best biography of henry vii

English History

Henry VII Facts & Information Biography

If Henry VII’s reign was to usher in ‘smooth-faced peace, with smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days’, few could have predicted it in 1485. The Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485 was the last armed confrontation between Lancastrians and Yorkists, those two factions that had fought for decades in The Wars of the Roses.

The Lancastrians triumphed under the leadership of a 28-year-old exile named Henry Tudor. After winning the throne of England, he wed Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of the dead Yorkist king Edward IV. Thus, the two warring houses were joined in marriage.

The union was both symbolic and necessary. Despite his victory at Bosworth, the exiled nobleman who took the name Henry VII needed the support of those sympathetic to the defeated Yorkist cause. He also needed the legitimacy of his wife’s claim to the throne.

He had spent years in exile and campaigned tirelessly to win support for his claim to the English throne. It had not been an easy task. In fact, it was only when Richard duke of York usurped the throne from his young nephew Edward (son and heir of Edward IV ) that Henry Tudor became a viable candidate for king.

Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne was never based on ancestry alone. He knew, none better, that such a claim would be flimsy at best. His royal blood came from women – his mother, Margaret Beaufort , was the granddaughter of John Beaufort (died 1410), the eldest of the bastard sons of John of Gaunt , duke of Lancaster. Gaunt’s eldest legitimate son was the first Lancastrian king of England.

The Beauforts were so named because Margaret’s grandfather had been born in Beaufort Castle in Champagne; his mother was Gaunt’s mistress and later became his third wife. After the marriage, their children were declared legitimate by an act of Parliament in 1397 (during Richard II’s reign).

When their fellow kinsman Henry IV Bolingbroke came to the throne, he confirmed this act of legitimacy but added a stipulation that the Beauforts should never succeed to the English throne (1407). Certainly no act of government could alter the fact that the Beauforts had been born illegitimate; and Henry IV’s declaration regarding the succession is equally ambivalent – after all, what practical effect could it guarantee?

The end result was that the Beauforts occupied an odd position in the English nobility and, taken together as a group, posed a unique threat to the security of the throne.

Henry VII, c1500, by Michael Sittow

Margaret Beaufort’s father John succeeded to the earldom of Somerset in 1418 and, after a life of military embarrassment (including seventeen years in a French prison), he married Margaret Beauchamp, daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Blestoe.

A year after their marriage, John was created duke of Somerset. Margaret, his only child, was born on 31 May 1443; she never knew her father. John had led yet another disastrous military expedition to France and ended up dying in Dorset a few days before her first birthday.

It was rumored that he committed suicide. Her mother, meanwhile, married again – this time to Lionel, Lord Welles, and survived another four decades. Margaret, however, was the sole heir to the dukedom of Somerset and its vast holdings.

Since she was a great heiress, she was betrothed while still a child to John de la Pole, the son and heir of Henry VI’s chief minister, the marquess of Suffolk.

A conspiracy followed which alleged that Suffolk was planning to place Margaret and his son on the throne if Henry VI died childless; there is no proof but it indicates how important Margaret’s royal blood was, even tainted with her grandfather’s illegitimacy. Suffolk was murdered in May 1450 and in early 1453, the marriage between Margaret and John de la Pole was annulled.

A child of ten, she was a pawn once more. Henry VI wanted to wed her to his half-brother Edmund Tudor so, at the age of twelve, she was married again. Her new husband was the earl of Richmond. His ancestry was even more colorful than her own.

Edmund Tudor was the eldest son of a princess of France and Queen of England and her Welsh attendant. Catherine of Valois was the youngest daughter of Charles VI of France and Queen Isabelle. At the age of eighteen, Catherine had wed that great warrior-king Henry V.

He was fifteen years her senior and, even in life, recognized as one of England’s greatest kings. His triumph at Agincourt in 1415 inspired one of Shakespeare ‘s greatest plays, Henry V, and led Charles VI to sue for peace. Charles promised that, upon his death, Henry would inherit the French throne; to show his good faith and secure Henry’s claim, he was wed to Catherine.

She was, by all accounts, quite beautiful and vivacious. They were married in May 1420 and, in December, made a triumphal entry into Paris. From there, they sailed to Dover and Catherine was crowned at Westminster Abbey in February 1421.

She joined Henry on his public progress through England for a few months but, in June 1421, a year after their marriage, Henry departed again for France. He left knowing his wife was pregnant and, on 6 December 1421, she gave birth to their son, the future Henry VI, at Windsor. Henry V would never see his son. Catherine traveled to France without the child to visit Henry but he then left to besiege Meaux and Catherine went to her parents north of Paris.

During the siege, Henry contracted dysentery and died at the chateaux of Vincennes on 31 August 1422. The glorious king of England and heir to the French throne had fallen victim to the scourge of armies everywhere.

His great achievements were not forgotten but, immediately after his death, confusion swept through England. Henry V had died, leaving behind a twenty-year-old widow and an infant son. On 21 October 1422, her father suddenly died, after suffering years of intermittent insanity. The infant Henry VI was now king of both England and France.

Catherine, quite naturally, remained at her son’s side, accompanying him to the various public and ceremonial appearances he made as a child. However, her presence was a novel problem in 15th century England – a Dowager Queen who was remaining in England until her son’s majority and would, in all likelihood, wish to marry again.

She was, after all, still young and beautiful and contemporaries noted her energy and flirtatiousness. For the protector of the realm (Humphrey, duke of Gloucester) and the royal council, Catherine’s remarriage was a very real concern.

Whomever she wed would become step-father to the king; understandably, they viewed such a man as a threat to their own positions of authority. Since they were unable to agree on whom would be allowed to court the queen, they passed a law in 1427 stating that no dowager queen could marry without the king’s permission; furthermore, permission could only be granted once the king reached the age of discretion.

Since Henry VI was only six years old in 1427, the council felt that they had effectively delayed any remarriage for some years – at least until the king could no longer be influenced by a step-father. (In fairness to the council, there was no precedent for the problem Catherine of Valois presented; neither of the two queens of England who had outlived their spouses and married a second time – King John and Richard II’s wives – had remained in England. Also, no dowager queen since the twelfth century had married one of her husband’s subjects.)

