all found it necessary to accelerate, by artificial means, the exit from the world of the superfluous children of other pretenders.

This drastic process smoothed their path, but could not completely solve the problem; and the characteristic Tudor infirmity was already apparent in the reign of Henry VII.

He had three sons; two predeceased him, one at the age of fifteen years, the other at fifteen months.

Of his four daughters, two died in infancy, and the youngest cost the mother her life.[28] The fruit of that union between the Red Rose and the White, upon which so much store had been set,[29] seemed doomed to fail.
[Footnote 27: There is no definite evidence that he had more.] [Footnote 28: _Ven.

Cal._, i., 833.] [Footnote 29: _Cf._ Skelton, _Works_, ed.