e sign to
the graces and vices of his age and times.

HENRY THE SEVENTH

Reigned 24 years: 1485-1509.

Born, 1456. Married, 1486, Elizabeth of York.

THE MEN

[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VII.; hose}]

Everyone has felt that curious faint aroma, that sensation of lifting,
which proclaims the first day of Spring and the burial of Winter.
Although nothing tangible has taken place, there is in the atmosphere
a full-charged suggestion of promise, of green-sickness; there is a
quickening of the pulse, a thrumming of the heart, and many an eager,
quick glance around for the first buds of the new order of things.

England's winter was buried on Bosworth Field: England's spring, as
if by magic, commenced with Henry's entry into London.

The first picture of the reign shows the mayor, the sheriffs, and the
aldermen, clothed in violet, waiting at Shoreditch for the coming of
the victor. The same day shows Henry in St. Paul's, hearing a _Te
Deum_; in the Cathedral church, packed to its limit, three new banners
waved, one bearing a figure of St. George, another a dragon of red on
white and green sarcenet, and the third showed a dun cow on yellow
tarterne.

Spring, of course, does not, except in a poetic sense, burst forth in
a day, there are long months of preparation, hints, signs in the air,
new notes from the throats of birds.

The springtime of a country takes more than the preparation of months.
Nine years before Henry came to the throne Caxton was learning to
print in the little room of Collard Mansion--he was to print his
'Facts of Arms,' joyous tales and pleasant histories of chivalry, by
especial desire of Henry himself.

Later still, towards the end of the reign, the first book of travel in
the West began to go from hand to hand--it was written by Amerigo
Vespucci, cousin to La Bella Simonetta.

Great thoughts were abroad, new ideas were constantly under
discussion, the Arts rose to the occasion and put forth flowers of
beauty on many stems long supposed to be dead or dormant and incapable
of improvement. It was the great age of individual English expression
in every form but that of literature and painting, both these arts
being but in their cradles; Chaucer and Gower and Langland had
written, but they lay in their graves long before new great minds
arose.

The clouds of the Middle Ages were dispersed, and the sun shone.

The costume was at once dignified and magnificent