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penultimate Habsburg ruler of Spain

The Decline of Spain' summarised what he considered to be the salient causes of that phenomenon, which for many years maintained the status of a decalogue. Amongst them figured 'the progressive decline in the character of the Habsburg kings'

The Spanish monarchy and system inherited by Philip IV in 1621 have long been accepted as being in a state of full decline

At Philip's accession to the throne, Spanish drama was enjoying a high summer of achievement fully equal to that of Jacobean England. Philip was entranced by its diversions, the escapist yet profoundly relevant worlds of courtly love, honour, revenge, cloak-and-dagger violence, salvation and damnation

The future Planet King played the role of Cupid in a court masque at the age of nine, in 1614

Of the five Austrian [i.e. Habsburg] kings, Charles V inspires enthusiasm, Philip II respect, Philip III indifference, Philip IV sympathy, and Carlos II pity

For most of the 1620s, the only major issue on which the King seems to have criticised his valido was the question of the Austrian alliance

Without Portugal and its immense colonial empire, Philip's pretensions to the title of 'Planet King' were hollow

The long reign of the Planet King thus ended in disillusion and dissolution

an age of chronic political instability and violence was dawning

What Henry VII did have great expertise in also grew from the circumstances of his exile

Henry's power base of support did cut across existing and inherited allegiances. This was an advantage if it could be transformed into Tudor loyalty.

That Henry VIII became such a gross figure of monarchy must be due partly to the freedom given to ministers like Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell to direct royal policy

Henry VII also began to free the crown from the direct influence of the aristocracy

Fifteenth-century kings, dukes and earls were royal cousins with a common descent from Edward III (1327-77). They held a shared elite outlook. Henry VII arrived from relative obscurity in 1485 and began to rule more like a landlord than the first among aristocratic equals.

Henry VII stayed closely involved in the daily tasks of ruling because he had a suspicious personality and was obsessed with the security of his Tudor dynasty

It removed the politically active gentry from the king's personal chambers, although over time figures such as the groom of the stool, Hugh Denys, became important because they had the ear of the king

Henry's permanent adult exile separated him entirely from England's ruling elite, both literally and in terms of his outlook and experiences. On the one hand, this gave Henry an opportunity to unlock the closed network of personal service that had surrounded medieval royal heirs as Princes of Wales or royal nobles. On the other, it created a great dependence upon the advice and skills of others. Some, like Sir Giles Daubeney and Sir Edward Poynings, had joined Henry after 1483 in opposition to Richard III. Others, like John de Vere, earl of Oxford, followed Henry because he was the only chance they had of recovering their lands and influence. Henry could not fully trust them to remain loyal if political circumstances changed again.

Henry VIII's early years, with a vibrant youthful court and military glory in France and Scotland, were certainly more like those of Edward IV's second reign (1471-83) than the more sombre final years of Henry VII's

To keep their status these men became agents of the Tudor crown

Henry pressed these prerogative rights to the very edge of the law, and many subjects complained of injustice. But the ability of the crown to intervene in their life became much more apparent

By regulating their roles as JPs, sheriffs, escheators and jury members, the Tudor crown further encroached upon the political and social freedoms of the ruling elite. Under weak leadership in Henry VI's reign (1422-61), they had been partly responsible for the descent into lawlessness and civil war. The Tudor king sought to remedy both deficiencies

Henry created few new nobles and was reluctant to promote or reward his servants excessively.

Henry also kept the personal estates of the crown (the demesne lands) in his own hands

The king's men soon learned that they could still wield great power: Sir Thomas Lovell's retinue, based on a number of scattered crown stewardships, was as large as any noble connection during this period. But Henry's knights were closely monitored. In another case, the king was willing to sacrifice Sir Richard Guildford's influence in Kent, when it became clear after 1504 that he could no longer represent the crown's interests effectively.

Towards the end of Henry VII's reign, members of the elite were competing for office and influence within a clearly defined structure of crown service. They were not challenging independently for resources of land and men that could threaten Tudor stability. Nobles could still be great landowners, courtiers or commissioners, like the restored earl of Surrey in the north before 1500

Henry VII's reliance on the policies of his Yorkist predecessors is well known

No historian has so far explained how Henry VII gained a foothold on power long enough to exploit the few advantages he held in 1485, or how he withstood the very serious early threats to his dynasty.

Henry VII began to use these tools on a large scale to enforce loyalty during the conspiracies of the first decade of Tudor rule. The backlash to the Tudor accession arose in the heartland of Richard III's support in Yorkshire

This was most obvious with the pretender Perkin Warbeck's call upon the loyalty of former servants of Edward V for most of the 1490s. Henry did try to heal the factionalism that had prevented a harmonious resolution of the civil wars in earlier reigns, and he did this by reshaping the political loyalties of the ruling classes

If the system worked as Henry VII intended it to, then little revenue would be generated from this source. The extent to which this aspect of the use of bonds was developed has been hidden from most Tudor historians

Henry VII's reign therefore remains an intriguing period to study. With several historians now working exclusively on Henry, we can expect a major growth in our level of understanding of the first Tudor reign in the near future