The council was also careful to keep Catherine under watch. From 1427 until about 1430 she and her entourage lived in Henry VI’s household. In April 1430 she traveled with her son to Paris for his coronation as king of France.

Her activities were thus restricted and watched. However, the council was not completely successful at isolating the eligible dowager queen and, around 1431, Catherine met a Welshman named Owen ap Maredudd ap Tudur. Their love affair and marriage resulted in four children, the eldest of whom was Henry VII’s father. So, once again, Henry Tudor inherited royal blood from a female.

The origin of Catherine and Owen’s romance is obscure. Later chroniclers attributed it to drunkenness (at a ball, Owen was so drunk that he stumbled and fell into the queen’s lap) or voyeurism (the queen saw Owen bathing in a stream and was attracted to him; she secretly traded places with her maid and arranged to meet him in disguise; Owen was too passionate and attempted to kiss her; she pulled away and received a scratch on her cheek; the next evening, as he was serving her dinner, he saw the wound and was ashamed of his behavior; she forgave him, they fell in love and married.)

Whatever the case, they were attracted to one another, fell in love, and married. The legitimacy of the union was never questioned (not even by Richard III when Henry Tudor positioned himself as claimant). Certainly the council was unhappy with her choice for the Welsh were regarded by many as barbarians but, in her choice, she showed good sense.

The 1427 statute had stipulated that any man who married the queen without the king’s permission would be subject to fines, imprisonment, and forfeiture of lands. By marrying a man who was simply a member of her household (perhaps the manager of some lands), Catherine effectively protected Owen from retribution. (No one knows the true nature of Owen’s work in the queen’s household but he probably functioned as a steward.)

In 1432 Owen was made an English citizen and in March 1434 Catherine gifted him with some lands of his own in Flintshire. They lived together in the countryside, away from court intrigues, for some years. During this time, he began to follow the English use of surnames and became known, however inaccurately, as Owen Tudor.

The couple had four children – three sons and a daughter, though the daughter died young. Their sons were named Edmund, Jasper, and Owen. The latter became a Benedictine monk while his two older brothers struggled to survive in an increasingly hostile England. On 3 January 1437 Catherine had died of an unspecified illness which had plagued her for some time. With her death, Owen lacked protection from the king’s council.

They were now determined to finally prosecute him for breaking the 1427 law. Owen appeared before the council and acquitted himself of all charges but, after his release, was arrested. He managed to escape Newgate Prison but was recaptured and sent to Windsor Castle in July 1438.

Eventually Owen would be released and pardoned (1440) and taken into his step-son Henry VI’s household. In the years following Catherine’s death and Owen’s imprisonment, Edmund and Jasper Tudor were cared for by the abbess Katherine de la Pole, the earl of Suffolk’s sister.

Around 1442, their half-brother Henry VI began to take an interest in their upbringing and they were brought to London. In 1452, it was decided that the two brothers, now teenagers, should be ennobled. Henry VI decided this out of both affection and politics.

He knew he had to recognize his half-brothers in some public manner, making them an official part of the royal family; he also cared for them deeply. So on 23 November 1452, Edmund was created earl of Richmond and Jasper was created earl of Pembroke. They were now the premier earls of England and had precedence over all other laymen except dukes.

They were also gifted with estates and rich gifts. On their behalf, the Commons petitioned Henry VI to recognize them as his ‘uterine’ brothers (born of the same mother); this he did, and more. Since no earl, especially the brother of the king, could be penniless, Henry continued to grant his brothers numerous lands and annuities. And, as mentioned before, he also arranged a rich marriage for Edmund to Margaret Beaufort.

The importance of their Welsh blood should not be underestimated. Both Edmund and Jasper strove to maintain the king’s authority in both south and west Wales and their Welsh ancestry (discussed in the Welsh Connection section) made them popular in much of Wales. Welsh support would later prove critical to Henry VII during the battle at Bosworth.

Henry’s youth was spent in the shadow of Henry VI’s disgrace. When Edward IV came to the throne, he was determined to avenge his late father, the duke of York. Henry VI was increasingly deranged, perhaps having inherited his French grandfather’s mental illness .

As a result of his dementia, his queen Margaret of Anjou, increasingly dominated the Lancastrian party. She was determined to protect her son’s inheritance and, to that end, dedicated her life to a dangerous and complex problem.

The Lancastrian and Yorkist forces met definitively at the Battle of Tewkesbury in summer 1471. Edward, Margaret and Henry’s son, was killed in battle and Henry VI was captured and taken to the Tower of London where he was killed.

The Lancastrian cause seemed dead. Edward IV was, unlike Henry, a capable and strong king. Soon after becoming king he married an unknown widow named Elizabeth Woodville. Understandably, she was anxious to promote the interests of her own family which created conflict with the old nobility. Edward and Elizabeth had many children, including two sons. (Their eldest daughter, also named Elizabeth, would become Henry Tudor’s wife.

She was known as Elizabeth of York .) By all accounts, the marriage was happy despite the conflict between the Woodvilles and Edward’s noble Yorkist supporters. The succession was secure and with support from his brother, Richard duke of Gloucester , Edward’s rule was successful. However, Edward died in 1483 and Richard usurped the throne from his two young nephews. This changed the course of English history.

Had Richard not betrayed his nephews, there is every possibility the Yorkist dynasty would have survived. But Richard’s own future would have been quite difficult; he was despised by Elizabeth Woodville, and – as Edward IV’s only brother – he would become the focus of Woodville discontent. That would not have lasted for long and Edward V would have followed his mother’s wishes. The boy had, after all, been raised and tutored by his Woodville relations and hardly knew Richard.

(NOTE: The story of Richard III’s claiming of the throne is told in great detail at his site. Please read those pages to gain a better understanding of the events of 1483-1485. I have not included the information here since this page is about Henry VII.)

Ricahrd was an able administrator but faced quite a few obstacles during his brief reign. If Edward IV had died with no rightful heir, Richard’s ascension would have been viewed much differently. Then, he would have been the rightful king.

