Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The de Veres in Crisis, 1450–1485
- Part II The ‘Principal Personage in the Kingdom‘, 1485–1513
- 3 Estates and Wealth
- 4 ‘His Principal Servant Both for War and Peace’: Political Life under Henry VII
- 5 Oxford's ‘Satrapy’ – East Anglia, 1485–1513
- 6 ‘My Retainers … Come to Do Me Service’ – The Earl's Affinity
- 7 Private and Public
- Conclusion
- Appendix: The de Vere Affinity
- Select Bibliography
- Index
4 - ‘His Principal Servant Both for War and Peace’: Political Life under Henry VII
from Part II - The ‘Principal Personage in the Kingdom‘, 1485–1513
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The de Veres in Crisis, 1450–1485
- Part II The ‘Principal Personage in the Kingdom‘, 1485–1513
- 3 Estates and Wealth
- 4 ‘His Principal Servant Both for War and Peace’: Political Life under Henry VII
- 5 Oxford's ‘Satrapy’ – East Anglia, 1485–1513
- 6 ‘My Retainers … Come to Do Me Service’ – The Earl's Affinity
- 7 Private and Public
- Conclusion
- Appendix: The de Vere Affinity
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The noble and corayiouse knyght therle of Oxinforde desired and besaught the king to have the conduyt of the fowarde, whiche the king grauntede.
His fowarde recountrede his enemyes and rebells, wher by the helpe of Almyghty God he hade the victorye.
(The Herald's memoir on the battle of Stoke, 1487)Henry VII faced an immediate problem when he ascended the throne. He had only one adult male among his immediate family, his uncle Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, shortly to be created duke of Bedford. Henry was unmarried in 1485, and it would therefore be a long time before he had sons to shoulder any of his burdens. He had no surviving brothers to rely on, as Edward IV had in Richard of Gloucester, or Henry V had in the dukes of Bedford, Clarence and Gloucester. While his formidable mother, Margaret Beaufort, was to become influential in parts of the midlands, she was not able to offer genuine regional leadership. This meant that he would have to work closely with the higher nobility if he were to establish order in the regions and raise troops to protect his throne in the first few years after Bosworth. The higher echelons of the peerage were numerous enough in 1485. There were three dukes, those of Bedford, Buckingham and Suffolk; one marquess, Dorset, and a second, Berkeley, was created in 1489; and fifteen earls, Arundel, Derby, Devon, Essex, Huntingdon, Kent, Lincoln, Northumberland, Oxford, Rivers, Shrewsbury, Surrey, Warwick, Westmorland and Wiltshire.
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- Information
- John de Vere, Thirteenth Earl of Oxford (1442–1513)'The Foremost Man of the Kingdom', pp. 114 - 149Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011