"By James," says Drummond, "abuses were reformed, defects repaired, sedition and discord were put from the nobles, equity and industry restored to the country; every man had a certainty of enjoying his own, and security. Into all men was either infused a will to do well, or a necessity of so doing imposed upon them, virtuous actions being honoured, crimes punished. The mean man did respect the great, not fear him; the great man did precede the mean, not contemn him; favour was mastered by equity, ambition by virtue: for the excellent prince, by doing well himself, had taught his subjects so to do. He was the worthiest of all the kings of Scotland till his time of the former kings it might have been said, the nation made them kings; but this king made that people a nation." Much of the good he had done in the state was speedily undone, but his memory was endeared to the people of Scotland for all aftertimes, and the murderous knife, and the anarchy which followed his decease, could not destroy the written monuments of his rare genius and accomplishments. (51) 5 min. THE reign of King Henry VII. is included in the account of the Wars and the Union of the Red and White Roses written about the middle of the sixteenth century by Edward Hall, the most eloquent of our old English chroniclers; and it is also the subject of one of the noblest historical works, for its extent, in any language, the composition, about eighty years later, of Francis Bacon. To follow a course of events turning so much upon genealogical claims and the connexion of families, it will be convenient for the reader to keep in mind the following particulars : The principal persons who figure in the reign of Henry VII. were descended from the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth sons of King Edward III., the line of whose eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, failed in Richard II., and whose second son William died in childhood. 1. From Lionel Duke of Clarence, whose only child Philippa married Edmund Mortimer, third Earl of March, sprung, through her granddaughter Anne Mortimer, who married Richard Earl of Cambridge, son of Edmund Duke of York, the kings of the House of York, Edward IV., his son Edward V., and his brother Richard III.; Edward IV.'s second son Richard Duke of York; the same king's eldest daughter Elizabeth, who eventally became the wife of Henry VII., and thus united the two roses; Edward IV.'s brother George Duke of Clarence, with his son Edward Earl of Warwick, and his daughter Margaret Countess of Salisbury; Edward IV.'s second sister Margaret, who became the wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; his third sister Elizabeth, who married John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, and his sons John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. All these personages, of course, were Yorkists. 2. From John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, sprung the three Lancastrian kings, Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., who were his son, grandson, and greatgrandson; and, through John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, his son by a third marriage, that earl's granddaughter Margaret Beaufort, who married Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, and their son Henry VII. 3. From Edmund Duke of York, through his son Richard Earl of Cambridge, who, as mentioned above, married Anne Mortimer, all the persons already enumerated as descendants, through that lady, of Lionel Duke of Cambridge. 4. From Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, his daughter Anne, who married Edmund Earl of Stafford; their son Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham; his grandson Henry Duke of Buckingham, the accomplice and ultimately the victim of Richard III.; his son Edward Duke of Buckingham; and other persons of the name of Stafford. Henry VII. was born at Pembroke Castle, 21st January, 1456. His father was Edmund Tudor (or rather Tydor, pronounced Tuddor, that is Theodore), surnamed |