Catching Up With Henry VII, in England, late 1497

Through the summer of 1497, and into late fall, Henry VII the Tudor, may well have been disturbed by the many tumults and upsets that had threatened his reign, time and again that year. But by Christmas, he could also look back to a year marked also by a steady supply of surprise breakthroughs, resolutions and alliances. The results by end of year for Henry, according to J.D. Mackie, after so much offense, intrigue, and suspense, looked very well indeed.

There had been the uprising that started with Cornish miners and who faced off with the King's men near Blakheath in June. The week after these were put down, Henry squared off with James IV in Scotland over the pretender Perkin Warbeck [p. 143]. Scots advanced on Norham in July, and were repulsed. That same month there was also the finalising of  the Magnus Intercursus [p. 139] and the many certain worrisome details to iron out of the previous year's omnibus trade law with the Dutch.

After Warbeck was scared into submission and surrendered himself, (around the first of October, 1497 [p. 145]), Warbeck's wife, Lady Katherine Huntly was also captured and in time was brought into Henry's court.

In addition to using Don Pedro de Ayala from the Spanish court the year before (1496) as an ambassador with James IV in Scotland, Henry also used this diplomat to finalise certain milestones in his relations with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella with a marriage. The betrothal of ten year-old Arthur, the English heir apparent would have him marry Catherine of Aragon, the infant daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella [p. 148]. The settlement reached in July, was celebrated formally in August, and every few months thereafter, until the youths could come of age. By the end of September, Ayala had also secured a truce between James and Henry for ten years.

Through November, while at Exeter, Henry also established a great tax collecting scheme. The program was extensive, strict, and far-seeing. It's reach and effects, Mackie tells us, went on for some ten years til 1507. [p. 146] At some point Henry and his train left Exeter, arriving in Westminster November 27. Here again Warbeck was made to tell his tale again. An assistant to him, a serjeant farrier and a deserter were captured and hung at Tyburn on December 4 [p. 147]. After much hard work, and even well laid plans, Henry could see himself as, and be respected all over as, a stable monarch [p.150]. At peace with everyone but the French, and quiet again domestically, these were reasons a King could rest contentedly.

Each of these stories, the one Perkin Warbeck told after his capture about what he had in fact done, the story of the truce of Henry and James, a peace that would last til their deaths, and the one about poor Prince Arthur and his bride to be Catherine of Aragon, all deserve to be chapters of their own. I'd like to find a book in English about Pedro de Ayala.

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quotes and pagination from J.D. Mackie: The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558 Oxford, UK 1957