Edward V, the eldest son of Edward IV, was a boy of eleven years when he succeeded to the crown. His uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, a wicked and deformed wretch, soon after contrived to obtain the chief power, and also to cause the murder of the young king and his still younger brother in the Tower. He then mounted the throne under the title of Richard III. For two years, this disgrace to humanity continued to reign, though universally abhorred by his people. At length, in 1485, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, a connexion rather than a descendant of the Lancaster family, resolved to make an attempt upon the English crown. Having landed with about 2000 followers at Milford Haven, he advanced into the country, and speedily gained such accession of force as enabled him to meet and overthrow Richard at Bosworth Field, where the tyrant was slain, and the victorious Richmond was immediately proclaimed king, under the title of Henry VII. The new monarch soon after sought to strengthen his title by marrying Elizabeth, the daughter and heir of Edward IV, by which it was said the families of York and Lancaster were united.

HOUSE OF TUDOR—​HENRY VII.

Under Henry VII the country revived from the evils of a long civil war, in the course of which the chief nobility had been broken down, and the industry and commerce of the land interrupted. It was remarkable, nevertheless, that, during the past period, England was upon the whole an improving country. The evils of war had fallen chiefly on those who made it; the government, however disturbed by various claimants of the throne, was mild and equitable—​at least as compared with that of other countries; and the people at large throve under a system in which their own consent, by the voice of the House of Commons, was necessary to the making of every new law, and the laying on of every tax. The reign of Henry VII was much disturbed by insurrections, in consequence of his imperfect title. A baker’s boy, named Lambert Symnel, and a Jew’s son, named Perkin Warbeck, were successively set up by the York party—​the one as a son of the late Duke of Clarence, and the other as the younger brother of Edward V, but were both defeated. Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn in 1499; and nearly about the same time, Henry procured, by forms of law, the death of the Earl of Warwick, the real son of the late Duke of Clarence, a poor idiot boy, whom he had kept fifteen years in confinement, and whose title to the throne, being superior to his own, rendered him uneasy.

Henry though a cruel prince, as were most of the sovereigns of his age, was a sagacious and peaceful ruler. He paid great attention to all his affairs, and in some of his acts looked far beyond the present time. For example, by marrying his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland, he provided for the possibility of the future union of the two crowns. By a law allowing men of property to break entails, he insured the reduction of the great lords, and the increase of the number of small proprietors. His constant policy was to depress the chief nobles, and to elevate the clergy, lawyers, and men of new families, as most likely to be dependent on him. The greatest fault of his character was his excessive love of money, of which he amassed an immense sum. During his reign, Ireland was made more dependent on the English crown by a statute prohibiting any parliament from being held in it until the king should give his consent.

HENRY VIII.

Henry VII. died in April 1509, in the fifty-third year of his age. His eldest surviving son and successor, Henry VIII, was now in his eighteenth year. Young, handsome, and supposed to be amiable, he enjoyed at first a high degree of popularity. Some years before, he had been affianced to Catharine, a Spanish princess, who had previously been the wife of his deceased brother Arthur: he was now married to this lady, the Pope having previously granted a dispensation for that purpose. For many years the reign of Henry was unmarked by any unusual incidents. The chief administration of affairs was committed to a low-born but proud churchman, the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey. The king became much engaged in continental politics; and during a war which he carried on against France, his brother-in-law James IV, who sided with that state, made an unfortunate irruption into the north of England, and was overthrown and slain, with the greater part of his nobility (September 9, 1513), at Flodden.

About this time some changes of great importance to European society took place. Almost ever since the destruction of the Roman Empire, the nations which arose out of it had remained in subjection to the Papal See, which might be said to have inherited the universal sway of that government, but altered from an authority over the bodies of men to an empire over their minds. In the opinion of many, this authority of the Roman Catholic religion had in the course of time become much abused, while the religion itself was corrupted by many superstitious observances. So long as men had continued to be the thoughtless warriors and unlettered peasants which they had been in the middle ages, it is not probable that they would ever have called in question either the authority of the Pope or the purity of the Catholic faith. But, with knowledge, and the rise of a commercial and manufacturing class, came a disposition to inquire into the authority of this great religious empire. The art of printing, discovered about the middle of the preceding century, and which was now rendering literature accessible to most classes of the community, tended greatly to bring about this revolution in European intellect. The minds of men, indeed, seem at this time as if awaking from a long sleep; and it might well have been a question with persons who had reflection, but no experience, whether the change was to turn to evil or to good.

When men’s minds are in a state of preparation for any great change, a very small matter is required to set them in motion. At Wittemberg, in Germany, there was an Augustine monk, named Martin Luther, who became incensed at the Roman see, in consequence of some injury which he conceived to have been done to his order by the Pope having granted the privilege of selling indulgences to the Dominican order of friars. Being a man of a bold and inquiring mind, he did not rest satisfied till he had convinced himself, and many others around him, that the indulgences were sinful, and that the Pope had no right to grant them. This happened about the year 1517. Controversy and persecution gradually extended the views of Luther, till he at length openly disavowed the authority of the Pope, and condemned some of the most important peculiarities of the Catholic system of worship. In these proceedings, Luther was countenanced by some of the states in Germany, and his doctrines were speedily established in the northern countries of Europe.

THE REFORMATION.

Henry VIII, as the second son of his father, had been originally educated for the church, and still retained a taste for theological learning. He now distinguished himself by writing a book against the Lutheran doctrines; and the Pope was so much pleased with it as to grant him the title of Defender of the Faith. Henry was not destined, however, to continue long an adherent of the Roman pontiff. In the year 1527, he became enamored of a young gentlewoman named Anne Boleyn, who was one of his wife’s attendants. He immediately conceived the design of annuling his marriage with Catharine, and marrying this younger and more agreeable person. Finding a pretext for such an act in the previous marriage of Catharine to his brother, he attempted to obtain from the Pope a decree, declaring his own marriage unlawful, and that the dispensation upon which it had proceeded was beyond the powers of the former Pope to grant. The pontiff (Clement VII) was much perplexed by this request of King Henry, because he could not accede to it without offending Charles V, Emperor of Germany, one of his best supporters, and the nephew of Queen Catharine, and at the same time humbling the professed powers of the Papacy, which were now trembling under the attacks of Luther.