What if Richard 3rd had killed Henry VII?

...by the fourteenth century it had become common law (in both England and Scotland) that a person who was not born in the liegeance of the Sovereign, nor naturalised, could not have the capacity to succeed as an heir ......

This was indeed the common law, from time whereof the memory etc until 19C. (Indeed, strictly speaking it is _still_ the common law) . An alien cannot inherit in fee (he may inherit chattels, though as heir in heritage) , nor can inheritance pass through an alien. There were various ways however that the burden of alienage could be avoided, besides birth within the realm. Naturalisation by Act of Parliament, liege homage (though probably that would be obsolete by this period) and various other legal fictions.
 
To what extent was Henry VII able to do this specifically because he'd defeated the Yorkist faction in battle? IOTL, a big chuck of the nobility and upper gentry had been killed at Bosworth, attainted and hunted down afterwards, or were forced to make concessions in order to buy forgiveness. In addition, the aftermath of Bosworth gave Henry a window of opportunity where most of the nobility was effectively disarmed so Henry could pass a ban on private armies and make it stick.

Had Richard won at Bosworth, he would have had a much harder time doing this. Instead of breaking the Yorkist aristocracy and their private armies, he would have owed his throne to their support. Was there enough land, etc, in the hands of those who fought for Henry that Richard could consolidate power, seize lands, and raise revenues the way Henry did?



I've been having a quick dip into the Henry VII chapter of Christopher Morris' The Tudors.[1] According to him

"There is - - something almost spectacular about Henry's finances. - - - He raised the income from crown lands from £13,633 to £32,630 and the customs revenue from about £20,000 to over £40,000. For the first five years of his reign, Henry's income averaged £52,000; for his last five years it averaged £142,000. The crown when he acquired it was heavily in debt, and for some years he had to borrow money; but by 1492 he had repaid all the loans and could show a surplus in the Royal accounts. From 1497 onwards he was able to save really large annual sums and at his death he left a fortune credibly estimated as something in the region of a million and a half pounds.

All this was brought about by methods that sound simple enough but in fact involved the greatest resolution and the greatest finesse. He resumed crown lands that had been granted away by his weaker predecessors. He squeezed all that was possible out of his feudal rights. He cut down waste and carried out wholesale reorganisation in the government departments which ran his financial affairs. He enforced the law sternly against offenders, particularly rich offenders, and extorted maximum fines. He encouraged trade and saw that he got his rightful tolls from it. He bullied men into making him loans - or sometimes gifts. He remained almost permanently at peace and when he did go to war he saved more than half the money voted by Parliament and clergy for his military expenses. He managed once (in 1492) to get Parliament to grant him money for a war with France and then to extort more money from the King of France for not pursuing his intentions."

How much of this Richard could or would have copied I'm not sure. I don't see why he couldn't have increased trade and got more from the customs revenues. As to the crown lands, it's not clear whether Henry got the money by running them more efficiently - which Richard might also have done - or by acquiring more land, which could be harder. That stunt with a French "war" in 1492 closely mirrors similar behaviour by Edward IV in 1475, so Richard could have imitated it - but given his recorded attitude at the time it's far from certain he'd be willing to.

The biggest uncertainty, though, is whether Richard could have acquired Henry's attitude to money - after all, Henry's own son never did. Iirc, when Richard toured England as King, he granted tax reductions left right and centre [2], which no doubt won him some popularity in the short run, but can't have helped get national finance on a sound basis. Nor do we know whether he'd have avoided war as successfully as Henry did.


[1] A very interesting little book - only 180 pages but he packs a lot into it. I don't always agree with Morris - in particular I think he underestimates the impact of he Wars of the Roses - but he's well worth a read.

[2] Istr that one of the beneficiaries was York, which may account for Richard's well-attested popularity there.
 
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