The miserly Henry VII had made use of two tools, Empson and Dudley, who, by minute inquisition into technical offences and by nice adjustment of fines to the wealth of the offender, had made the law unpopular and the king rich.

Four days after his succession, Henry VIII issued a proclamation asking all those who had sustained injury or loss of goods by these commissioners, to make supplication to the king.

The floodgates of pent-up wrath were opened, and the two unhappy ministers swept away by an act of attainder.
[Sidenote: War with France and Scotland] The pacific policy of the first years of the reign did not last long.
The young king felt the need of martial glory, of emulating the fifth Henry, of making himself talked about and enrolling his name on the list of conquerors who, in return for plaguing mankind, have been deified by them.

It is useless to look for any statesmanlike purpose in the war provoked with France and Scotland, but in the purpose for which he set out Henry was brilliantly successful: the French were so quickly routed near Guinegate [Sidenote: August 13, 1513] that the action has been known in history as the Battle of the Spurs.

While the king was still absent in France and his queen regent in England, his lieutenants inflicted a decisive defeat on the Scots [Sidenote: September] and slew their king, James IV, at Flodden.