to any such grant in that or any other parliament. The assertion cannot be taken at its face value as in J. Beverley Smith, loc. cit. 157, fn. 52.

  1 C.P.R., II, 523–4.

  2 ibid. 586–7.

  3 For example, the charter of 28 October 1504 specifically stated that it was given without payment of fee or fine, but in fact the communities concerned agreed to pay substantial sums, and the same applied to the charter of 1507. J. Beverley Smith, loc. cit. 158–9.

  1 See S. B. Chrimes, English constitutional ideas, 58, 268, 279, 283.

  2 ibid. 267–8.

  3 See references in Skeel, ‘Wales under Henry VII’, op. cit. 13; J. Beverley Smith, loc. cit. 170–1.

  1 This matter is discussed by J. Beverley Smith, loc. cit. 159–69.

  2 Skeel, ‘Wales under Henry VII’, loc. cit. 7. Queen Elizabeth, however, got so far as Monmouth, Raglan, and Chepstow in 1502.

  3 The chief studies of Anglo-Irish relations in this period are to be found in E. Curtis, Mediaeval Ireland (1923); Agnes Conway, Henry VII’s relations with Scotland and Ireland (1932); H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Irish parliament in the Middle Ages (1952); and A.J. Otway-Ruthven, A history of mediaeval Ireland (1968). A useful short collection of documents is contained in A. F. Pollard, The reign of Henry VII (1914, repr. 1967), III, iii, 259–313.

  4 See above, p. 74 if.

  1 C.P.R., I, 84. Jasper was to hold the office in as ample manner as the duke of Clarence held it for two years and then at pleasure. Appointments of archbishops, bishops, the chancellor, treasurer, and of chief justices were, however, reserved to the king.

  2 John Estrete had been king’s serjeant-at-law in Ireland in Richard III’s time (Richardson and Sayles, op. cit. 330, citing P.R.O., Dublin, transcript of statute roll, 2 Richard III), but by 26 March 1487 was described as king’s councillor and servant (also his description in the king’s instructions attributed to 1486), when he was granted the office of master of the coinage in Ireland (C.P.R., I, 158, 169). Bayne and Dunham, op. cit. xx, assume that this meant that Estrete was a king’s councillor in England; but the reference must surely be to the council in Ireland.

  3 L. & P., I, 91–3. Gairdner assigned the document to 1486? Some Irish historians, including Professor Otway-Ruthven (op. cit. 401), attribute it to Richard III; and J. D. Mackie, The early Tudors (1952), thought that such an attribution might be justified. Richardson and Sayles, however, give very strong arguments in favour of Gairdner’s date (op. cit. 328, fn. 19).

  1 C.P.R., I, 225, 25 May 1488. £300 was allowed to him for his reward and expenses, and 100s to Robert Bolman, one of the clerks of the Privy Seal, who was to accompany him (Materials, II, 321, 318). Edgecombe, at this time a king’s councillor and controller of the Household, had taken part in Buckingham’s rebellion and had escaped to join Henry in Brittany, and was knighted at Bosworth. He became a chamberlain of the Exchequer and sheriff of Devon. He had been employed on a diplomatic mission to Scotland in 1487 (Conway, op. cit. 10). More might have been heard of him later, but he died in 1489 whilst on a mission to Brittany. It is worth noting that on 13 May, a meeting of the King’s Council decided that ‘the messenger of Ireland should put all his requests which he made in the name of the lords of Ireland in writing and that all things shall be accomplished accordingly’, but nothing further
appears to be known of these requests (Bayne and Dunham, op. cit. 18).

  1 C.P.R., I, 225.

  1 Curtis, op. cit. 396–7; Richardson and Sayles, op. cit. 270; Otway-Ruthven, op. cit. 405–6.

  2 See the letters from the lords of Ireland, Kildare, Desmond, and others to Henry VII, printed in L. & P., I, 377–82; also, letter of Kildare to Ormond, 11 February 1493, denying he had supported Warbeck, ibid. II, 56.

  1 C.P.R., I, 367.

  2 James Ormond was the illegitimate son of John Butler, sixth earl of Ormond. The complications of the Ormond family are too involved to be unravelled here.

  3 ibid. 376.

