Henry VII
Extract A It would, however, be quite wrong to suppose, on the one hand, that Henry VII made himself a deliberately middle-class king, or, on the other hand, that he invariably deferred to the interests of gentry and merchants. ... It is also commonly asserted that Henry VII innovated when he surrounded himself with a council of men from the middle class. ... Elton, England under the Tudors (1955) Extract B The reign of Henry VII must still be regarded as one of the great landmarks in England’s political development. ... Henry was not the last king to be intimately concerned with the work of government; he may have applied himself more diligently to its details than his successors, but several of his predecessors equally lacked his powers of concentration to business. ... Storey, The Reign of Henry VII (1968) Extract C His was not an original mind; he was no great innovator. ... Chrimes, Henry VII (1972) Extract D The return to the Commons of large numbers of royal retainers was also helpful; Shire knights and burgesses apparently negotiated the grant of subsidies without much demur; they showed no inclination to follow precedents of attempting to control the expenditure of subsidies, or of interfering in the personnel and policies of government Out of parliament as well as in it the elites tended to give a more habitual and uncritical loyalty to the ruler. ... Anthony Goodman, The New Monarchy England, 1471-1534, (1988) Extract E Henry also attempted to centralise English politics. ... In all these ways, then, Henry VII seems to conform to the pattern of a New Monarch.