How successfully did Henry VII deal with the problems he faced during his reign?
The success of Henry VII is clearly seen throughout is reign in the number of defining, long-lasting but generally political un-taxing decisions he made. Several of these contributed to the longevity of the Tudor dynasty and worked to bring stability and balance to England in the years succeeding the Wars of the Roses. While there were a number of failures during reign, none of them were particularly devastating and were all generally short-term issues.
Key successes in Henry’s political moves included arranged marriages that forged connections and alliances. The first he made was between him and Elizabeth of York, the heiress to the York line. This served as a …show more content…
At the beginning the gentry heavily favoured by Richard posed a serious threat of rebellion, many of which were either Yorkists or supporters, and though his marriage to Elizabeth did stem some of the hostility the north still heaved with overly powerful lords loyal to Richard. A visit was arranged to display Henry’s power and standing, and despite being attacked he succeeded in this assertion. Closer to home Henry faced a number of Richard’s supporters on the council. He made the decision to remove those closes to Richard while keeping enough of the original council to retain a stable and balanced government. These moves both assured his station as a king that wasn’t afraid to act against opposition, both physically and politically, and was unafraid to make changes to assure things worked smoothly for him. It was a way to protect his status, similar to his narrow focus on gathering …show more content…
While his methods weren’t very innovative the way he recreated and tweaked older systems used by kings before him created an arrangement of policies and laws that brought multiple form of revenue into the king’s coffers while simultaneously working to distance and control the nobility. One such method was the Crown Lands Act of 1851: after a line died out due to lack of male heirs the lands were retained by the king, and later rented for profit. The numbers of noble families decreased over his reign as his monetary yield increased. Feudal Dues placed a law upon landowners that required them to give military service in aid of the king, keeping nobility below him as well as making sure they couldn’t grow overly strong when it came to building personal armies. It came to a point where 46 of the 62 noble families were in financial debt to the king during his reign. The king’s personal revenue and security steadily increased while his dependency on parliament and the nobility decreased, allowing him more freedom and to keep the aristocracy under control. The decrease in his popularity due to his miserly ways seems a small price to pay for the success he had in this field, however it did lead to some further issues with the discontented
The success of Henry VII is clearly seen throughout is reign in the number of defining, long-lasting but generally political un-taxing decisions he made. Several of these contributed to the longevity of the Tudor dynasty and worked to bring stability and balance to England in the years succeeding the Wars of the Roses. While there were a number of failures during reign, none of them were particularly devastating and were all generally short-term issues.
Key successes in Henry’s political moves included arranged marriages that forged connections and alliances. The first he made was between him and Elizabeth of York, the heiress to the York line. This served as a …show more content…
At the beginning the gentry heavily favoured by Richard posed a serious threat of rebellion, many of which were either Yorkists or supporters, and though his marriage to Elizabeth did stem some of the hostility the north still heaved with overly powerful lords loyal to Richard. A visit was arranged to display Henry’s power and standing, and despite being attacked he succeeded in this assertion. Closer to home Henry faced a number of Richard’s supporters on the council. He made the decision to remove those closes to Richard while keeping enough of the original council to retain a stable and balanced government. These moves both assured his station as a king that wasn’t afraid to act against opposition, both physically and politically, and was unafraid to make changes to assure things worked smoothly for him. It was a way to protect his status, similar to his narrow focus on gathering …show more content…
While his methods weren’t very innovative the way he recreated and tweaked older systems used by kings before him created an arrangement of policies and laws that brought multiple form of revenue into the king’s coffers while simultaneously working to distance and control the nobility. One such method was the Crown Lands Act of 1851: after a line died out due to lack of male heirs the lands were retained by the king, and later rented for profit. The numbers of noble families decreased over his reign as his monetary yield increased. Feudal Dues placed a law upon landowners that required them to give military service in aid of the king, keeping nobility below him as well as making sure they couldn’t grow overly strong when it came to building personal armies. It came to a point where 46 of the 62 noble families were in financial debt to the king during his reign. The king’s personal revenue and security steadily increased while his dependency on parliament and the nobility decreased, allowing him more freedom and to keep the aristocracy under control. The decrease in his popularity due to his miserly ways seems a small price to pay for the success he had in this field, however it did lead to some further issues with the discontented