And since he wed Anne Neville of Warwick, daughter of the ‘Kingmaker’, he would have had crucial support. But Richard’s only son and wife died with months of one another in 1484. He was grief-stricken and also struggling with the nobility, particularly the ambitious duke of Buckingham (a brash and arrogant man with his own share of Plantagenet blood.)

Meanwhile, over in France, Henry Tudor was positioning himself as heir to his murdered uncle Henry VI . With the support of exiled Lancastrians and the French monarchy, Henry planned to mount an invasion of England.

What had prepared Henry for this moment? At twenty-eight he was hardly an experienced soldier but he was used to a life of sudden change. In the 1450s his father Edmund and uncle Jasper were Henry VI’s closest relatives, part of a small group of influential advisors to the king.

Other than these half-brothers, Henry VI was bereft of close blood relatives; his uncles, the dukes of Bedford, Clarence and Gloucester, had all died without legitimate heirs and this left both an emotional and dynastic void at the court. Also, Henry’s government was reviled as inefficient and corrupt. His two most prominent ministers were the dukes of Suffolk and Somerset and the English people reviled them.

Henry had also raised taxes and spent heavily to assert his right to the French throne. Perhaps if he had been successful at it, the English people would not have grumbled about the taxes. But he wasn’t successful and, as the defeats multiplied, the people grew naturally resentful of the taxation and Henry’s attempts to enforce it.

Also, many Englishmen (commoner and noble alike) were uncertain about the very survival of Henry’s dynasty. After eight years of marriage, he and Margaret of Anjou had no children. Increasingly, eyes turned to Henry’s cousin Richard, duke of York, for stability and reform. Henry, perhaps feeling as if Richard were being positioned to either dominate his government or usurp the throne, turned to his small group of advisors for guidance.

Since Edmund and Jasper were young, their role at court was peripheral. Their upbringing had also been quite different from most young noblemen. However, they were not fools and were careful to never alienate the powerful duke of York during Henry’s reign.

In the summer of 1453, Henry VI suffered an intermittent bout of madness so severe that he recognized no one, never spoke and had to carried from place to place. Immediate steps had to be taken to ensure the survival of the royal government. The winter of 1453 and 1454 was occupied with the struggle between Queen Margaret and Richard to be declared regent.

For whatever reason, the Tudor brothers sided with the duke of York. Finally, on 3 April 1454, Parliament decided to appoint Richard regent during the king’s illness.

There are records showing the brothers attended council meetings and parliamentary sessions; they were also involved in the extensive reform of the king’s household, of which they were members. At that time, their relationship with the duke of York was not regarded as incompatible with their attachment to Henry VI and his Lancastrian dynasty.

At any rate, around Christmas 1454, Henry VI suddenly recovered and the duke of York was no longer in power. Instead, Henry VI restored his old favorites to their former positions, notably the hated Somerset (who was the uncle of Edmund Tudor’s wife.)

The duke of York and his allies left London in apparent disgust. The Tudor brothers, and most of the court, realized that a breach had been opened in the nobility. Most were happy to see the king recover but they were not happy to see the capable York depart; further, the duke was hated by the queen after their struggle for the regency. If the two groups clashed, which side would the Tudors choose?

The ‘Battle’ of St Albans on 1 May 1455 revealed the extent of the problem. The king had left London to visit Leicester, accompanied by his half-brother Jasper and the duke of Somerset. They spent the evening at Watford and the next day rode on to St Albans; the duke of York and the earls of Warwick and Salisbury were waiting for them.

There was a skirmish, several of the king’s servants (including Somerset) were killed, and the king himself suffered a wound on the neck. There was also violent fighting in the streets of the town. The Yorkist forces were successful in capturing the king and escorted him back to London. On 26 May, Parliament was summoned to meet at Westminster in six weeks. As peers of the realm, the Tudor brothers were required to attend.

All the lords gathered there swore allegiance to Henry VI but measures were undertaken to fix the kingdom’s disastrous finances. To that end, every grant Henry had made during his reign was revoked – with the notable exceptions of Edmund and Jasper’s lands. This exemption shows that York and his allies wanted Tudor support. They were, after all, members of the royal family.

The second session of Parliament was in November 1455 and the brothers did not attend. They were in Wales, ostensibly to keep the king’s peace there. They had been sent on such a mission before (their only real task given by the king), perhaps because their father had been a Welshman. Eventually, the respect many Welsh felt for the Tudor brothers, particularly Jasper, would aid his nephew Henry Tudor; after all, Henry landed in Pembrokeshire in 1485.

Wales was always a problem for Henry VI for a major rebellion had ended just 40 years before and occasional fighting was not uncommon. Edmund Tudor, as the eldest brother, went there as a representative of the English king. While the duke of York was regent, Edmund led a raid to reassert the duke’s authority on his lands, centered on the castle Carmarthen.

He fought – and won – the castle back from a Welsh rebel who had seized it. While the duke was regent, this success was acceptable; Edmund held the castle for Richard and his authority as regent. But after Richard left London in some disgrace, his English supporters in and near Wales were worried.

What if Edmund Tudor attempted to return Carmarthen and its lands to Henry VI rather than the duke? Edmund was no longer a representative of the duke as regent; he was now a representative of the king. Determined to reassert Richard’s authority in West Wales, they led a raid on Carmarthen and imprisoned Edmund sometime in September 1456. Edmund was released soon after but had already developed a fatal illness.

He died on 1 November 1456 at Carmarthen and was given a fine burial at the nearby Greyfriars Church. No one was ever accused of directly causing his death and it is possible that he always suffered from ill health; government records show he was absent from meetings far more than Jasper.

Then again, Edmund was also a husband and on, 28 January 1457, a father; sadly, he died before his son was born. This son would be called Henry and would become the first Tudor king of England.

