Henry VII

by S B Chrimes

  A few examples may be quoted here:

  Item the abbot of Furness had a hard end for his pardon for he paid and is deemed to pay 500 marks for a little matter.

  Item one Hawkyns of London, draper, upon surmise of a lewd fellow, paid 100 marks for a light matter.

  Item the earl of Northumberland was bound to the king in many great sums, howbeit the king’s mind was to have payment of £2,000 and no more, as his grace showed me, yet that was too much for ought that was known.

  Item the Lord Abegeny had a very sore end, for any proof that was against him to my knowledge.

  Item Sir Nicholas Vaux and Sir Thomas Parr paid 9,000 marks upon a very light ground.

  Item Peter Centurion a Genenois was evil intreated and paid much money and upon malicious ground in my conscience.

  Item one Catesby of Northampton was in a manner undone upon a light surmise.

  Item the king had the substance of Nicholas Nivesgoods, by reason of another man’s obligation given unto his grace for his wife and creditors had nothing.

  Item one Haslewood was kept long in prison and paid a great sum of money upon a light ground.

  Item one Windial a poor man in Devonshire lay long in prison and paid £100 upon a very small cause.

  Item Heronden lay in prison and paid much money only upon a surmise.

  Item a poor gentleman of Kent called Roger Appleton paid 100 marks upon an untrue matter.

  Item doctor Horsey was long in prison and paid £100 in my mind contrary to conscience.

  Item Sir John Pennington paid 200 marks upon an obligation of 300 marks wherein he was bound not to depart without the king’s licence, and yet for truth I was by when the king took him by the hand at his departure.

  Item one Simmes a haberdasher without Ludgate paid and must pay £500 for light matters only upon a surmise of a lewd quean.

  Item the king’s grace dealt hardly with young Clifton in his bond contrary to my will.

  If these cases and the others like them do not reveal a rapacious spirit on the part of the king it is difficult to think of what could constitute such evidence. Dudley, in the circumstances in which he wrote and for the purpose he had in mind, could have had no motive for mendacity. If, then, Henry VII did not show remorse at the end, he certainly should have done so. In point of fact he did, at the last, if not exactly express remorse, reveal in his will awareness that he might have gone too far in some of his demands. His will set up a committee to investigate ‘the circumstances if any person of what degree so ever he be, show by any complaint to our executors any wrong to have been done to him, by us, by our commandment, occasion or mean, or that we held any goods or lands which of right ought to appertain to him’. Such complaints were to be effective if grounded in conscience ‘other than matter done by the course and order of our laws, or if it were thought that his soul ought to stand charged with the said matter and complaints’.1 This was precisely the kind of case that Dudley clearly sought in his confession and petition to get the executors (of whom he himself had been named one) to remedy. Henry did at the last experience twinges of conscience, and all argumentation to the contrary appears to be beside the essential point. Certainly what Henry VIII may or may not have done in these matters belongs to the biography of that monarch, not to his father’s.

  Henry VII’s health had been failing for several years before the end came. As early as 1501 he was complaining to his mother that his eyesight was giving him serious trouble,2 and in the secret conversations at Calais as reported by Flamank it is revealed that at an uncertain date ‘not long since’ Henry was very ill at his manor of Wanstead and apprehensions that he might not live long were entertained.3 In the spring of 1507 he was very seriously ill of a ‘quinsy’, and his life was despaired of.4 In February 1508 he was again seriously ill5 and by July was reported to be in the last stage of consumption and in extremis.6 According to Polydore Vergil he was greatly incapacitated round about springtime in three successive years, his bodily strength declining by degrees, accompanied by a mental decline.1 By 24 March 1509 he was again very ill and ‘utterly without hope of recovery’.2

  What the nature of his fatal illness was remains imprecise.3 But the end was not sudden. For the space of twenty-seven hours, we are told,4 he lay ‘abiding the sharp assaults of death’, at his palace of Richmond, where his release came on 21 April. His body was conveyed in state to St Paul’s Cathedral, where on 10 May, John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, preached the funeral sermon which was afterwards printed at the special request of Lady Margaret Beaufort.5 Fisher was assuredly not wrong to interject into his pious and long rambling discourse what seems a genuine cri de cœur:

  ‘Ah king Henry king Henry, if thou were alive again, many a one that is here present now would pretend a full great pity and tenderness upon thee.’

  What could Bishop Fisher have meant by these words spoken less than three weeks after Henry’s death? He must surely have been making a covert allusion to persons who, if the king had been still alive would have curried favour with him, but who had taken a different line since he had died.

