Henry VIII’s accession in 1509 transforms the political atmosphere for Margaret Pole and other families with Yorkist and Plantagenet ties: after years of living at the Crown’s pleasure, they can once again appear at court and reclaim ordinary family contact. The change first looks like deliverance, marked by public celebration and royal pardons, though the wider narrative later sets that early leniency against Henry’s expanding authority.

A City Released from Fear

The change is visible in London before the old king has long been buried and before the new king is crowned. Meat is roasted at street corners, ale is shared from brewhouse windows, and debtors’ prisons open. To the commons, the death of Henry VII feels like release from hardship; to the lords, it marks an escape from tyranny. The public rejoicing stands against the court’s recent atmosphere of suspicion: the city behaves as though a long spell has broken.

For people with Plantagenet blood or an affinity to York, the old order had meant living on permission that might be revoked without warning. Margaret recalls the threat of the green-and-white-liveried Yeomen of the Guard arriving at a household, followed by a journey by barge to the Tower of London. The new reign changes that expectation. What had seemed a sentence without end becomes a life from which prisoners and their relations can begin to emerge.

The New King at Court

Margaret enters the presence chamber in a pale Tudor-green gown and a gable hood. Henry VIII is not holding himself in a formal pose beneath the cloth of estate; he is laughing with friends as he moves about the room, with Katherine of Aragon beside him. The informality of the scene presents a sharp contrast with the fear associated with his father’s rule and gives the young king’s court an appearance of ease and welcome.

At the far end of the chamber, Margaret Beaufort sits in deepest black, supported by silent ladies and priests. Her former title, the King’s Mother, has ended with Henry VII’s death; she could now be called the King’s Grandmother, but her expression makes clear that the new designation offers little comfort. The chamber therefore holds two different responses to the succession at once: the prince’s circle appears buoyant, while the older generation remains in mourning and anger.

Pardons and the Return of Kin

The change in policy has direct consequences for families who had been divided by imprisonment, exile, or fear of being seen. William Courtenay emerges from the Tower of London with a royal pardon. Thomas Grey comes home from Calais Castle. Margaret’s account widens from these releases to the hesitant return of cousins from distant castles and the renewal of messages among relatives who had not dared write for years. Their letters carry family news and anxious questions about who is safe and who may still be abroad.

This relief matters particularly to a large, interwoven Plantagenet kinship network. Under Henry VII, even loyal service could not make the family’s political position secure: Edmund de la Pole, Margaret’s cousin, had represented the possibility of a Plantagenet serving the Tudor court, while the wider family remained vulnerable to suspicion. Under the new king, the immediate signs are different. Henry VIII dismisses spies, cancels debts, and pardons prisoners, loosening the grip that had kept relatives apart and out of public life.

The accession also changes Margaret’s personal circumstances. Servants and tradesmen who had avoided her after her husband’s death and her fall from favour begin offering their services again. She has survived the twenty-four years of Henry VII’s reign, but survival has cost her dearly: she has been ruined and heartbroken, has lived in hiding with her children, and is estranged from all but two of them. Her return to safety is therefore not a restoration of what she lost; it is the chance to emerge from danger and resume a public life.

Relief and the Course of the Reign

The initial promise of the accession does not settle the conflicts that later define Henry VIII’s rule. As the reign proceeds, the king claims authority over the Church in England. When the Church surrenders to him, the Pope is to be disregarded within England, and Thomas More resigns as Lord Chancellor rather than continue in office under the new settlement. The shift is registered again in 1534, when Thomas Cromwell administers an oath of succession to the nobility while the Pope’s ruling on Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon conflicts with the king’s position.

Margaret’s recollection thus gives the accession a double significance. In 1509, the new king’s pardons and the return of imprisoned relatives make his reign seem like a release from the old regime’s fear. Later, the Crown’s demand that subjects accept its own account of marriage, succession, and ecclesiastical authority reveals a different form of pressure. The opening relief is not false, but it is provisional: families can step back into public life even as the bounds of what they may safely believe and say grow increasingly narrow.