Kingdoms are but cares, State is devoid of stay, Riches are ready snares, And hasten to decay. Pleasure is a privy prick Which vice doth still provoke; Pomp, imprompt; and fame, a flame; Power, a smoldering smoke, Who meaneth to remove the rock Out of the slimy mud, Shall mire himself, and hardly ‘scape The swelling of the flood. – Henry VI, written while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London

NOTE: This is a terribly convoluted tale. I have tried to whittle it down to the bare essentials while still conveying the most important information. For a more detailed description of all the battles and plots, find a good book – like ‘The Making of the Tudor Dynasty’ – and devote your weekend to reading it. If you’re wondering why all this stuff about Jasper Tudor is important… well, it consumed the early years of Henry Tudor’s life. Even if he wasn’t directly involved, they were his relatives and their success – or failure – had a direct impact on his life.

Also, the state of the monarchy pre-Henry VII: Edward IV, the first Yorkist king, was the only English king since Henry II to die solvent. Having repossessed the lands of the exiled Lancastrian nobility and seeking support from the middle-class, he was able to run England effectively and efficiently. Whatever his faults as a man (unfaithful and increasingly debauched), he was a good king.

Since Henry VII spent most of his formative years away from this court, he could claim no special understanding of English politics; indeed, if his early life taught him anything it was the tenuousness of a title. His uncle Jasper’s life was the ultimate lesson. On 3 February 1461 Edward, earl of March and son of the duke of York, triumphed over the Lancastrian forces at Mortimer’s Cross in Herefordshire. It was a terrible blow for Henry VI and Jasper, particularly since Jasper and the earl of Wiltshire had shared command over the defeated army.

His father, Owen Tudor, was executed after the battle. Jasper had choice but to flee in disguise, seeking refuge at his lordship of Pembroke. While he tried to solicit Welsh allies, Margaret of Anjou and her son Prince Edward had gathered a large army of northerners. They reached St Albans in Hertfordshire on 17 February and soundly defeated the Yorkist forces led by the ill-prepared earl of Warwick.

This victory enabled Margaret to free her husband, prisoner of the Yorkists since the previous summer (the skirmish at St Albans). Her plan was to march straight to London while Jasper Tudor led forces from South Wales. But Jasper was unable to raise enough troops in time and Margaret’s northern soldiers made the fatal mistake of pillaging the English countryside.

The Londoners were understandably terrified of the advancing northerners and refused to allow Margaret’s men into London. They did, however, open their gates to the future Edward IV and the earl of Warwick. Henry VI and his family fled to Scotland and Jasper Tudor was left in Wales.

Jasper’s lands were seized and he was hunted mercilessly by Edward IV’s ally William Herbert. There is no record of his whereabouts but he did successfully elude capture, eventually escaping to Scotland. His nephew, four-year-old Henry, was left behind at Pembroke Castle, seat of Jasper’s power in Pembrokeshire.

Since William Herbert was awarded Jasper’s lands by Edward IV, Henry was in his custody. Because the young earl of Richmond was a member of the Lancastrian royal family, Herbert paid 1000 pds for his wardship; furthermore, he was given control over the boy’s future marriage. Herbert was never cruel to the boy; in fact, he and his wife, Anne Devereux, had a large family of their own and Henry was part of it.

Anne was particularly kind to the boy and, when he triumphed in 1485, Henry Tudor sent for her to come to London. At their home, he was known as the earl of Richmond though his inheritance had been given to Edward IV’s brother George, duke of Clarence. His education was good – two Oxford scholars named Scot and Haseley who were also remembered when he became king.

But Henry rarely saw his mother. A few months after his birth in 1457, she married a man named Henry Stafford. They lived in Lincolnshire and, later, Surrey, long distances from Pembrokeshire. Also, the fall of Pembroke Castle and Herbert’s purchase of her son’s wardship were obstacles. But Margaret’s husband made peace with the new king around 1461 and, while her son was not allowed to return to her guardianship, she was allowed to visit and write to him.

Of course, the exiled Lancastrian nobility (Henry’s family) were involved in countless plots to return to power. Captured spies exaggerated reports of their strength; one told Edward IV that the kings of France, Denmark, Portugal, and Aragon were planning a Lancastrian-led invasion.

Certainly any monarch would be uneasy after such reports. Edward IV captured the earl of Oxford and his son, believed to be Lancastrian sympathizers, and executed them for treason. Though the plot was not as grand as the spy alleged, it had involved French support and Jasper Tudor made his way to the continent.

Eventually, a convoluted agreement was made with Louis XI the French king. This second plan failed around Christmas 1462. In 1464, Louis XI decided to switch loyalties to Edward IV and urged the other Lancastrian ally, Francis II duke of Brittany, to do the same.

It is difficult not to admire the tenacity the Lancastrian exiles maintained during these years of planning and defeat. Jasper increasingly began to see Wales as the perfect place for invasion since it was always hostile to the English monarchy.

The Welsh were understandably sympathetic to any cause which involved this high-ranking Welshman. To many, Jasper was a national hero – a Welshman who had succeeded at the English court and could be counted upon to support their rights. In the spring of 1468, they had cause to rejoice because Jasper was coming to Wales.

Edward IV had just made a treaty with independent French nobles which angered Louis XI of France. Accordingly, he decided to once again lend his support to the Lancastrian struggle. But, once again, the support was not as much as necessary. Jasper arrived in Wales and, though he gathered 2000 men, he was eventually routed at Harlech Castle.

Jasper once again escaped, some say by impersonating a peasant. Once again, he was in France, still exiled and still defeated. One can only imagine his frustration.

But Jasper’s invasion, however slight, did create a breach in the Yorkist party. Edward IV’s supporter, the earl of Warwick who had marched with him to London in 1461, was becoming dissatisfied with the king. Called the ‘kingmaker’ because of his ability, Warwick wanted more power than Edward was willing to give.

In early 1469, the two former allies were not speaking and Warwick raised an army. He was victorious over William Herbert’s army at Edgecote. (Herbert was Henry VII’s guardian and Edward IV’s ally.) Warwick realized he could not claim the throne for himself; instead, he had to switch sides and support Henry VI . So, with Edward IV’s brother George duke of Clarence, unhappy with his brother as well, Warwick went to France. There, Louis XI attempted to reconcile Warwick with his former enemies.

