Richard Empson

Richard Empson, the son of Peter Empson and Elizabeth Joseph Empson, was born in Towcester in about 1450. He was trained as a lawyer at Middle Temple and eventually became attorney-general. His career was hurt by his association with Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, and when Richard III ordered his execution in 1483 he was removed from office. Shortly after the accession of Henry VII, Empson was restored to his post as attorney-general. He also represented Northampton in the House of Commons. (1)

Over the next few years Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley became the king's most dominant members. (2) Jasper Ridley has pointed out that Empson and Dudley were the chief instruments of the king's financial policy: "They seem to have been almost universally hated throughout England. They were accused of acting illegally when they extorted large sums of money from wealthy landowners under the recognisance system, and of not only obtaining this money for the King, but of enriching themselves in the process." (3) Christopher Morris, the author of The Tudors (1955) has suggested that Dudley was the king's most "unpopular and unscrupulous minister". (4)

Richard Empson & Henry VII

Empson's biographer, Margaret Condon, has pointed out: "As chancellor, Empson continued Bray's efforts to increase revenue, authorizing the raising of rents or disallowance of rebates, and directing surveys and audits, enclosures of commons, and investigations of feudal incidents. The drive to maximize feudal revenues, to pursue old bonds, and to manipulate the penal laws in the king's interests was centred on the council learned, even in those cases where parallel actions were sued at common law.... The methods he used included the use of promoters for prosecution; imprisonment to facilitate settlement by fine or composition; and summonses issued (as in other council courts) by privy seal... His particular responsibilities were the authorization of pardons, countersigned by the king; the finding and traverse of intrusions and the issue of commissions of concealments; pardons and forfeitures on outlawry; wards and liveries of lands. Most actions or grants of grace resulted in fines to the king, in amounts and by methods which led Polydore Vergil and others to characterize both Empson and Dudley as extortioners." (5)

Henry VIII — Richard Empson, Henry VII and Edmund Dudley (c. 1500)

Roger Lockyer has argued that "Empson was the only prominent member of Henry's Council to come from a bourgeois background - his father was a person of some importance in the town of Towcester - and the idea that Henry VII surrounded himself with 'middle-class men' is very misleading. The gentry, whose numbers and importance in the royal administration were steadily increasing, were close in blood and social assumptions to the aristocracy, and counted themselves among the upper ranks of English society." (6)

Arrest & Execution

Henry VII died on 21st April 1509, but the fact was not announced until the evening of the 23rd. The following day Dudley and Empson were arrested and sent to the Tower of London. It was claimed that after the death of Henry that he conspired to stage a coup d'état. (7) As Roger Lockyer has argued: "Empson and Dudley were tried on a trumped-up charge of treason... Lack of gratitude was to be one of the most typical of Henry's characteristics." (8) The main intention of Henry VIII was to suggest the "disavowal and reversal of the oppressive policies with which they were identified". (9) The new king also declared an amnesty towards certain fines imposed on the aristocracy. (10)

Richard Empson was beheaded at Tower Hill on 17th August 1510.

Primary Sources

(1) Margaret Condon, Richard Empson : Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004-2014)

As chancellor, Empson continued Bray's efforts to increase revenue, authorizing the raising of rents or disallowance of rebates, and directing surveys and audits, enclosures of commons, and investigations of feudal incidents. The drive to maximize feudal revenues, to pursue old bonds, and to manipulate the penal laws in the king's interests was centred on the council learned, even in those cases where parallel actions were sued at common law.... The methods he used included the use of promoters for prosecution; imprisonment to facilitate settlement by fine or composition; and summonses issued (as in other council courts) by privy seal... His particular responsibilities were the authorization of pardons, countersigned by the king; the finding and traverse of intrusions and the issue of commissions of concealments; pardons and forfeitures on outlawry; wards and liveries of lands. Most actions or grants of grace resulted in fines to the king, in amounts and by methods which led Polydore Vergil and others to characterize both Empson and Dudley as extortioners.