Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/696

662 siastic in the cause of religion and learning, he was utterly without the qualities which were indispensable to a mediaeval king, and he paid the penalty of incapacity in a miserable death and in the destruction of his house. But this very incapaeity was an element of the utmost import ance in the history of his time. The weakness of his character made him the puppet of contending factions, and his well-meant but misguided efforts to govern England as a constitutional king led only to anarchy and the temporary downfall of the constitution.

1em 1em  HENRY VII. (–), king of England, was the founder of the Tudor dynasty. On his mother s side Henry belonged to the illegitimate branch of the house of Lancaster, being descended from John of Gaunt and Catherine Swinford, and it was only in the absence of nearer heirs that he was accepted as the representative of that house. On the father s side he was sprung from the marriage of Owen Tudor, a Welsh gentleman, with Catherine, widow of Henry V., and this family name became the name of the line of kings which he founded. On the complete overthrow of the Lancastrians, especially after Richard had won the throne by putting his nephews out of the way, Henry, under the name of the earl of Richmond, appeared as the centre of the opposition. From his exile in Brittany or France he schemed for the overthrow of Richard, and made an expedition to England to support the unsuccessful rising of Buckingham. The increasing unpopularity of Richard gave him greater success in his second enterprise. He landed at Milford Haven in order to profit by the good-will of his kinsmen the Welsh, and marching into Leicestershire defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth, thus ending the Wars of the Roses. Soon after he married Elizabeth daughter of Edward IV., and so the White Rose and the Red were united. Henry, however, was not allowed to enjoy the crown in peace. Two pretenders, one after another, led a rising against him. Lambert Simnel, personating the earl of Warwick, son of the duke of Clarence, gathered the Yorkists about him in Ireland, and landing in Lancashire advanced as far as Stoke in Staffordshire, where he was defeated and made captive. Next arose Perkin Warbeck, a Fleming, who, pretending to be one of the princes murdered by Richard in the Tower, received much countenance abroad and in Scotland, and had many supporters among the discontented at home. But when he ventured to land in Cornwall, he was captured and finally executed. These risings troubled the reign of Henry, but did not shake his throne. He ruled with a firm hand ; he took care to repress the nobles, already almost exterminated in the civil war, in this case continuing the policy of Edward IV.; he put down the practice of maintenance, by which they kept bodies of retainers ready to support them in battle, and in every way sought to concentrate in the person of the king the whole power of the nation. Henry was a parsimonious and calculating ruler, who avoided war, gained by diplomacy what other sovereigns attempted by force, kept a well-filled treasury, and made two brief expeditions into France the occasion of amassing additional wealth. His avarice led him even to revive old and forgotten statutes, and to exact heavy fines from those who had transgressed them, in which evil work he was assisted by the tAvo well-known lawyers Empson and Dudley. His reign is marked also by two marriage arrangements which had great influence on subse quent history. His son Arthur was wedded to Catherine of Aragon. When Arthur died in, a few months after the marriage, Catherine remained in England in order to be united to the younger son Henry, though the nuptials did not take place till after his accession to the throne. The other marriage was that of the young princess Margaret to James IV. of Scotland, which a century after resulted in the union of the crowns. Henry VII. died in, leaving, it is said, a treasure of two million pounds to his successor. He was by no means an amiable or popular sovereign, but did great service in settling and con solidating the kingdom after the long troubles.

1em  HENRY VIII. (–), king of England, was born in, being the second son of Henry VII. and of his wife Elizabeth of York. On the death of his elder brother Arthur in, he became heir apparent to the throne. As younger son Henry had been educated for the church, and it is said that his interest in theology was due to those early studies ; but as he was only eleven when his brother died, they could not have been either extensive or profound. His training under the severe and methodical Henry VII. must have been a very careful one ; he was deeply interested in the new learning, and was a most accomplished scholar. During his father s lifetime we hear nothing of the young king except as the destined husband of Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his brother Arthur, a lady six older than himself. It suited the plans of the old monarchs, their parents, that Catherine should be wedded to Henry, and so she remained in England during the seven of her widowhood. Henry was only eighteen when the death of his father left the throne of England vacant, as well as set him free to shape his own career. His first important act was to fulfil the contract im posed upon him by his father to marry Catherine. His ministers, almost without exception, were in favour of the marriage. Henry expressed himself highly delighted with his wife. Catherine was fond of him to excess. The disparity of was not so marked at that early period ; Catherine was amiable, accomplished, of the bluest blood in Europe, closely connected with the most powerful dynasties, a queen of whom England with her then dimin ished prestige might well be proud. For the time all went well, and no one saw in such a simple event the seeds of a great revolution. Englishmen were not in the mood to anticipate evil at the accession of Henry. In the young king all the condi tions requisite for a prosperous reign seemed to be combined in a rare degree. To the dull monotony, varied only by Yorkist rebellions, to the greed, suspicion, and jealousy which made the shady side of the previous reign, succeeded an era of splendour and enjoyment in which every free and generous impulse should have free scope. As Henry united in his own person the lines of the White Rose and the Red, there was no likelihood of a revival of the old broils. Those who grudged to see his Lancastrian father on the throne were well pleased to see it occupied by a son of Elizabeth of York. The hated avarice of Henry VII. had 