nobility

• Acts of attainders caused landowners guilty of rebelling to lose their titles, assets, and sometimes their lives. their heirs were also disinherited.
• Attainders: Earl of Surrey and Duke of Norfolk had fought for Richard III at Bosworth so Henry imprisoned them and stripped them of their land. After they both took an oath of allegiance to the king (1489), the attainders were reversed.
• Patronage was when the crown distributed rewards to those who were loyal. Those who helped H7 at Bosworth were rewarded first, showing how Henry rewarded good service. this applied to the Nobility and gentry
• patronage: The Earl of Oxford became the major landowner in East Anglia, and Jasper Tudor was made Duke of Bedford as a result of their loyalty to H7.
• Feudal dues were payments collected by the crown to aid henry financially. these included :

  • Wardships: crown controls estates of minors until they are of age
  • Marriage: controls marriages (stops power blocs) and profits off of marriages he arranges.
  • livery: the king is paid when someone recovers their land from wardship
  • relief: a form of inheritance tax on the nobility, nobles punished if they did not comply (e.g. Duke of Buckingham fined £7000 in 1498 for inheriting without a license)
• Feudal dues increased significantly under henry's reign. in 1487, Wardships and marriage provided the crown only £350. by 1507 it was now £6000
• The King's Council was a sign of the King's confidence in a nobleman. it was a reward for loyalty and good service and was a significant hierarchal achievement. trusted servants served for a very long time, e.g. John Morton who was chancellor from 1486-1500.
• The Great Council was a chamber in which the KIng met with the nobility in matters of emergency, allowing him to remain in agreement with the nobility over controversial topics and keeping them happy (no threat of rebellion).
• The Nobility often had retainers e.g arms, chaplains, farmers who were given food/wages, livery, maintenance, clothes, and badges to show who retained them. H7 did not like this as it meant some magnates had their own personal armies to help them in case of a rebellion
• the number of retainers decreased over H7's reign, and the number of men noblemen could retain was limited. Some magnates secretly had retainers despite these limits, finding loopholes and hiring more men on their estate than necessary
• Nobles caught retaining were fined. in 1506, Lord Burgavenny was deemed to have too many retainers, and was fined £5 per man. his total came out to over £70,000. but h7 suspended this fine as long as burgavenny followed the rules, showing henry's pragmatic approach to dealing w the nobility
• The Order of the Garter was the ultimate honour bestowed by the king onto a noble. there were 37 knights of the garter. the title gave honour and prestige but did not provide land, power, or money. some novles included the Earl of Oxford and Charles Daubeney.
• The Crown Lands aimed to bring back as much land as possible to the crown to increase its power. The crown under H7 now controlled 5 times more land than it did under H6.
• in 1486, parliament passed the acts of resumption, recovering all land granted away since 1455 (before the war of the roses). Henry began rewarding the loyal with land forfeited by opponents rather than crown lands, meaning his power was never decreasing.
• Bonds and recognisances were debts that nobles were forced to pay if they failed to fulfil promises and obligations. recognisances were a formal acknowledgement of these debts and obligations. from 1485-1509, 36/62 noble families paid bonds/recognisances to H7, compared to only 1 peer during yorkist rule
• out of 62 noble families, 46 were at the Kings' mercy, with:

  • 36 bound by bonds and recognisances
  • 7 under attainder
  • 3 under constraint

  Only 16 noble families were not under some sort of obligation by Henry
• H7 didnt create many new peers as he wanted to ensure power remained with him, meaning creating a title was rare and honourable. because of this, the number of nobles fell from 62 to 42 during his reign
• only 2 nobles fought for henry at Bosworth, but 13 fought for him at the Battle of Stoke (1487) and 21 against the Cornish Rebellion in 1497