Margaret of Anjou didn’t want Warwick for an ally. She didn’t trust him; he had, after all, had a major role in arresting and deposing her husband in 1461. But Margaret’s desire to reassert Lancastrian authority was great and she reluctantly agreed to his help. Another invasion was planned. Warwick and Jasper would go through Wales and Margaret and Prince Edward follow when it was safe.

Henry Tudor was now thirteen years old, certainly old enough to understand the danger he was in after the Battle at Edgecote. Since his guardian had been killed by Warwick, he was under the sole protection of Anne Devereux. She took him and her Herbert children to her family’s home in Herefordshire. Henry’s mother tried to regain custody of her son after Herbert’s death; however, her attempts soon didn’t matter.

For when Jasper and Warwick’s army arrived in England, Edward IV was not in London and was unable to reach London before the Lancastrian forces. Therefore, Edward fled to Holland on 2 October 1470. Meanwhile, a relative of Anne Devereux’s had taken Henry Tudor to Hereford and given him to Jasper when he arrived at the city. The reunion of uncle and nephew was undoubtedly emotional for Jasper, an exile from his country for years. Meanwhile, Warwick entered London and freed Henry VI from the Tower.

It was also a reunion for Henry and his mother. Within a few days, he and Jasper had joined Margaret and her husband. They entered London together and spent about six weeks there. On 12 November, Henry left his mother again to leave with Jasper.

Henry VI’s restoration immeasurably increased Jasper Tudor’s wealth and prestige (he was rewarded with lands, monies, grants); but Henry Tudor was not made the earl of Richmond. His father’s title had been given to Edward IV’s brother George duke of Clarence and Clarence would not give it back.

Since he was an ally of Warwick’s, there was nothing Jasper or Margaret could do for the boy. Jasper, having spent ten years in exile and with little money or prestige, kept his nephew with him and enjoyed his success. Alas, it did not last. Once again, Edward IV and the Lancastrians met on the battlefield – this time at a town called Tewkesbury.

On 12 March 1471, Edward returned from Europe and landed in Yorkshire. He marched south to London, reaching there on 11 April; on 14 April, he fought Warwick at the Battle of Barnet. Edward won and promptly killed Warwick. He also regained custody of Henry VI.

The situation was once again dire; Jasper Tudor promptly began to raise an army to fight Edward. Meanwhile, Margaret of Anjou and Prince Edward arrived in England as planned so many months ago. She knew nothing of Warwick’s defeat and her husband’s capture. Upon hearing the news, she was devastated but unbowed.

She gathered an army in the West Country and marched north toward Wales; she was planning to meet and join forces with Jasper. Edward IV was no fool and realized that he must make a quick, decisive strike. He was determined to meet Margaret’s army before she met up with Jasper. Edward and Margaret met south of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471.

Margaret was soundly defeated and her son killed during or after the battle. Captured like her husband and with their only child killed, Margaret was taken to London. Jasper Tudor, unable to reach her in time, was an exile once again – and, this time, so was his nephew.

The defeat at Tewkesbury was devastating to the Lancastrian cause. Only hours after Edward IV returned in triumph to London, Henry VI was dead in the Tower. The circumstances of his death were mysterious but the execution of his supporter the duke of Somerset was an open warning. Jasper Tudor had good reason to fear for both his and Henry’s safety.

Margaret Beaufort and her husband almost immediately declared allegiance to Edward to protect themselves. But her son, as one of the few surviving males with Lancastrian blood, was destined for France. Jasper hoped that their old ally Louis XI would aid them once again.

Before he arrived in France, however, he fought a battle in Wales at Chepstow. Edward IV was still determined to capture him and sent Sir Roger Vaughan to do so. Jasper Tudor managed to defeat Vaughan and executed him. This ruthless act was uncharacteristic for Jasper but can be easily explained – Vaughan had killed his father, Owen Tudor, almost ten years before at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross. The satisfaction of this execution was Jasper’s only comfort as he fought his way to the coast. From there, he, his nephew, and a few servants made their way to France. They ended up landing in Brittany, where the duke Francis II had long supported them.

Francis was desperate to preserve his duchy’s independence from the French state and recognized Jasper and Henry as powerful diplomatic tools. If Edward would aid him, then perhaps he would return the Tudors – that was Francis’s official diplomatic message.

Edward made several attempts to gain custody of the Tudors but was unsuccessful. His concern, however, was intermittent since they were not in England and he was more concerned with his own family and rule.

From 1471 to Edward’s death twelve years later, Jasper and Henry remained in Brittany, staying at the castle of Suscinio, traditionally used as the duke’s summer residence. Louis XI of France, meanwhile, was engaged in more diplomatic rivalry.

Resenting Edward’s relations with his enemies, he sought the release of Jasper and Henry into his custody. He told the duke of Brittany that the Tudors had, after all, intended to go to France itself – their landing in Brittany had been a mistake of bad weather.

Also, Jasper had been given a pension by Louis during their earlier stay; consequently, he was a servant of the king and under his protection. Both men wanted to use the Tudors as diplomatic pawns but Francis II was unwilling to give up his advantage.

The Tudors stayed in Brittany, under increasingly strict control. There were reports that Edward IV wanted Henry killed and that Louis XI was going to kidnap them.

Edward IV had to console himself with Francis II’s promise that the Tudors were under protective custody. In the mid-1470s he tried a new strategy, with the aid of Henry’s mother. She had extracted a promise from the king that some of her lands would pass to her son on her death. Edward not only agreed but he also suggested an English bride – perhaps one of his own daughters – for the exiled earl. Margaret Beaufort gave her full support to this plan.

She wanted her son in England above all else. Whether Edward intended to keep his promise is unknown but it was certainly a good idea. By marrying Henry into his family, he would neutralize this last Lancastrian threat. And, for a while, it seemed he would be successful. In late 1476, worn down by ill health and the English ambassadors, Francis II consented to send Henry to England. Henry developed – or faked – an illness at the port and was able to elude being sent home.

