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Home Henry VII The Seed Time; Part 4 |
The Seed Time; Part 44. So it was also with the policy of dynastic marriages - marriages, that is to say, among royal houses, intended to bring great inheritances and unite realms. It may seem at first sight out of character that this policy should accompany the growth of a national spirit, since it is absolutely at variance with ideas of national policy as we know them now. To us the marriage alliances of crowned heads mean little or nothing in deciding national intercourse.In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a monarch had not yet become merely an official. He was not yet the possession of his people. On the contrary, the people were his. He directed the policy of the country, and his friendship would naturally express itself in marriage alliance. Marriages formed the easiest bond, and might prove most profitable in acquiring new dominions. Hence all statesmen were matchmakers. That a nation might object to such political manages de convenance would not be a matter of serious concern to the kings and statesmen who arranged them. England was now for the first time about to join in a group of dynastic marriages, the effects of which deeply influenced European history during a great part of the sixteenth century; indeed European history of the time all hangs on them. We have already mentioned Charles VIII's expedition to Italy. In 1494 that French monarch had allied himself with Milan, Genoa, and Florence, had marched an army through the length of Italy, and had seized the kingdom of Naples. The ease and effrontery with which his success was won alarmed everyone. Maximilian, who as Emperor had claims on Milan, and Ferdinand of Spain, who had claims on Naples, and the Pope, who was terrified at this sudden inthrust of a mailed hand from over the Alps, all sought means to guard themselves against this pushing dangerous French monarch. The natural enemy of France was in their eyes England. Hence they strove to make alliance with Henry VII. They argued that he could, if he chose, keep France occupied at home; and if France were occupied at home, she would not be in mischief in Italy. Henry was willing to join them, and thus England took the first step in the dynastic marriages which were to prove a menace to the country for a whole century, and, after all, end fortunately. It is impossible to understand the history of the time without a knowledge of this group of marriages in which England was now joining. |
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