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party engaging at the same time to give no shelter to each other's rebels.

14. Kildare Restored to the Deputyship. 1496.—In Ireland also Henry was careful to avert danger. The government of Poynings had not been entirely successful, and the Geraldines had taken good care to show that they could be troublesome in spite of the establishment of English government. The Earl of Kildare was at the time in England, and a story is told of some one who, having brought a long string of charges against him, wound up by saying that all Ireland could not govern the Earl, whereupon the king replied that then the Earl should govern all Ireland. The story is untrue, but it well represents the real situation. In 1496 Henry sent Kildare back as Lord Deputy. A bargain seems to have been struck between them. Henry abandoned his attempt to govern Ireland from England, and Kildare was allowed to use the king's name in any enterprise upon which his heart was set, provided that he did not support any more pretenders to the English throne.

15. Perkin's Overthrow. 1496—1497.—In the autumn of 1496 James IV. made an attack on England in Perkin's name, but it was no more than a plundering foray. Henry, however, early in 1497, obtained from Parliament a grant of money, to enable him to resist any attempt to repeat it. This grant had unexpected consequences. The Cornishmen, refusing payment, marched up to Blackheath, where on June 18 they were overpowered by the king's troops. James IV., thinking it time to be quit of Perkin, sent him off by sea. In July Perkin arrived at Cork, but there was no shelter for him there now that Kildare was Lord Deputy, and in September he made his way to Cornwall. Followed by 6,000 Cornishmen he reached Taunton, but the news of the defeat of the Cornish at Blackheath depressed him, and the poor coward ran away from his army and took sanctuary in Beaulieu Abbey. He was brought to London, where he publicly acknowledged himself to be an impostor. Henry was too humane to do more than place him in confinement.

16. European Changes. 1494-1499.-In 1494 Charles VIII. had passed through Italy as a conqueror to make good his claims to the kingdom of Naples. In 1495 he had returned to France, and in 1496 the French army left behind had been entirely destroyed. Yet the danger of a renewed attack from France made the other Continental powers anxious to unite, and in 1496 the Archduke Philip married Juana, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand

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and Isabella, whilst his sister was sent to Spain to be married to their only son, Juan. In 1497 the death of the young prince led to consequences unexpected when the two marriages were arranged. Philip, who held Franche Comté and the Netherlands, and who was through his father Maximilian heir to the German dominions of the House of Austria, would now, that his wife had become the heiress of Spain, be able to transmit to his descendants the whole of the Spanish monarchy as well. That monarchy was no longer confined to Europe. Portugal at the end of the fourteenth century had led the way in maritime adventure, and Portuguese navigators discovered a way to India round the Cape of Good Hope. Spain was anxious to do as much, and in 1492 Columbus had discovered the West Indies, and the kings of Spain became masters of the untold wealth produced by the gold and silver mines of the New World. It was impossible but that the huge power thus brought into existence would one day arouse the jealousy of Europe. For the present, however, the danger was less than it would be after the deaths of Ferdinand and Isabella, as the actual combination of their territories with those which Philip was to inherit from Maximilian had not been effected. In 1499 France gave a fresh shock to her neighbours. Charles VIII. had died the year before, and his successor, Louis XII., invaded Italy and subdued the duchy of Milan, to which he had set up a claim. Naturally the powers jealous of France sought to have Henry on their side. There had been for some time a negotiation for a marriage between Henry's eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine of Aragon, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, but hitherto nothing had been concluded.

1499.-Perkin had

17. Execution of the Earl of Warwick. long been eager to free himself from prison. In 1498 he was caught attempting to escape, but Henry contented himself with putting him in the stocks. He was then removed to the Tower, where he persuaded the unhappy Earl of Warwick (see p. 343) to join him in flight. It is almost certain that Warwick was guilty of no more, but Henry, soured by the repeated attempts to dethrone him, resolved to remove him from his path. On trumped-up evidence Warwick was convicted and executed, and Perkin shared his fate.

18. Prince Arthur's Marriage and Death. 15011502.Warwick's death was the one judicial murder of Henry's reign. To the Spaniards it appeared to be a prudent action which had cleared away the last of Henry's serious competitors. The negotia

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King's College Chapel, Cambridge (looking east). Begun by Henry VI. in 1441; completed by Henry VII. The screen built between 1531 and 1535.

tions for the Spanish marriage were pushed on, and in 1501 Catherine, a bride of fifteen, gave her hand to Arthur, a bridegroom of fourteen. In 1502 the prince died, and the attempt to bind England and Spain together seemed to have come to an end.

19. The Scottish Marriage. 1503.-Another marriage treaty proved ultimately to be of far greater importance. Henry was sufficiently above the prejudices of his time to be anxious to be on good terms with Scotland. For some time a negotiation had been in progress for a marriage between James IV. and Henry's daughter, Margaret. The marriage took place in 1503. To the counsellors who urged that in the case of failure of Henry's heirs in the male line England would become subject to Scotland Henry shrewdly replied that there was no fear of that, as 'the greater would draw the less.'

20. Maritime Enterprise.-Henry's chief merit was that he had re-established order. Commercial prosperity followed, though the commerce was as yet on a small scale. It is probable that the population of England was no more than 2,500,000. London contained but 130,000 inhabitants, whilst Paris contained 400,000. There was no royal navy, as there was no royal army, but merchant vessels were armed to protect themselves. The company of Merchant Adventurers made voyages to the Baltic, and the men of Bristol sent out fleets to the Iceland fishery. Henry did what he could to encourage maritime enterprise. He had offered to take Columbus into his service before the great navigator closed with Spain, and in 1497 he sent the Venetian, John Cabot, and his sons across the Atlantic, where they landed in Labrador before any Spaniards had set foot on the American continent. England however, was as yet too poor to push these discoveries farther, and the lands beyond the sea were for the present left to Spain.

21. Growth of the Royal Power. The improvement in the general well-being of the country had been rendered possible by the extension of the royal power, and the price paid for order was the falling into abeyance of the constitutional authority of Parliaments. The loss indeed was greater in appearance than in reality. In the fifteenth century the election of members of the House of Commons depended more upon the will of the great lords than upon the political sentiments of the community. In the first half of the sixteenth century they depended on the will of the king. The peculiarity of the Tudor rule was that its growing despotism was

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