Short answers, pulled from the story.
Richard Empson was an English lawyer and royal minister who served Henry VII. Born around 1450, he became Speaker of the House of Commons in 1491 and later Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He is best known for his role in Henry VII's aggressive tax enforcement through the Council Learned in the Law.
The Council Learned in the Law was a tribunal established around 1495 by Henry VII. It operated outside the normal common law courts and was used to maximize royal revenues by enforcing debts, bonds, and recognizances owed to the crown, using informants and imprisonment to compel financial settlements.
According to contemporary accounts, Empson and his partner Edmund Dudley collected over 200,000 pounds for Henry VII in just four years through the Council Learned in the Law.
After Henry VII died in 1509, his son Henry VIII had Empson arrested and charged with constructive treason. Empson was convicted at Northampton in October 1509 and beheaded on the 17th of August 1510. The charge was widely seen as a way for the new king to distance himself from his father's unpopular tax enforcement.
Empson's 10 children survived him. In 1512, Parliament passed an act restoring his eldest son Thomas 'in blood,' reversing the effects of the attainder on his inheritance. Several of Empson's daughters made notable marriages into prominent English families.