Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/834

* HENRY VI. 770 HENRY Vlir. drove Edward out of England. Henry, although an imbecik', was reinstated as King; but Edward returned in the same year. Henry was captured and died in 1471. There is little doubt that he uas murdered by order of Edward. Consult: Gairdncr, I'astoii Letters (London, 1872-75) ; Stubbs, Cunslitutional History of England (Ox- ford, 1S91); Pauli, Geschichte von Enyland (Leipzig, 1804-75) ; Green, History of the Ewjlish People (several editions). HENRY VII. ( 1457-1509) . King of England from 1485 to 1500. He was born January 28, 1457, at Pemliroke Castle, the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, and Margaret, grand- daughter of John of Gaunt, founder of the Lan- castrian House, from whom Henry derived his title to the crown. His grandfather was Owen Tudor, a Welsh knight, who married Catharine, widow of Henry V. In 1471, on the death of Henry VL, and Edward, Prince of Wales, Henry became the head of the Lancastrian House. During the reigns of Edward IV. and Richard III., the last Yorkist kings, he took refuge in Brittany, until the crimes of Richard III., who murdered his own nephews, 'the Princes of the Tower' (q.v.), alien- ated the Yorkist nobility and drove them to accept Henry as Richard's only possible rival. Henry landed at Milford Haven in 1485, and in the battle of Bosworth. August 22d, Richard was defeated and slain. The marriage of Henry with Elizabeth, the Yorkist heiress, cemented the union of the two parties; but Henry was crowned before the marriage and claimed the title of his own riglit, the first of the Tudor kings. The numerous disturbances of Henry's reign were due on the whole rather to the instigation of remnants of the Yorkist faction and its for- eign supporters than to the disaffection of his subjects at home. The rising of Lovell (1486), the invasions of the impostors Simnel (1487) and Perkin (1495 and 1496-97), found little favor among the English people, and were easily suppressed, but they had important consequences. In order to preent the Scottish King from tak- ing further part in these intrigues, a marriage was arranged between Margaret. Henry's eldest daughter, and James IV. of Scotland, which led to the accession of a new ruling house in England one hundred years later. In order to guard himself from further invasions from Ire- land, a stronghold of the Yorkist party, whence danger usually threatened, Henry was forced to resume the fateful policy of English" control which had been abandoned during the Wars of the Roses. In 1404 it was provided that English laws then in force should apply to Ireland. The celebrated Poynings's Law of the same year provides for the supremacy of the English Council over Irish legislation. Foreign aflfairs occupied much of Henry's attention, since the enemies of France, especially Maximilian of Aus- tria and Ferdinand the Catholic, were anxious for Henry's cooperation ; but he was too wily to he led into wars from which they would profit more than he. The negotiations led, however, to the marriage, in 1501, of his eldest son, Arthur, to Catharine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and after Arthur's death in 1502 to that prince's brother. Henry VTII.. in 1509. IKiring Henry's reign the royal power rapidly increased. Livery and maintenance (q.v.) were suppressed. The Star Chamber (q.v.) offered an efl'ective means of curbing the turbulent nobles. Henr}- was avaricious and the wealthy groaned at the heavy ta.xes; but Parliament was com- pliant to his will. His pow-er was not based entirely upon force, for he had no standing army, but on the support of the middle classes, to whom his reign brought security and prosperity after the disorders of the Wars of the Roses. He died at Richmond, April 21, 150fl. Among the events of the reign of Henry VII. was the discovery of tile Nortli American continent by John Cabot. The best biographical accounts are Gairdncr, Henry TIL (London, 1880), in "Twelve English Statesmen Series," and two lectures by Bishop Stubbs in Lectures (Oxford, 1887). Five vol- umes of sources have been printed in the "Rolls Series." luidcr various titles. The admirable French Histoire ginirale, by Lavisse and Ram- baud, vol. iv. (Paris, 1894). has a chapter on. Henry by !M. Bemont, somewhat biographical in character, with a bibliography. Bacon's Henry yU. is still of interest. Consult : Lingard,, History of England, vol. iv. (London, 1854) ; Green, History of the English People, vol. ii. (New York, 1879) ; Green, Short History of the English People, p. 300 (London and Xew York, 1894) 1 Hallam. Constitutional Histori) of Eng- land, vol. i. (London, 1855); Traill' (editor), Social England, vol. ii. (London and Xew York, 1894), with l)ibliography. HENRY VIII. (1491-1547). King of Eng- land from 1509 to 1547. He was the second son of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, and was born at Greenwich, June 28, 1491. He was intended for the Church until, at the age of eleven, he became heir apparent to tlie English crown on the death of his brother Arthur, in 1502. In the following year he was betrothed to Catharine of Aragon. Arthur's widow, a Papal dispensation having been obtained from Julius II. on account of their relationship. The marriage was to have taken place on the completion of Henry's fourteenth year; bit Henry VII. was playing a wily game of diplomacy with Ferdinand, Catharine's father, and |)Ostponed the wedding on various pretexts in order to extort concessions. He even caused his son to protest that the whole arrangement was against his will. On April 21, 1509, Henry succeeded to the crown, at the age of eighteen. On June 11th he married Catharine, and they were crowned together on June 24th. Although she was six years his senior, their marriage was for many years a happy one. For some time after his accession Henry gave himself up to festivities and sports. He was described in 1519 by Gius- tiniani, the Venetian Ambassador, as the hand- somest and best-dressed prince in Europe, "He is very accomplished, a good musician, composes well, is a most capital horseman, a fine jouster, speaks good French, Latin, and Spanish, is very religious, hears three masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes five on other days. . . . He is ven- fond of hunting, and never takes his diver- sion without tiring eight or ten horses, which he causes to be stationed beforehand along the line of country he means to take, and when one is tired he mounts another, and before he gets home they are all exhausted." On account of his handsome person, his hearty, generous man- ners, his fondness for the services of the Church, and his appreciation of the new learning, Henry