In the year 1493 Henry sent his eldest son Arthur to hold his Court at Ludlow. The ancient castle there, with its round Temple chapel within, whose well-preserved walls still look so grand and imposing, is the centre of Welsh political life throughout the Tudor period. It was the great age of government by council. An attempt to circumscribe the power of the Popes by such means had been one of the burning topics of discussion within the Church all through the fifteenth century. The Yorkish and Tudor kings saw in the council a perfect instrument of arbitrary power, by which the deficiencies of the Common Law could be corrected, and by which the authority of the central government could be made to prevail against feudal lawlessness. The Court of Star Chamber, long before its final abolition by the Long Parliament, had won the hatred of all lovers of justice and good government; but it must never be forgotten that, in the early years of its existence, this same Council was the great upholder of law, and the sole effective protector of the weak against the strong. The Tudor Councils--Star Chamber, High Commission, of the North, {130} of the Welsh Marches--were above the ordinary law, in the sense that they administered a sort of criminal equity. It was a drastic and a dangerous remedy to use; but it was none too drastic for the evils of the day; and only the most pedantic believers in liberty could condemn it. Edward IV, and not Henry VII, was the first type of the new Renaissance sovereign to rule in England; and he it was who first created the Court of the Welsh Marches, in 1471. But the troubles of those chaotic years were greater even than such a body could deal with, and consequently we find it doing practically nothing. In 1501 William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln and founder of Brasenose College, became the first real Lord President of the Court of the Council of the Marches. Unhappily Prince Arthur died in 1502, and during the remainder of his reign Henry paid no attention whatsoever to Wales. The policy pursued by Smyth was one of conciliation; and as a result of his government, there was at least a growth in loyalty, if not in public order. He retained his office until his death in 1514, but does not appear to have resided at Ludlow after 1509, the year of Henry VII's death. {131}