Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/70

 Then to secure the friendship of Ferdinand, the crafty king of Aragon, he arranged that his elder son, Arthur, should marry Katharine, Ferdinand’s daughter. Arthur died a few months after the marriage, and then, Henry and Ferdinand, not to lose the benefit of the alliance, got the Pope’s consent to Katharine marrying Henry, Arthur’s brother, a lad six years younger than his bride.

4. Other Important Events of Henry VII's reign.—In this reign an important law affecting Ireland was passed. This was Poyning’s Act (1497) which said that English laws should have force in Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament should not make any new law without the consent of the King’s Council. We must remember that only a small portion of Ireland along the Eastern coast, called the ‘‘Pale,” was much under the control of the English at this time. The greater portion of Ireland was still unconquered, and was ruled by Irish chieftains.

In this reign, too, Columbus discovered America (1492); and the Cabots, John and Sebastian, sailed from Bristol and discovered Newfoundland and Labrador. About the same time Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese, made the first voyage to India from Europe around the Cape of Good Hope.

Not less important than these discoveries was the learning brought to Italy, and thence to England, by the Greeks who fled from Constantinople when that city was taken by the Turks in 1453. English students went to Italy to study Greek literature, and returning introduced the study of Greek into the great English Universities, Oxford and Cambridge. The New Testament was now read in Greek, whereas formerly it was read in Latin only. Among the great scholars of this time who loved this “New Learning” were Colet, Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More.

5. Henry VIII.—Henry VII. died in 1509, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Henry, a young man of eighteen years of age. Besides Henry there were two daughters, Margaret, married to James IV. of Scotland, and Mary, who married, first, Louis XII., the aged king of France, and after his death, the Duke of Suffolk. The descendants of these princesses were to play an important part in English history.

Henry VIII. was a handsome youth, fond of pleasure and out-