The Eton bulls and charters are printed in Beckington, Correspondence, ii. 270–311, and in Heywood and Wright, Statutes of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College. Beckington's Correspondence fully illustrates every side of Henry's interest in the universities).
[Capgrave's contemporary life of Henry, De Illustribus Henricis, pp. 125–39 (Rolls Ser.), contains little but pious ejaculations. The only full personal characterisation is that of Blakman in Hearne's Otterbourne. The English chronicles of the reign are meagre and unsatisfactory, throwing little light on Henry's personal life. The chief among them are William of Wyrcester's disjointed rough diaries, published in Stevenson's Wars of English in France, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 743–793; the Fragmentary English Chronicle published as a supplement to Hearne's Sprot; an English Chronicle, 1377–1461, ed. Davies (Camd. Soc.); Warkworth's Chronicle (Camd. Soc.); the two continuations of the Croyland Chronicle in Fell's Scriptores, vol. i., 1687; John Rous or Ross, Hist. Regum Angliæ, ed. Hearne; Chronicle of London, ed. Nicolas, 1827; Gregory's Collections of a London Citizen; Three Fifteenth-century Chronicles (these last both edited by J. Gairdner for the Camd. Soc.); Chronicon Incerti Scriptoris, ed. Giles; Abbot Whethamstede's Register (Rolls Ser.) (important between 1455 and 1460); the Restoration of Edward IV (Camd. Soc.). Some of the chronicles are conveniently collected, though ill edited, in Giles's Chronicle of the White Rose. The later writers, such as Polydore Vergil, Hall, and Fabyan, are sometimes useful. The most important French and Burgundian writers are Monstrelet, ed. Douët-d'Arcq, Comines, ed. Dupont, Mathieu D'Escouchy, and T. Basin, all in Soc. de l'Histoire de France. Others are in Godefroy's Collection. Jean Chartier is quoted from Vallet de Viriville's edition, Bibliothèque Elzévirienne. Wright's Political Songs, Lydgate's Poems, and the songs collected in Archæologia, xxxix. 318–47, illustrate another aspect of the reign. Beckington's Correspondence (Rolls Ser.), Stevenson's Wars of the English in France (Rolls Ser.), and Nicolas's Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, vols. iii–vi., are the most essential collections of documents, along with Rymer's Fœdera, vols. x–xii., orig. edit., and Rolls of Parliament, vols. iv. and v. The Paston Letters are very important. Mr. Gairdner's introductions throw much light on the whole period. They constitute, with Stubbs's Const. Hist. vol. iii., and Pauli's Geschichte von England, vol. v., the best modern accounts of the reign. G. Du Fresne de Beaucourt's Hist. de Charles VII is a useful modern authority for the French side.]
HENRY VII (1457–1509), king of England, was the son of Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, by his marriage with Margaret Beaufort [q. v.], only daughter of John, duke of Somerset, and undoubted heiress of John of Gaunt [q. v.] His grandfather, Sir Owen Tudor, was a Welsh knight, who married Catherine, widow of Henry V, and traced back his descent to Cadwallader and the old British kings. Henry was born at Pembroke Castle on the feast of St. Agnes the Second (28 Jan. 1457). His father had died more than two months before, and his mother was not quite fourteen years old when she gave birth to him. Being an only son he was Earl of Richmond from his birth. He was brought up in Wales under the care of his uncle, Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke; for though Edward IV obtained the crown when Henry was four years old, the Lancastrian party still held possession of various Welsh castles until the surrender of Harlech in 1468. Young Henry seems to have been taken prisoner in that fortress when it was won by William, lord Herbert, who was created Earl of Pembroke (d. 1469) [q. v.] Pembroke became Henry's guardian, and desired to marry him to his daughter Maud. In 1470 Edward IV was driven from his throne, and Henry VI restored. Henry was now reclaimed by his uncle Jasper, who took him up to London and presented him to King Henry. According to a tradition preserved in Shakespeare, the king, struck with his intelligent looks, remarked: ‘Lo, surely this is he to whom both we and our adversaries shall hereafter give place.’
He was now in his fourteenth year. His childhood had been delicate, and he had been moved about in Wales a good deal for the sake of his health. Great care, however, had been taken with his education, and one of his tutors, Andreas Scotus, reported in after years to Bernard Andreas [q. v.] that he had never seen a boy of so much quickness in learning.
In 1471 Edward IV recovered his throne. It was no longer safe for Henry to remain in Wales, and his uncle Jasper took him across the sea, meaning to convey him to France. The wind, however, compelled them to land in Brittany, where they found an asylum with Duke Francis II. The death of Henry VI and of his son Prince Edward had made Henry the head of the house of Lancaster, and an object of jealousy to Edward IV. Edward applied for him to the Duke of Brittany, professing that he did not intend to keep him as a prisoner, but to marry him to one of his own daughters. The duke at one time had actually delivered him up to an English embassy, when he was persuaded to revoke the order, and Henry was released. He remained in Brittany during the whole of Edward's reign. But Edward's death in 1483, and the murder of his two sons by the usurper Richard, removed from the field almost every rival