It may be that he suspected duplicity on Edward’s part or was counselled by his uncle. (It seems evident that Henry, the first Tudor king, shared many qualities with his granddaughter, Elizabeth I , last of the Tudor monarchs – both were shaped by perilous upbringings into cautious, careful rulers. In truth, they bore little resemblance to Henry VIII, Edward VI & Mary I. They were also far more concerned with domestic policy than foreign entanglements.)

Since Henry had, by now, grown into a handsome and affable teenager, he was always welcome at the ducal court. After avoiding being sent to England, he simply returned to the duke’s custody. There, he continued to be treated fairly – indeed, even generously.

Every now and again, Edward IV and Margaret Beaufort tried to lure him to England (for different reasons, of course.) Margaret had asked Edward to let Henry stand as heir to her estates and he agreed (in 1472) but by 1482, Edward IV decided this – if Henry returned to England and gained Edward’s favor, he would receive Margaret’s lands plus other estates. But if he stayed in France, he would get nothing. Nothing had been decided when Edward died unexpectedly on 9 April 1483.

By this time, Duke Francis was facing instability in his own lands. Naturally enough, this made Henry and Jasper’s position more tenuous. Still, they received as much support from the duke as he could provide, including generous gifts of money.

It may be that, upon Edward’s death, Henry seriously thought of returning home. The events which followed the king’s demise certainly set him upon that course. As recounted earlier, Richard duke of Gloucester, seized the throne from his nephew, Edward V, his brother’s 12-year-old heir. Richard officially seized the throne on 26 June.

There was no immediate effect on Henry and Jasper Tudor. But their protectors, the French king Louis XI and Duke Francis II, immediately recognized the possibilities – after all, Richard III’s claim was tenuous and he would need to work out some arrangement regarding other claimants. Jasper and Henry Tudor would bear even greater pressure on Richard than they had on Edward.

At first, Richard simply tried to establish friendly relations with the king and duke, without explicitly mentioning the Tudors. His more immediate concern was the closing of French ports to English exiles (notably former Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s brother and a large section of the English fleet.)

In England, Margaret still wanted her son to return – though to his rightful position as earl of Richmond, not as king of England. But events soon changed, with the same rapidity of Richard’s usurpation, and Henry Tudor dreamed of more than an earldom.

Richard III’s usurpation was bad enough to most Englishmen, and especially the nobility. But in 1483, Edward IV’s two sons – held in the Tower – mysteriously died. It was whispered that Richard had them murdered and secretly buried. Thus was born the legend of the ‘Princes of the Tower’. (What happened remains a matter of conjecture; mystery novelist and playwright, Josephine Tey, wrote The Daughter of Time, a book which convincingly argues for Richard’s innocence. In that case, Henry VII executed the boys – who would be his brothers-in-law – in order to secure his throne. Morre recently, the lawyer Bertram Fields examines the case in Royal Blood.)

The deaths of Edward V and his brother, Richard duke of York, angered the populace and encouraged the image of Richard III as a deceitful murderer. Since Richard never officially responded to the rumors, they were believed to be true. Soon enough, the duke of Buckingham, Henry Stafford, created more chaos. He led a rebellion against Richard III in October and was captured and executed in November.

First of all, it is important to remember that Buckingham, Richard III and Henry Tudor were the only surviving male heirsto the house of Plantagenet . The reasons why Buckingham led a rebellion against Richard are not clear but several possibilities can be considered – first, he had as legitimate a claim to tthe throne as Richard and, gauging popular dissatisfaction with the new king, Buckingham felt he should take his chances and set himself up as the rival claimant (particularly since Edward V and Richard of York were supposedly murdered); second, as a rival claimant, Buckingham undoubtedly felt uneasy about his own safety (particularly when it was rumored Richard had murdered his two nephews; if he had, it was possible he would decide to murder Buckingham as well.)

These two reasons alone are sufficient to explain Buckingham’s motivations. Later historians, especially Polydore Vergil (Henry VII’s official historian) would later claim Buckingham really intended to defeat Richard and place Henry Tudor on the throne. But it hardly seems likely; indeed, Buckingham could legitimately believe he had a more solid claim than Henry.

There had been uprisings against Richard III just days after his coronation which highlighted popular dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile, Margaret Beaufort had become friends with Edward IV’s widow, Elizabeth Woodville (or Wydeville). Elizabeth heard the rumors of her sons’ deaths in the Tower; she had no way of gauging their truth. But she was eager to reassert her family’s claim to the throne. With her sons supposedly dead, that left her five daughters – in particular, her eldest Elizabeth of York – to claim the throne. They could do so only through marriage to a male claimant (such as Henry Tudor.) So the plan to wed Elizabeth and Henry began in earnest.

Both women knew that such a marriage would imply that Henry Tudor wanted to replace Richard on the throne. Margaret quickly sent Christopher Urswick, a young priest from her household, to Brittany. her son, so long an exile and dependent on others, was to plan a return to England – to claim two great positions, husband and king.

Margaret also sent a large sum of money to her son, raised from loans in London. She advised him to come to Wales as soon as possible (since he would receive support in Wales, particularly from the duke of Buckingham.)

This, of course, lends credence to the idea that Buckingham wanted to support Henry’s claim. But, again, that is conjecture. Buckingham did write a letter to Henry on 24 September 1483 which stated he would support the rebellion against Richard, even though he and Henry’s interests may not be perfectly compatible.

What is certain is that Buckingham suspected his own life was forfeit with Richard III; he and Henry Tudor could sort out things once Richard was defeated. He told Henry the rebellion would begin on 18 October, thus giving Henry three weeks notice.

He did not mention acknowledging Henry as king – he also did not mention marriage to Elizzabeth of York. Henry received Margaret and Buckingham’s letters and talked with the duke of Brittany. He needed further financial support but also relied on Francis’s advice. The duke promised support; another vital link was established.

Richard III had not suspected Buckingham of treachery – at first. Thus, he had no large arrmy assembled to fight the duke. But such a massively-planned uprising could not remain secret forever and Richard was informed on 11 October that a vast rebellion would occur in a week. He had heard vague descriptions of a plan a few weeks before and had summoned Buckingham to him.

