HENRY, Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. had full right, according to the claims of Lancaster, by his mother's side, to the English throne. When yet a youth, he had captivated the affections of Henry VI.; who, it is said, / had solemnly blessed the lad, and prophesied that it was he who should restore peace and unanimity to the wrangling houses of York and Lancaster.

The young Richmond certainly evinced a profundity of wisdom, unusual at his early age; and, self-advised and deeply contemplating, had pondered over his claims, and found his title to the crown was equally legal with that of the predecessors of his family. He was in a direct line from her, the celebrated and beauteous French-princess, Katharine, who had been espoused to the sweetest prince England could ever boast, the darling of the soldiery, that scourge and conqueror of France, Henry V. Katherine, after she had become a widow, married a private Welch gentleman of the name of Tudor / and Henry, Earl of Richmond, was her grandson by this second marriage.

Of a serious and reflective turn of mind, he studied the character of a people, that he was one day destined to govern. He saw their prevailing fault was, the love of money; he, therefore, determined, if ever he enjoyed the throne of his ancestors, to make it his first care to enrich the kingdom, as well as his own coffers. Unaddicted to those expensive pleasures, which, while they impoverish the possessor, render him unfit for public business, he calculated to a nicety those means, whereby a nation may increase its revenues, and become, in a manner, the bank of the whole word.