  4 A general pardon and for all infringements against livery and retinues had been granted to Kildare, 29 July 1490, on condition that he came into the king’s presence in England within ten months (ibid. 316). A further general pardon was issued, 30 March 1493, on condition that he should send his son and heir to the king (ibid. 423); this condition appears to have been waived on 22 June, when Kildare sued for a pardon, supported by many lords spiritual and temporal of Ireland (ibid. 429).

  5 See, generally, refs on p. 257, n. 3, above.

  6 Conway, op. cit. 55–6.

  1 C.P.R., II, 12, 15.

  2 For the history of Poynings’s mission, see especially the wealth of documentation in Conway, op. cit., including the chapter (118–43) by E. Curtis on the acts of the Drogheda parliament, 1494–5; Richardson and Sayles, op, cit. 1269–81. On financial matters, see also L. & P., II, 64–8, 297–333.

  3 Conway, op. cit. 63; D.N.B.

  4 C.P.R., II, 12.

  5 ibid. 1.

  6 Conway, op. cit. 78.

  1 C.P.R., II, 65.

  2 The fullest analysis is in E. Curtis’s chapter in Conway, op. cit. 118–43.

  3 Less than half of these acts have been officially printed. Twenty-three out of the forty-nine are in printed editions, of which the most accessible is Statutes at large (Ireland), I (1786). The others are to be found in P.R.O.E. 30 1548; and Lambeth, Carew MSS 608 fos 113–16. See list in Conway, op. cit. App. xx, 201–2, who also printed versions of all the MS. texts otherwise unprinted in Apps XXI–XXXVI, 202–19.

  4 These are the only acts in Norman French, not English, and merely confirm to the Church, the land of Ireland, and the towns, their ancient liberties and franchises.

  5 Acts Nos 15–18, 43–9.

  6 Act No. 24; Conway, op. cit. App. xxvi.

  1 Acts Nos 41, 42 (attainted James fitz Thomas Gerald and many others); ibid. App. xxxi.

  2 Act No. 8; ibid. App. xxii.

  3 Act No. 11 ; ibid. App. xxiii.

  4 Act No. 10; St. L, cap. v.

  5 Act No. 14: Conway, op. cit. App. xxiv.

  6 The statutes of Kilkenny sought to codify enactments which aimed at preserving the English language, dress, and other habits of the English in Ireland and to per petuate the differentiations between the English and the Irish. See Otway-Ruthven, op. cit. 291–4; and G. J. Hand, ‘The forgotten statutes of Kilkenny: a brief survey’, The Irish Jurist, n.s. I (1966), 299–312.

  7 Act No. 19; St. L, cap. viii.

  8 Act No. 38; St. L, cap. xviii.

  9 Act No. 31: Conway, op. cit. App. xxix. Only the heading of this act is given n the MSS.

  10 Act No. 7; St. L, cap. iii. The act was said to be ‘for annulling a prescription which traitors and rebels claimed within this land’.

  11 Act No. 4; Conway, op. cit. App. xxi. ‘Coign’, repeatedly forbidden by previous statutes, was the custom used by soldiers to exact payments in kind or money from the countryside where they were quartered. ‘Livery’ (or purveyance) was the requisitioning of supplies, the payment for which often took the form of tallies or bills, cf. Richardson and Sayles, op. cit. 232–3.

  1 Act No. 35; St. L, cap. xviii.

  2 Act No. 22; ibid. cap. x.

  3 Act No. 27; Conway, op. cit. App. xxviii.

  4 Act No. 23; St. L, cap. xii.

  5 Act No. 38; ibid. cap. xx.

  6 Act No. 21; ibid. cap. xi.

  7 Act No. 36; ibid. cap. xix.

  8 Act No. 28; ibid. cap. xiv.

  9 Act No. 32; ibid. cap. xvii.

  10 Act No. 34; Conway, op. cit. App. xxx.

  11 Act No. 20; St. L, cap. ix.

  12 Act No. 5; ibid. cap. i.

  13 Act No. 6; ibid. cap. ii.

  14 Act No. 25; ibid. cap. xiii.

  15 Act No. 26; Conway, op. cit. App. xxvii.

  16 Act No. 33; ibid. App. xxix.

  1 Act No. 12; St. L, cap. vi.

  2 Act No. 13; ibid. cap. vii.

  3 Act No. 29; St. L, cap. xv. Henry VII was in the right of his wife, heir to the houses of De Burgh and Mortimer, titular earl of Ulster, and lord of Connaught, Trim, and Leix.