The duke feigned a stomach ache; a more tersely-worded summons soon followed. The duke again refused the summons. By then, the rebellion was a week away and Richard had been informed of Buckingham’s involvement and the extent of the rebellion.

Richard hurriedly assembled his army; and though he had been betrayed by Buckingham, his former friend, he was not bitter – he specifically ordered his troops to not ‘rob, spoil or hurt’ any of Buckingham’s followers. Richard was prepared to be merciful.

Buckingham’s rebellion began – and failed, largely because his Welsh tenants decided they liked him less than Richard III. Robbed of this crucial support, he fled to a friend’s home but the friend, Ralph Bannaster, turned him in and, on 31 October, Buckingham was taken to Sir James Tyrell and Christopher Wellesbourne, staunch supporters of Richard III.

Once Buckingham had been captured, the other rebellions collapsed. Many of the rebels fled to Brittany, to join Henry Tudor, now their last hope. Richard III attempted to prevent this mass exodus of rebels but failed. Meanwhile, at Plymouth Harbor, Henry heard the news of Buckingham’s execution on 2 November 1483. (He had been delayed on his way to England because of a storm.)

His other rival for the throne had been killed (Buckingham’s son and heir was just six years old) but Buckingham’s failure was hardly encouraging. He returned to Brittany, once more an exile after twelve years abroad. His position was perhaps more untenable than before – the uprising had been soundly defeated and Richard III was once again making friendly overtures to duke Francis.

Henry’s only hope lay with the English exiles now joining him in Brittany. There were roughly 500 men, among them the marquess of Dorset. These exiles told him he must reassemble his allies and attack again, before Richard III became more firmly entrenched as king – and before the duke ended his hospitality. In December, Henry gave a speech at Rennes Cathedral meant to boost morale and inspire his supporters.

He promised to marry Elizabeth of York, thus joining the houses of York and Lancaster together. The assembled men swore oaths of loyalty to him. Their next task was more difficult – persuading the duke of Brittany to lend them more money to assemble yet another fleet.

Again, Henry promised to repay the money. He was fortunate that Richard III had decided to retaliate against Breton and French ships because of their assistance to Henry and Buckingham. The duke was angered and agreed to loan Henry more money. So another flotilla was assembled and final preparations made in mid-spring 1484. But, for some unknown reason, the exiles did not sail for England.

Instead, they remained at Vannes in Brittany. By this time, Henry fully realized the enormous stakes of the enterprise. He was particularly moved by the loyalty of the other exiles. Many were separated from their families and all were wanted men – and they suffered these injuries to support him. He owed them a great debt and it is to his credit that, immediately after Bosworth, he rewarded them.

Elizabeth Woodville’s son by her first husband, the marquess of Dorset, was in Brittany as were her three brothers, Lionel, Edward and Richard. They were joined by many loyal servants. All of the exiles were undoubtedly horrified by the supposed murders of Edward V and Richard of York. While these men schemed with Henry Tudor, the object of their schemes – Richard III – attempted to nullify their threat. He tried various tactics, mixing friendly overtures with veiled threats.

He knew Margaret Beaufort had sent messages to her son and plotted in the rebellion but he couldn’t risk alienating her husband, Lord Stanley. So he told Stanley to watch his wife carefully, dismiss the servants who had relayed messages, and prevent any contact with Henry and other rebels. He also gave Stanley possession of Margaret’s property for the course of Stanley’s life; after his death, the lands would pass to the crown. Still, Margaret had every reason to be grateful for her life.

In March of 1484, Richard attempted a reconciliation with his former sister-in-law, Elizabeth Woodville. She and her five daughters had sought sanctuary in Westminster. Richard gathered the lord mayor of London, all leading aristocrats and various aldermen to his palace. He announced that – if Elizabeth and her children left sanctuary – he would protect them; they would be reccognized as his kin and given a pension and dowries. Most importantly, he publicly promised they would not be sent to any prisons, including the Tower of London (the site of their brothers’ deaths.)

He also attempted to win over the duke of Brittany again. In this he was aided by the ailing duke’s treasurer, Pierre Landais. Landais believed Brittany’s fate would be better served with an English alliance. It could be, too, that he disliked the assembled rebels.

As a result, Henry asked the French king Charles VIII for asylum at his court. Charles agreed and, soon enough, Henry left Brittany for Paris. It was a dangerous decision and, as it was taken without Francis’s permission, would have resulted in his arrest. But he managed to arrive in Anjou with his pursuers just an hour behind. (His uncle Jasper had left a few days earlier, ostensibly to visit Francis at Rennes. Both he and Henry turned away at the last moment and headed toward Anjou.)

There were about 400 rebels left behind. Duke Francis certainly had every right to send them back to England, to face certain death. But he did not – sick as he was, he was determined to undo some of Landais’s damage. He allowed the rebels to join Henry in Paris.

He also gave them a large gift of money (about 700 livres) to pay for their travel (this was in addition to their living allowance he was also paying!) Henry Tudor was touched by his old protector’s kindness and generosity. He sent a letter of thanks, realizing that the treachery had been Landais’s and not the duke’s.

Of course, the French royal family were very eager to use Henry as a diplomatic weapon against the English. But the situation at the French court was confused and problematic; in the end, Henry relied upon the king’s older sister, Anne of Beaujeu, for assistance. Her role was of vital importance as Henry planned for the greatest battle of his life, Bosworth Field.

The French court which welcomed Henry Tudor was a curious place. King Louis XI had died on 30 August 1483, leaving behind a thirteen-year-old heir who became Charles VIII. As often happened when a minor succeeded to the throne, a power struggle ensued between the new king’s relatives over the role of regent. Charles’s mother, Charlotte of Savoy, was not a serious contender; she had never been involved in politics and was seriously ill. (She died on 1 December.)

So the struggle was between Charles’s older sister, Anne, and his younger sister’s husband, Louis duc d’Orleans. Anne was twenty-two years old and married to Pierre, Lord Beaujeu, the heir of the duc d’Bourbon. Anne triumphed over her brother-in-law Louis and her gained control of the government.

