	Copyright

Home
Henry VII
The Seed Time; Part 1

The Seed Time; Part 1

1. First came the planting of the overpoweringly strong Tudor monarchy. The Wars of the Roses had left the barons exhausted, the Commons utterly discredited, and the realm • filled with one great longing, namely, for peace. Peace could only be assured by the keeping of good order: order, it seemed, could only be kept by a strong king. Hence the determination of the nation to support the Crown. Let the king only be strong and of a good courage, and all would be well Were he weak, or were the succession doubtful, disorder might break out again. Henry VII was avaricious, and Henry VIII seemed fitful and bloodthirsty; Mary was a Catholic, and a persecutor of Protestant subjects; yet all had, on the whole, the support of the people. The Tudors are sometimes spoken of as despots. If this be understood to mean stern absolute rulers, on whom Parliament imposed very little check, the name is fitting. If we infer that they held their people crushed down in an unwilling servitude, the inference is wrong. The Tudors were absolute because England believed in them, trusted them, and was willing that they should be absolute.

Various causes helped them to be absolute. Henry VII gathered a great hoard of money, then as now an unfailing source of power. His ministers - Cardinal Morton, Empson, and Dudley - used all sorts of methods to fill his exchequer, partly by demanding benevolences, more by imposing large fines on all who had trespassed on the rights of the Crown. Henry VIII spent all that his father had collected, but enriched himself in his turn by plundering the monasteries and the Church.

The coming into common use of gunpowder also strengthened the Crown. For more than a hundred years gunpowder had been known, but the early guns and cannons were so clumsy that they did not at first supersede the bow and the old siege-engines. When, however, artillery began to be efficient, the value of the old baronial castle dwindled away; and as the king alone possessed artillery, he had an advantage in war with which no rebel could compete. Further, since bullets were no respecters of either persons or plate-armour, the armoured knight no longer enjoyed comparative immunity in battle as he had done in the old days. War was no longer a pastime for him. As the risk to his life increased, he grew less willing to hazard it, less ready to fly to arms in order to back a quarrel.

Chronology

payday loans cash advance no credit check