  4 Act No. 30; ibid. cap. xvi.

  5 Act No. 40; ibid. cap. xxiii. This was done on the grounds that Jasper, duke of Bedford, surrendered his patent of office as lieutenant before the parliament was summoned, and his deputy, Viscount Gormanston, had no power to summon parliaments.

  6 Act No. 39; ibid. cap. xxii. This act added nothing to the already accepted theory that English statutes applied to Ireland, but in practice few had been executed there.

  7 Act No. 9; ibid. cap. iv. Text cited from Richardson and Sayles, op. cit. 274. cf. Pollard, op. cit. 298–9.

  1 cf. R. Dudley Edwards and T. W. Moody, ‘The history of Poynings’s law’, Pt. I, 1494–1615, Irish Hist. S., II (1940–1), 415–24; and D. B. Quinn, ‘The early interpretation of Poynings’s law, 1494–1534’, ibid. 241–54.

  2 Richardson and Sayles, op. cit. 279.

  3 ibid.

  4 ibid. The procedural questions particularized, ibid. 276–8, are important, but should not be over-emphasized at the expense of the general importance.

  5 Edwards and Moody, loc. cit. 416–17.

  6 Curtis, in Conway, op. cit. 131, 132.

  7 Book of Howth, 178–80, quoted Pollard, op. cit. III, 281–5.

  1 Conway, op. cit. 93. His reappointment was preceded by an indenture made in the king’s presence and witnessed by members of the King’s Council in England, between Kildare on the one part, Walter, archbishop of Dublin, Thomas, earl of Ormond, and Sir James Ormond on the other part, swearing that the old enmity between the Geraldines and Butlers should cease; printed, ibid. App. XL. Kildare also swore to a number of articles broadly committing him to observe the essential points in Poynings’s laws; ibid. App. XLII.

  2 R.P., VI, 481–2; C.P.R., II, 64.

  3 C.P.R., II, 76.

  4 See above, p. 91.

  5 Richardson and Sayles, op. cit. 275–6.

  6 C.P.R., II, 128. The bills approved included repetitions of several of Poynings’s laws. For a further specimen of such a commission in 1507, see ibid. 576.

  1 The Pale by 1500 is said to have dwindled to a coastal strip fifty miles long by twenty wide, Conway, op. cit. 42.

  2 Curtis, Mediaeval Ireland, 416; cf. Conway, op. cit. 42 if.

  3 This suggestion, made by E. Curtis, in Conway, op. cit. 138, deserves further consideration.

  Chapter 15

  FOREIGN POLICIES

  The foreign policies pursued by Henry VII have so recently been lucidly expounded that little purpose would be served by attempting here any very fresh or detailed appraisal.1 The unravelling of the complicated and sometimes puzzling diplomacy of the reign has never been a simple task. Changing fortunes on the continent, the tergiversations, the intrigues, rapid shifts, and turns manifest in the international politics of Europe at this period make more than usually difficult the discernment of any clear principles in the relations between the rulers concerned. It is perhaps an exaggeration to say that ‘the foreign policy of Henry VII was the mainspring of his government’.2 He was no interventionist for intervention’s own sake. He did not aspire to any grandiose schemes on the continent; he could not aim at any dominant or even decisive role in European affairs. We may well agree that he was ‘compelled to pursue a more active
and much more elaborate foreign policy than he had at first attempted or perhaps desired. Yet his aims remained essentially defensive, subordinated always to the overriding domestic purposes of making the monarchy rich and its subjects obedient. As a result his policy developed piecemeal, as the outcome of a series of defensive reactions to external events’.3 If we add to these domestic purposes the most fundamental one of all, namely the preservation of his crown and dynasty and the establishment of both as things to be reckoned with in international affairs, perhaps we are saying almost as much as we can about his basic motives. Certainly his policy was ‘not a carefully planned system’, but whether it really ‘grew into the likeness of a coherent system’ is doubtful. It seems difficult to perceive much of a ‘system’ in Henry’s diplomacy, though ‘his reactions to external pressures sprang from firm-seated and consistent instincts, or rather from a clear and balanced understanding of the basic interests of the dynasty and the nation’.1 We may well believe in Henry’s consistency, but the external pressures to which he was subjected varied so much, were so fraught with unpredictable elements, including the accidents of the deaths of important participants in affairs, that persistent coherence was a quality perhaps hardly attainable at the time. The mainspring of his government was always dynastic and domestic policy, to which his foreign policy was consistently subordinated.