FROM THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH, TO QUEEN ELIZABETH.--1461 TO 1558. [Illustration: LADY JANE GREY REFUSING THE CROWN.] 1. Henry the Seventh was not an amiable man, but he had many qualities that were good and useful in a sovereign, and the country prospered greatly under his government. 2. One of the conditions on which he succeeded to the throne, was that he should marry the princess Elizabeth, daughter of Edward the Fourth, and thus secure peace by uniting the families of York and Lancaster:--the princess Elizabeth was a lady much beloved by every body, and her many acts of benevolence were long remembered in England, so that she was generally called the good queen Bess. 3. The king wished to increase the wealth and prosperity of the nation, and he took the best means of doing so by promoting commerce. He made commercial treaties, that is, agreements about trade, with foreign princes, by which he obtained many advantages for the English merchants, just as our government has lately made a treaty with the emperor of China, about our trade in his country. 4. No English ship had ever been to China then, nor even to India; and America had not yet been discovered; but in the time of Henry the Seventh, the Spaniards and Portuguese made longer voyages than had ever been made before, and the celebrated Christopher Columbus, whom I dare say you have often heard of, found out by study, that there was an unknown land on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, and although people laughed at him, he at last persuaded the king and queen of Spain to let him have ships, and sailors, and money, to go in search of it, so he was the first that found out the way to America, which, for a long time, was called the New World. 5. Soon after this, the Portuguese found out the way to India by sea; and then the English began to make voyages of discovery also, and to find that the world had more countries in it than they had ever dreamed of before. 6. Maps and charts, which had been known to the Greeks and Romans, now began to be much improved, though they were still incorrect, as you may suppose. 7. However, all these new discoveries, together with the invention of printing, made people think more about learning, and less about fighting than they used to do; especially as the nobility were beginning to live more in the way they do now, and to have handsome houses in London, instead of living always in their gloomy old castles. 8. Their domestics were no longer slaves, but hired servants; their tenants were not villeins, but free farmers, who paid rent for their land; and the poor peasantry, no longer in bondage, were at liberty to go where they pleased, and were paid for their daily labour. 9. You remember that in the feudal times all the land in the country belonged to the king, the nobles, the knights, and the bishops, and abbots.