  It is clear enough that soon after Henry VII’s removal from the scene, many persons sought and obtained opportunity to air their grievances and lodge complaints. Unfortunately it seems virtually impossible, at present at least, to disentangle in these moves much reliable information about Henry VII’s and his agent’s activities, from the inevitable desire of the young and dashing new king and his councillors to emphasize the change of regime and to win popularity and public acclaim for themselves and especially to win over a cowed peerage. What was now done belongs essentially to the new reign and only indirectly and not very clearly can it be used to illuminate the realities of Henry VII’s government. Neither Henry VIII nor his officials, of course, could openly impugn the conduct of his father ‘of blessid memory’ and at best they could offer to hear complaints, remedy any of these that might seem justified, identify and punish any suitable scapegoats, and perhaps attempt, at any rate nominally, to amend by statute a few general points of grievance which appeared to be capable of amendment by legislative process.1

  According to the proclamation authorized by Henry VIII on 23 April 1509,2 Henry VII himself had thought fit to proclaim a general pardon covering a wide range of mostly criminal offences committed before 16 April. How Henry VII himself could have much personal knowledge of this proclamation made shortly before his actual death, or Henry VIII could have taken much personal initiative in the proclamation dated two days after his father’s death is a matter for speculation. The assent of both monarchs was necessarily obtained, but it could only have been the council who could have had much to do with either proclamation. Nor, as Professor Elton has argued,3 can it be supposed that the earlier proclamation had much to do with the question of Henry VII’s remorse, nor the later one with Henry VII’s generosity. There were precedents for general pardons in the past, and in any case an amnesty for criminal offences has little to do with the fundamental question of extortion by recognizances. Certain recognizances were, however, brought within the scope of the general pardon. Whether in consequence of this, or of the actions of Henry VII’s executors, or of Henry VIII and his councillors, it was significant that at least forty-five recognizances were cancelled during the first year of the new reign, and another one hundred and thirty during the next five years. Fifty-one of these cancellations specifically stated that the recognizances had been unjustly extorted.4 However optimistic Lord Mountjoy’s letter to Erasmus may have been,5 his assertion that ‘avarice has fled the country’ was, it would seem, by no means entirely pointless.

  The appointment in July 1509 of commissions of oyer et terminer has little or nothing to do with questions of Henry VII’s remorse or conscience.1 The result may have been ‘a nation-wide enquiry to redress grievances’.2 But there was nothing new in this kind of investigation. Henry himself had issued similar commissions many years before his death, and others were to be issued later in the Tudor
period. Whether the flood of grievances was too great or too many of them on investigation proved to be unsustainable, the council terminated the proceedings of these commissions as early as 26 November 1509.3 What had been revealed, in general terms, was little more than the perennial difficulties of law enforcement in the localities and the difficulties of getting the common-law courts to operate effectively and expeditiously.

  It was not until 17 October 1509 that writs were issued for the first parliament of the new reign to meet on 21 January 1510. It was almost six years since a parliament had met, but it was not thought necessary to keep the new assembly in being for much more than a month, until 23 February. No doubt the Great Council of magnates which had met in June 1509 had prepared the ground by influencing Henry VIII’s mind to the extent of making him realize that there were features in his father’s regime that required some amendment, and it may be that the peers’ bid to regain recognition of their traditional claim to political consideration met with initial success’,4 that is, if their claim had ever been ignored by Henry VII. But the legislative achievements of the parliament were not very striking and it is perhaps going too far to say that ‘in this parliament Henry VII’s rule received a slap in the face’.5 Its enactments did little but amend some manifest abuses in legal procedure and the precise effect of these measures is open to some doubt.6

  Nor did the parliament assist very materially in providing the new regime with the needful scapegoats. The bills for the attainder of Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley had not been passed before the parliament ended. Just why Empson and Dudley were singled out from other similar agents of Henry VII’s government we shall probably never know with any assurance. They were both arrested, presumably by Henry VIII’s or the council’s orders, and confined in the Tower. Indicted at the Guildhall on charges of constructive treason, Dudley on 16 July was found guilty and sentenced, and was returned to the Tower to await execution, which was to be delayed until 17 August 1510, when Empson, tried and sentenced at Northampton, was also executed. The charge of treason was palpably fictitious, and great difficulty must have been experienced in finding justification for execution, which may have been the reason for the long delay. The possibilities of an act of attainder were explored but faded in the parliament. That both were guilty of harsh acts, some of them corrupt, and that both were efficient and ruthless agents of Henry VII’s policies and behests need not be doubted. Both therefore were unpopular. They were, indeed, singularly well suited for the role of scapegoats, on whom ‘were to be focused all the popular discontent with the old regime’. The reputation of the old king had to be preserved, the reputation of the new king had to be enhanced.1 The two victims had been influential agents but not otherwise powerful. Their removal would not alienate any sections of the public.2 Their fall was ‘deliberately contrived by the Crown’. The episode was, in short, an example of ‘the new policies of prestige’.3 ‘The young Henry made what was to be a characteristic response of his to certain sorts of political difficulties when he had the two ex-ministers executed.’4 It was, indeed, the first item in that long series of judicial murders for which the reign of Henry VIII was to become unique in English history. Any avarice that Henry VII mingled with his practice of ‘government by recognizances’ was a mild failing compared with his son’s addiction to more savage methods of solving his problems.

  If we ask ourselves what manner of man Henry VII was, there is no simple or assured answer. When all the available evidence is surveyed we are still obliged to rely a good deal upon conjecture. Notwithstanding the substantial materials that survive for the history of the reign and of the king’s activities, there is astonishingly little of an intimate nature, little unequivocal revelation of his personality.

