Why was King Henry VII not a strong leader?

Question:I'm doing a research paper on why he was remarkable king but i need some information on why people think he was not a strong leader. I need some help so please answer.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I'm doing a research paper on why he was remarkable king but i need some information on why people think he was not a strong leader. I need some help so please answer.

Sunday, March 30, 2008
01:48:00 PM

I would rewrite this if I were you
It's just cut and paste

He did not start out strongly: " spent much of his life with his uncle, Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford. When the Yorkist Edward IV returned to the throne in 1471, Henry was forced to flee to Brittany, where he was to spend most of the next fourteen years."

He had to borrow money: " With money and supplies borrowed from his host, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, Henry made an unsuccessful attempt to land in England but his conspiracy quickly unraveled, resulting in the execution of primary co-conspirator the Duke of Buckingham. "

He ran away: " Richard III attempted to extradite Henry through an arrangement with the Breton authorities, but the future King managed to escape to France."

He got a lot of followers from his family name instead of things he had done: " Wales had traditionally been a Yorkist stronghold, and Henry owed the support he gathered to his ancestry, being directly descended, through his father,"

Henry VII's paternal grandfather, Owen Tudor, a Welshman, had married the widow of Henry V, Catherine of Valois. However, Henry's claim to the throne derived from his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort.

His claim was somewhat tenuous; it was based upon a lineage of illegitimate succession, and overlooked the fact that the Beauforts had been disinherited by Letters Patent of King Henry IV

The first of Henry's concerns on attaining the throne was the question of establishing the strength and supremacy of his rule. His own claim to the throne being weak as it was, he was fortunate that the majority of claimants to the throne had died in the dynastic wars or were simply executed by his predecessors.

his main worry was "pretenders"

made attempts at the throne with the backing of disaffected nobles and foreign enemies. Henry managed to secure his crown principally by dividing and undermining the power of the nobility, especially through the aggressive use of bonds and recognisances to secure loyalty,

the practice of maintaining private armies.

legitimizing his wife. Several amateur historians, including Bertram Fields and most particularly Sir Clements Markham believe that he also may have been involved in the murder of the Princes in the Tower, as the repeal of the Titulus Regius would have given them a stronger claim to the throne than his own. However, this theory does not account for the disappearance of the princes in the summer of 1483, two years before Henry seized the throne.

Henry VII was a fiscally prudent monarch who restored the fortunes of an effectively bankrupt exchequer (Edward IV's treasury had been emptied by his wife's Woodville relations after his death and before the accession of Richard III) by introducing ruthlessly efficient mechanisms of taxation.

Henry's principal problem was, indeed, to restore royal authority in a realm still recovering from the disorders of the Wars of the Roses. There were too many powerful noblemen, and, as a consequence of the system of so-called bastard feudalism, each had what amounted to private armies of indentured retainers (contracted men-at-arms masquerading as servants).

However, his principal weapon was the Court of Star Chamber. This revived an earlier practice of using a small (and trusted) group of the Privy Council as a personal or Prerogative Court, able to cut through the cumbersome legal system and act swiftly. Serious disputes involving the use of personal power, or threats to royal authority, were dealt with by the new Court.

King Henry VII was not a military man and he came to power after a bloody civil war. He reigned during a time when a break from war was probably a good thing. He acomplished much during his reign.

Look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VII_o...

But it seems to me and I think most people that he WAS a strong leader.
Your question is a bit like 'Why was Charles Darwin such a strong supporter of the Genesis Creation story?'

You're talking about the son of Margaret Beaufort, right? I'm afraid I don't agree with the assessment that he wasn't a strong leader. So I may be going against your premise here.

Chrimes said in his biography that Henry VII possessed ' a high degree of personal magnetism, ability to inspire confidence, and a growing reputation for shrewed decisiveness.' He navigated himself pretty well through the quagmire of French/Spanish/Scot/English geopolotics. Sounds like a pretty able guy to me.

But I'll offer a couple of insights that may be helpful on the downside.

Even if we do accept as truth that Edward V and the Duke of York had been murdered, which was not universally accepted at the time, Henry's claim to the crown was pretty shaky. He was descended from Edward III through an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt by a mistress named Katherine Swynford. So the whole line was illegitimate and therefore excluded from the succession. You probably have all this from your resrearch.

Henry's claim on his father's side (Edmund Tudor) was actually superior, through his Welsh ancestry going all the way back to pre-Saxon rulers. He used to say that the blood of King Arthur flowed through his veins, but I don't think there's any way to prove that.

He basically took the throne after the defeat of Richard III at Bosworth. But his ascension to the throne was as much a brokered settlement between Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville as it was a military conquest. These were two of the most remarkable women of that or any era. Their families were bitter enemies. The Yorkist coalition was crumbling around Richard, with the death blow coming when the powerful Duke of Buckingham switched sides and backed the Lancastrian claim (which ultimately became the Tudor claim). Elizabeth Woodville (widow of Edward IV) was about to see all her family's fortune evaporate with the collapse of Richard's reign. Ergo the deal with Beaufort. The deal was Henry gets the crown and marries the eldest daughter of Edward IV. In exchange, there would be no attainder against the Woodville clan. So Elizabeth's kin get to keep their land and holdings. And Margaret gets to see her boy on the throne.

Now here is a dimension on it that you might want to think about. Margaret Beaufort was a formidable woman. Henry lived in exile in France and Britanny for years while his mother pushed his case for the crown. It was the unpopularity of Richard III that really gave her the ammo she needed.

But it's not clear to me that Henry really had the passion for the quest that his mother did. Now this is speculative on my part, but I wonder if this is a case where a very powerful woman is goading her son to get off his butt and do something (for her own personal glory?). And he does what she says just to get her off his back. Anyway, my point is that for all those great qualities that he showed those around him, he may have been in his heart a pretty weak-willed person. Maybe you can explore that theory a little and see if you can dig anything up.

A couple of other points about him (that you probably already know):

Henry was not a soldier. That battle of Bosworth was as much a victory by the Earl of Oxford than it was by Henry. The future Tudor king commanded the reserves at Bosworth. I'm not sure he was even at Stoke, but I may be mistaken.

Henry was not physically strong. He was in poor health. He was tall and slender, but perhaps looked somewhat frail.

After the death of his eldest son Arthur, and then later his wife, Henry pretty much turned into a hermit. He retired to Richmond castle and spent the rest of his life there. This underscores my theory that there was something of an introvert about this man. He may have exuded au aura of amiability and confidence. But was that what he felt in his heart?

I hope this isn't too much detail. There are so many interesting characters in this story that it's hard to discuss it without getting lost in all the tangled relationships.

Hope that helps!