The money that was eagerly voted by parliament to fit out an expe dition ho collected very carefully, but instead of fighting he endeavoured to manage tho matter by tho cheaper method of negociation. After wards indeed, in the spring of 1489, he found himself compelled to equip a small force, which proceeded to Bretagne; but he bad previ ously assured the French government that if the troops were sent they should net only on the defensive, an engagement which was faithfully kept. Charles eventually compelled the Duchess of Bretagne to marry him, after she had been affianced to Maximilian, the Kiug of the Romans; and the duchy was thus finally annexed to the French crown. The indignation in England at this result forced Henry to conduct an army to Franco in person, in the beginning of October 1492; but ho had already secretly arranged a peace with Charles, and before there was any fighting the treaty was published in the beginning of November.
By this treaty, called the Treaty of Estaples, Charles bound himself to pay Henry the sum of 149,000/. sterling, in half-yearly instalments. In 1496, notwithstanding this peace, Henry joined the league of the pope, the King of the Romans, the King of Castile, the Duke of Milan, and the republio of Venice, which, after Charles had overrun the kingdom of Naples in 1494, had in a few mouths expelled him from his sudden conquest ; but when Charles died in 1498, the Treaty of Estaples was renewed with his successor Louis XII., and continued to regnlate the relations of the two kingdoms to the and of the reign.
By successive truces with James Ill. and James IV., the pesos with Scotland was preserved till 1495, when, on the recommendation of the French king and the Duchess of Burgundy, Perkin Warbeck was received in that kingdom as the rightful heir of the Eoglish crown. King James not only assisted the adventurer with money and troops, but gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine Gordon, a relation of his own. After Warbeck's final discomfiture however in 1497, a new truce was concluded between the two countries, to last till tho expiration of a year after both kings should be dead ; and this led in 1502 to a treaty of perpetual peace, cemented by the marriage of James with Henry's eldest daughter, the princess Margaret. This marriage, from which flowed, after the lapse of a century, the important political result of the union of the two crowns, was solemnised at Edinburgh on the 8th of August 1503.
Nearly two years before this, namely, November 14th 1501, a marriage, long contemplated and agreed upon, bad been solemnised between Henry's eldest son Arthur, prince of Wales, and Catherine, the fourth daughter of Ferdinand, king of Castile. Arthur however, who was a prince of the highest promise, died within six months after this time; and then it was arranged that Catherine should be married to his surviving brother Henry. The marriage of Catherine nud Arthur proved still more momentous in its consequences than that of Margaret and James.
Queen Elizabeth died on the 11th of February 1503, a fow days after giving birth to a daughter; on which Henry lest uo time in proceeding to turn his widowhood to account iu the acquirement of some political advantage, or in the augmentation of his riches, now his ruling passion, by means of is new matrimonial alliance. Ono dis
appointment after another however met him in this pursuit, and after having first made application to the widow of the King of Naples; then concluded a treaty with the Archduke Philip, husband of Joanna, queen of Castile, for the hand of his sister Margaret, widow of the Duke of Savoy ; and finally, on the death of Philip in September 1506, once more changed his ground, and proposed himself as the husband of Philip's widow, the Queen Joanna, who was insane—he died before ho could accomplish his object. Hie death took place at Richmond, as the royal palace at Sheen was now called, on the 22nd of April 1509, in the twenty-fourth year of his reign and the fifty-third of his ago.
The children of Henry VII. by his queen, Elizabeth of York, were 1, Arthur, born September 20th 1489, created Prince of Wales 1489, married to Catherine of Spain (to whom he had been contracted eleven years before), November 14th 1501, died at Ludlow Castle April 2nd 1502; 2, Margaret, born November 29th, 1489, married to King James IV. of Scotland, August 8th, 1503, died 1539; 3, Henry, who succeeded his father as Henry VIM ; 4, Elizabeth, born July 2nd, 1492, died September 14th, 1495; 5, Mary, born 1498, married to Louis XII. of France, November 5th, 1514, and secondly in 1515 to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, died June 25th, 1533 ; 6, Edmund, born February 21st, 1499, soon after created Duke of Somerset, died in infancy ; 7, Edward, born February 1500, died young ; and, 8, Catherine, born February 2nd,1503, died a few days after her mother.
Bacon, in his striking and masterly History of the Reign of Henry VIL,' has drawn this king as a hero of policy and craft, who may almost compete with tho 'Principe ' of Macchiavcl, if we make allowance for the greater ruthlessness and more sanguinary spirit natural to the Italian blood. It may be admitted that this great writer, in the elaboration of his design, has been drawn into some degree of exaggeration or over-refinement ; and he has probably also softened the more repulsive features in Henry's moral character, as much as he has unduly exalted his intellectual endowments. But the difficult position which be occupied, and the success with which he maintained himself in it, vindicates the title of this sovereign to be regarded as at least one of the greatest masters of kingcraft that figure in history. Bacon compares him, justly enough, to Louis XI. of France and Ferdinand of Spain, designating the three as "the trey magi of kings of those ages." The ago in which Henry lived was that of the birth of modern policy, and that in which the foundatious were laid of the still enduring system of the European states. This reign therefore may be considered as the beginning of the modern history of England.