  As to his appearance, we have to think of a man impressive and outstanding – tall, rather slender, dignified, of sallow complexion, and rather aquiline features, whose most striking characteristic was the vivacity of his expression and the brilliance of his small blue eyes, especially animated in conversation.

  He was a man of high qualities and great ability and he devoted himself to his duties as king with a degree of devotion and a professionalism unwonted in most of his predecessors. He displayed a far-reaching comprehension of affairs of State and remained always the essential pivot upon which government turned. No minister of his at any time overshadowed the throne. His talent for choosing the right man for ministerial posts was remarkable. Their loyalty and service to him were matched by his loyalty and trust in them. Only one of his high-ranking adherents was eliminated; he did not hesitate to strike down the man (Sir William Stanley) to whose intervention at Bosworth he owed his victory.

  He was astute, cautious, prudent, patient. He attempted nothing rash or ill-considered, avoided impetuosity, and generally manifested a well-informed and well-balanced mind.

  He was neither bloodthirsty nor militant. Generally conciliatory, he could be drastic, ruthless, and firm when occasion demanded. He was markedly decisive in thought and action. He was never dilatory when crises demanded fast response. His political wisdom came to be universally acknowledged. His relations with his parliaments were tactful and sensible, generally constructive, and he avoided any acute friction by his recognition that there were limits to what was practicable. He did not regard himself as a great legislator, but assented to numerous measures of a practical, unspectacular nature which he, his ministers, or other persons initiated. There was nothing theoretical about his attitudes or his policies. He followed the art of the possible in a calm and sober manner, eschewing bombast, vainglory, and over-inflated ambition.

  He may have been a more colourful personality than our generally opaque materials reveal, perhaps more human, warmer, and more capable of humour than our evidence shows. That he could occupy himself in a variety of pastimes, and encourage music, dancing, poetry, and literature, is clear enough, but the impression remains of a degree of austerity and aloofness which always stood between him and popularity. His subjects learnt to respect him and his achievements, or most of them, but it is hard to find evidence that they loved him. He was capable of liberality, of compassion, and of unpredictable gestures of consideration for unfortunates. He may indeed have been thought of as the English Solomon, but this tribute is not one which in itself inspires affection.

  He had a reputation for honesty and reliability and was generally candid and forthright, but capable of sustained dissimulation and prolonged diplomatic manœuvring, whilst as a rule keeping steadily to his own targets. He attained too a measure of diplomatic skill that was not unequal to coping with the arch-intriguers of his day, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and the more powerful even though less tortuous Charles VIII and Louis XII of France, and was far superior to Maximilian and his family. He knew how to get substantially his own objectives without excessive commitment and without stooping to the unscrupulousness of his rivals.

  He was unwavering in the pursuit of his political ends. These were fundamentally: security, wealth, as good law and order as was practicable, but subjected to interference at times in his own self-interest; the maintenance of peace, the supremacy of the Crown, the firm establishment of his dynasty at home and abroad; the furtherance of his realm’s position among the European powers. He did not fail in these basic objectives.

  But it will not do to say with Bacon that ‘what he minded he compassed’. True, it is not perhaps possible to be sure what exactly he did ‘mind’. It is however clear that he was by no means always successful in compassing what he appears to have minded. He did not, for example, succeed in obliging the landed interest to accept his aims in the matter of uses; he did not attain more than a limited success in curtailing the practice of retainer or the enforcement of law and order, except perhaps in so far as his personal interests were concerned. Nor could he obtain the kind of financial aid he sought in 1504. He could overreach himself in the field of commercial negotiations and could suffer diplomatic defeats. Try as he did, he could not succee
d in making a second marriage for himself and had to do without the advantages that might have ensued from success in this objective. He did, indeed, have to cope with more frustrations than perhaps we realize. He did mind and did encompass the laying of the ghost of the ‘White Rose’ and the cowing of the turbulent and recalcitrant magnates, but he was not able to do either without some sullying of his own reputation at the time, and forever.

  His was not an original mind; he was no great innovator. He was rather a highly skilful builder on existing foundations, an eclectic adopter and adapter. He could bring an essentially mediaeval spirit and practice of government to its highest point of effectiveness without in any important way changing its character. A lover of power he certainly was, but to wield power was his vocation and his destiny.

  His first twenty-eight years were spent devoid of power or influence. The twenty-four years that remained to him were consumed in intensive application to business, to warding off dangers, to overcoming crises, and to taking thought for the future. He met all his trials with courage and resolution, but it would not be surprising if his judgment towards the end deteriorated along with his health. The loss of his wife, his first and third sons, and several other children left him a very lonely and much aged man, with no one close enough and old enough to fill the gaps in his domestic circle. The frustration of his matrimonial hopes and schemes in the last years, his inability to find a consort both to his liking and conducive to what he conceived to be his material and political interests, cannot have failed to exacerbate his frustrations and to some extent to have warped his judgment. Apart from the grandiose political accompaniments of his plan to marry Joanna of Castile, his affection for her was real, and the circumvention of his aspirations by Ferdinand embittered and infuriated him to a degree that induced him to subject Ferdinand’s daughter Catherine to unbecoming privations, to conduct out of character and damaging to his reputation.