The House of Tudor by Alison Plowden Read Free Book Online

up with the occasional inconvenience of a battle taking place in their midst, and on the whole successfully avoided involvement. To the crowds who came to the roadside to greet Henry Tudor and his retinue, he was simply another great lord who had come from somewhere beyond the seas to take a hand in the game. They were naturally curious to catch a glimpse of the new man who, it was said, had just won a victory which had put him at the top of the league, but public interest in his past history or the rights and wrongs of his cause was neither informed nor especially strong.
    As for Henry, England and its people were almost as strange to him as he was to them, and this journey down Watling Street to London would be his first opportunity to have a good look at both. He saw a green, fertile, well-wooded, well-watered land growing all the wheat, barley and oats needed to support a population of around three million - a rich and beautiful land, abounding in what one visiting Italian described as ‘comestible animals’. Huge tracts of what was still virtually primeval forest swarmed with game, and the damp, temperate climate produced lush pasturage for cattle and sheep. The islanders, surrounded by all this plenty, were a tall, sturdy, vigorous race and wherever their new King stopped by the way, he would have enjoyed lavish hospitality - sampling such delights as ‘peerless’ beef, excellent freshwater fish, venison, mutton and a wide variety of poultry.
    Although the country possessed great natural mineral wealth, it was essentially an agrarian society. Apart from London, the only towns of any size were York, Norwich and Bristol; but London, the heart and the key of the kingdom, was something quite special in the way of cities. Visitors commented on the charm and convenience of its situation on the banks of a great tidal river. They admired London’s handsome defensive walls, the strong fortress of the Tower, the fine, stone-built bridge, the noble cathedral, the splendid mansions with their comfortable, prosperous inhabitants, the shops bursting with luxury goods of every kind; but the thing which chiefly struck every foreign visitor was the city’s wealth and importance as an international commercial capital. ‘Merchants from not only Venice but also Florence and Lucca, and many from Genoa and Pisa, from Spain, Germany, the Rhine valley and other countries meet here to handle business with the utmost keenness’ wrote Andreas Franciscius in November 1497- The island’s economy still depended chiefly on the export of raw wool and finished cloth - generally conceded to be the best in the world - but visitors, especially the Italians, were much impressed by the skill of the London metalworkers and by the quality of their products. In one street alone, Cheapside, there were, according to a Venetian diplomat, no fewer than fifty-two goldsmiths’ shops. ‘These great riches are not occasioned by its inhabitants being noblemen or gentlemen; being all, on the contrary, persons of low degree, and artificers who have congregated here from all parts of the island, and from Flanders and from every other place.’
    Henry Tudor reached the outskirts of this thriving emporium of trade and industry on 3 September, twelve days after Bosworth. He was met at Shoreditch by the Lord Mayor and the aldermen and conducted with suitable ceremony, trumpeters going before him, to St. Paul’s. In the past London had been on the whole Yorkist in sympathy, but Richard III’s forced loans had not made him popular with the mercantile community. Apart from that, the city fathers had a stronger interest than most in peace and stability. If Henry could put an end to the irritating, expensive and futile faction fighting which was not only bad for trade but was also beginning to breed undesirable habits of disrespect for law and order; if he could restore the authority and prestige of the Crown, and provide continuity and settled government, then he