or money, but he did was to become in time the British Colonies in
let him have Letters Patent, the official go-ahead America, still called New England.
Philip's sudden death in September sent Joanna off the rails and she took to
carrying the embalmed body of her husband with her wherever she went. So
Henry did a quick double shuffle and threw in his lot with Ferdinand again.
The marriage between Catherine and prince Henry was on the front burner
once more and duly went ahead (see Chapters 3, 4 and 5).
Figuring out finances
We've already bust the myth about Henry's tightness, but he was very good
at making money and unusually for a king � who had people for things like
this � he checked the accounts himself.
Here's the lowdown on Henry's finances:
Most cash came through the Chamber Treasury rather than the
Exchequer, so that Henry could check it.
He kept grants and payments to a minimum.
His new men, like Reginald Bray, didn't cost as much as the nobility and
the churchmen who worked for Henry were paid out of Church funds.
He kept military expenditure down (see the earlier section `France' for how
cheap the Etaples campaign was). The exception was fitting out new war-
ships like Mary Rose for �8,000 (for the end of the Mary Rose see Chapter 3).
He relied heavily on customs duties (taxes) via the Port of London.
These brought him in about �500,000 in 24 years.
Chapter 2: Starting a Dynasty: Henry VII 49
Henry set up forced loans from the rich merchants of the livery compa-
nies (the equivalent of today's City brokers), especially in London. He
used this money to finance the invasion of France in 1492, for example.
He got cash from the rent of his lands.
In the first ten years of his reign Henry made about �10,000 a year
through tax. By 1504, taxation brought in �31,000.
The fact that Henry only once called Parliament in the last 12 years of
his reign means he was doing well financially. Later kings like the Stuarts
usually only called Parliament when they were broke.
Henry got good deals for his merchants wherever he could, like the pow-
erful merchant venturers, who watched world exploration carefully. In
the 1490s Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama were taking their
lives in their hands sailing east and west in search of new ways to old
worlds and ended up finding new worlds instead. Henry taxed the mer-
chants in return, but everybody made money out of deals like Medina
del Campo and Magnus Intercursus.
He set up a tax on the super-rich, which the nobility resented. Yet this
enabled him to control their wealth and helped give him an income of
�130,000 a year. This made Henry VIII's treasury very well off.
Henry VII was the last English king to die solvent for 200 years.
Meeting Henry, the Human
Henry's arranged marriage to Elizabeth of York seems to have become a
love match, but luck wasn't on their side. In an age of high infant mortality,
their youngest son Edmund died at just over 1 year of age in June 1500. Their
eldest, Arthur, on whom Henry pinned all his hopes, died in April 1502. The
following February Elizabeth died too, shortly after giving birth to a stillborn
daughter. Suddenly, the 46-year-old Henry was a widower with two daugh-
ters, Margaret and Mary, but only one son remaining � the 11-year-old Henry,
who would become king Henry VIII (see Chapters 3 to 6).
Francis Bacon said in the 17th century: `For [Henry VII's] pleasures, there is
no news of them.' And for 300 years historians followed this idea that Henry
was a grim curmudgeon with no sense of humour and a miser obsessed with
counting his cash.
But historians now know that Henry loved hunting, was highly superstitious (once
threatening to hang all the mastiffs in England because he believed them to be
unlucky) and spent heavily on lowbrow entertainments. He once lost �40 on cards
in one day, and how can we explain
Chris Collett
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