Henry VII, Chamber Finance and the ‘New Monarchy’: some new Evidence*

Grummitt, David

doi:10.1111/1468-2281.00082

Cited by 22 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Moreover, many of the cash transfers to the king's coffers in the Tower were not entered in the king's book of receipts. 67 The amounts of money and fungible assets accumulated by the time of Henry VII's death most likely relate to the profitability of the bond policy, which in turn provided his son with the ability to make large expenditures. In the first years of the new reign, Henry VIII obtained revenues from the royal lands in the neighbourhood of £40,000 per annum.…”

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confidence: 99%

Henry Tudor's treasure*

Horowitz

2009

Historical Research

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Both contemporary and modern commentators have speculated on Henry VII's wealth, the latter reducing his alleged fortune to modesty or insolvency. Such a discrepancy could bear on the financial and political ramifications of his son's monarchy beginning in 1509. This article looks at one source of income cultivated by Henry and his councillors -payments and forfeitures on obligations and recognizances -with attention to the chancery calendars of close rolls. Although no definitive conclusion regarding amounts collected can be ascertained, it becomes clear that such bonds could have provided the prodigious sums of money Henry VIII used to mount his first war against France, the source of which remains unknown. This article also illustrates the break from the Yorkists for enrolling debts and the intensification of Henry VII's bond policy during his reign.

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confidence: 99%

Henry Tudor's treasure*

Horowitz

2009

Historical Research

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“…29 But what the city's version of aristocracy did have in common with the later national version was control both over the route to higher political power in the city, which was tightened further during and after Henry's reign, 30 and over the membership of the 'representative house'. 49 Clearly this arrangement had its merits, as indeed no doubt had the activities of the conciliar courts and Henry's summary method of dealing with ministers whom he regarded as corrupt. 32 By contrast, however constrained Henry VII may have felt his power was compared to the continental European princedoms with which he was familiar, on a spectrum between a highly personal monarchy and today's constitutional monarchies, English national polity of his day still sat firmly in the personal monarchy half.…”

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Reaction to Henry VII's style of kingship and its contribution to the emergence of constitutional monarchy in England

Tucker

2009

Historical Research

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London was no exception to the general tendency for the cities of ancient and medieval Europe to serve, at least sporadically, as forcing houses for radical political ideas and constitutional experiments. By 1485 the city had developed a constitution in which the rights of the governed were recognized and there were clearly-articulated notions about what constituted 'proper' government. Consequently, Henry VII's 'arbitrary' style of kingship -in particular a tendency for his ministers not only to share roles among themselves but to usurp other men's, and the serious challenge this posed to the authority of London's governors -generated a strong reaction at his death which found a voice in the writings of Londoners such as Thomas More. These writings were not only part of an ancient debate about how to bridle the essentially ungovernable wills of English kings, but helped to move the debate on from attempts to persuade kings to exercise self-control to attempts to deprive them of real power.

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“…These include the account books of the clerks of John Heron as treasurer of the chamber, which show the chamber system to have been less simple than might appear from Heron's own accounts; a register of 581 recognizances to the king taken from the earliest months of the reign, which put the explosion of such bonds recorded on the close rolls in the king's last years in a rather different light; and a list of failed bills from the 1495 parliament. 31 In any case, most sources do not solve arguments, they start them. The weakening of the Paston letters in Henry's reign may be a blessing in disguise, given the stir caused amongst late medievalists by Helen Castor's exercise in reading them from the point of view of the Pastons' opponents in local politics rather than the family itself.…”

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Henry VII in Context: Problems and Possibilities

Gunn¹

2007

History

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Clearer understanding of Henry VII's reign is hindered not only by practical problems, such as deficiencies in source material, but also by its liminal position in historical study, at the end of the period conventionally studied by later medievalists and the beginning of that studied by early modernists. This makes it harder to evaluate changes in the judicial system, in local power structures, in England's position in European politics, in the rise of new social groups to political prominence and in the ideas behind royal policy. However, thoughtful combination of the approaches taken by different historical schools and reflection on wider processes of change at work in Henry's reign, such as in England's cultural and economic life, can make a virtue out of Henry's liminality. Together with the use of more unusual sources, such an approach enables investigation for Henry's reign of many themes of current interest to historians of the later Tudor period. These include courtly, parliamentary and popular politics, political culture, state formation and the interrelationships of different parts of the British Isles and Ireland. H enry VII is the victim of a sad paradox. 'Liminality' -existence on the threshold between two phases of a process -is a fashionable notion, so fashionable that some groups of students laugh excitedly each time one of them contrives to use the word. Henry VII, first of the Tudors, last of the Lancastrians, presiding over the end of the Wars of the Roses, the eve of the Reformation and the first English landfalls in North America, is surely a liminal king. Yet Henry VII is by no stretch of the imagination fashionable. To be outshone in public memory by his charismatic son and granddaughter, Henry VIII and Elizabeth, might be accepted as his dynastic duty. To be eclipsed in fame by the man he displaced is a bitter fate indeed. Since 1980 Richard III has scored six new biographies to Henry's two, at least four monographs to Henry's two, and three collections of scholarly essays to Henry's one; not to mention three edited collections of contemporary documents, a personalized academic journal and several Ricardian websites.

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Henry VII, Chamber Finance and the ‘New Monarchy’: some new Evidence*

Cited by 22 publications

References 3 publications

Henry Tudor's treasure*

Henry Tudor's treasure*

Reaction to Henry VII's style of kingship and its contribution to the emergence of constitutional monarchy in England

Henry VII in Context: Problems and Possibilities

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