HENRY VII,, the conqueror and successor of Richard III., was b. at Pembroke Castle, the seat of his father, the earl of Pembroke, on Jan. 21, 1456. His father, Edmund Tudor, was the son of Owen Tudor, and of his wife, queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V. His mother was a granddaughter of John of Gaunt, parent of the house of Lancaster, and through her he derived his right (such as it was) to the crown. He was, indeed, the nearest heir, after Richard III. lied murdered his nephews, the sans of Edward IV., except their sister Elizabeth, and Richard himself. The popular detestation against Richard's crimes was so great in England, that Henry VII., while residing abroad and bearing the title of earl of Richmond, was invited to invade Eng land, and rescue it from the tyrant. On Aug. 7, 1485, he landed at Milford Haven, and marched across the country to Bosworth, in Leicestershire, where a battle took Ow on Aug. 22, in which Richard was slain. Henry VII. now ascended the throne. His reign was troubled by several impostors claiming the crown: first, Lambert Simnel, a joiner's son, who professed to be earl of Warwick, was proclaimed king in Ireland, but was defeated at Stoke in 1487, taken prisoner, and turned into a scullion in the king's kitchen by Henry VII., who had a talent for turning everything to the most profitable purpose; second, Perkin Warbeck, who pretended to be the boy duke of York, who had not been murdered in the tower by Richard III., and was patronized by the duchess of Burgundy, and supported by James IV., of Scotland, but was finally captured; and third, Ralph Wulfurd, who also pretended to be earl of Warwick, but did not succeed in carrying his enterprise far, being almost at once taken and hanged in 1499. In this year Henry VII., apparently to free himself from further trouble from pretenders, had Warbeck, whom he had pardoned, and the true earl of Warwick, a youth who lied known captivity only all his days, convicted of a plot to recover their liberty, and executed. The execution of the latter is the chief blot in Henry VIL's conduct, but his
execution of lord Stanley, who had helped him to the throne, also showed a callous heart. Indeed this king was cunning and selfish, but prudent and not intemperate in revenge or in any vice except avarice, which led him to sell offices and pardons, com muting sentences passed by his corrupt and infamous exchequer judges, Empson and Dudley. His avarice kept him from engaging in foreign war, a very small quarrel with France being all that he attempted in that way. It also kept him from returning the dowry of Catharine of Aragon, who had married his son Arthur, prince of Wales. a boy of 14, just before he died, and led him to betroth her to his next son, who became Henry VIII., a betrothal from which flowed most important consequences. He married his eldest daughter, Margaret, to James IV., of Scotland, foreseeing that it might bring about a union of the crowns, and this was one of the most fortunate and prudent schemes of his reign. His wife having died, he was engaged looking out for another for himself, with a large dowry, when he died of consumption, on April 22, 1509. Bacon wrote a history of his reign, in which lie represents him as a wise king, but does not conceal his avarice, explaining it rather by observing that the necessities and shifts of other great princes abroad set, off to him the felicity of full coffers. Hume reckons his reign "the dawn of civility and science in England. Bacon says. that in it "justice was well i administered, save when the king was partie." Some fresh light is thrown upon this and the preceding reign by the recent publication of state papers.