Henry Tudor’s former patron, Duke Francis II, soon became involved in this struggle – at least ostensibly. His servant Pierre Landais (discussed on the previous page) was hated by the Orleans party who were seeking an alliance with his old enemies – namely, the noblemen of Brittany who had fled during Landais’s ascendancy. (Naturally enough, they had fled from Brittany to France, where they met with the Orleans party.)

On 7 April 1484 these new allies attempted to destroy Landais, breaking into the ducal palace at Nantes and then going to his country house. They failed to find Landais, however, and were forced to flee in shambles. They waited at the town of Ancenis, in Brittany but near the French border. Landais remained in power and seemed to bear no ill will toward the Breton-Orleans conspirators.

In autumn, the Orleans party attempted – once again – to make peace between Francis II and his exiled noblemen. This time, they didn’t attempt to kidnap Landais as part of their plan! Landais was a pragmatist and undoubtedly wanted to rid himself of the troublesome Breton-Orleans scheming. So he supported their plan; in doing so, he knew he would anger the French monarchy.

Naturally, he turned to England’s King Richard III for assistance, asking that Richard recognize the Orleans-Breton alliance; in return, Landais offered to send Henry Tudor to England. (Landais would then have the support of Burgundy, Orleans, and England against any French designs on Brittany.)

Of course, Henry Tudor fled to France where he was welcomed with open arms. With Henry Tudor gone, Brittany had no olive branch to offer England; this would weaken the Breton-English alliance. It would also aid Anne of Beaujeu in her struggle against the Orleans party.

When Henry arrived in Anjou, he sent a messenger to Charles VIII, then at Montargis. The king immediately sent an envoy to greet Henry and bring him to Chartres. The envoy was given the generous sum of 20000 francs for expenses on the week-long journey. Charles was, of course, delighted to encourage Henry in his plan to overthrow Richard III – though less delighted to give him large sums of money on a continual basis, as Duke Francis had.

Also, Charles may have been unnerved by the large number of Henry’s English followers who needed to be housed and fed while awaiting developments. Charles did give Henry about 3000 francs to clothe his army and granted permission for Henry to assemble mercenaries for his army. Henry traveled with the king north to Paris (the court spent autumn in the beautiful Loire valley); on 4 February 1485, they reached the French capital.

During this journey, Henry finally realized the necessity of immediate and decisive action. He had spent nearly fourteen years as an exile in France and Landais’s betrayal revealed the instability of his position. What if Anne of Beaujeu fell from power? Would he be a pawn for the Orleans cause? Also, it is true that Henry was in his late twenties, strong and healthy and undoubtedly yearning to be his own man. Why would he want to live in other people’s homes, dependent on their good will and generosity?

Richard III was certainly unhappy with events in France. He sent word to Charles of his displeasure and also tried to rally English support against Henry. Henry was sending letters to England during the winter of 1484-5 to inspire potential supporters (since many were dissatisfied with Richard’s rule, for reasons outlined in previous pages.)

Richard was aware of these letters and ordered the mayors and sheriffs throughout England to arrest anyone receiving or distributing them. (One of the letters has survived – click here to read it.) An interesting note about these letters – Henry was styling himself King of England, a deliberate and flagrant disregard of Richard’s position.

On 7 December 1484, Richard responded to the letters by sending out his own proclamations. He condemned the exiles supporting Henry in France; he also mocked Henry’s use of the royal title. He also reiterated the ancient animosity between England and France, reminding the English people that – in exchange for Charles’s support – Henry had supposedly promised to return the English possessions in France and relinquish the traditional English claim to the French throne.

These, of course, were matters near and dear to all English hearts. From the 12th century onwards, the English claim to the French throne and territories was a patriotic dream shared by all Englishmen. The great heroes of the past (most gloriously, Henry V) had led their countrymen to battle over those claims; thousands of Englishmen died in those battles.

By painting Henry as a traitor to one of the most precious English dreams (that of possessing France), Richard hoped to appeal to English patriotism. He also reminded his subjects that Henry would be invading with mercenaries who would commit ‘the most cruel murders, slaughters, robberies and disinheritances that were ever seen in any Christian Realm.’ Once again, Richard appealed to a time-honored English abhorrence of invasion. He also attended to more practical matters – ordering sheriffs to prepare troops for muster and raise cash for military payments.

I would like to emphasize – once again – the tenuousness of Henry Tudor’s claim. At this point, only he and Richard III were viable claimants to the English throne. But Richard’s position was stronger by far (and as will become clear later), the Battle of Bosworth ended in Henry’s favor only because a key nobleman betrayed Richard.

This was hardly an auspicious beginning to Henry’s rule. Throughout these pages, I have tried to emphasize the general unpopularity of Richard’s rule – with regard to the disappearance of his nephews. The disappearance sullied Richard’s character and made those Englishmen who didn’t support Henry Tudor less than thrilled about defending Richard III. In other words, they would simply wait out the conflict without openly supporting either party.

And that is exactly what most of the country did. Personally, I do not believe Richard III murdered his nephews but, of course, the mystery will always remain open to interpretation. It is true that Richard III has received a ‘raw deal’ from historians. Can we blame this on Shakespeare? 🙂 Hey, it is a great play but written during the reign of Henry Tudor’s granddaughter.

It isn’t likely the playwright wanted to offend the monarch (witness the ending to All Is True for proof of that – a sympathetic introduction to Katharine of Aragon which ends with Elizabeth’s triumphant birth.) Richard was a capable and intelligent man and – whatever the truth about his nephews – had far more experience in government thhan Henry Tudor.

He also reacted to betrayal with an appealing mixture of punishment and forgiveness; he was far more conciliatory than, say, Henry VIII. (During this time, an embarrassing episode occurred which may have furthered Richard’s resolve to shore up his support against Henry: John de Vere, the Lancastrian earl of Oxford, was imprisoned at Calais in France; he escaped, along with two English soldiers, to join Henry Tudor in Paris.

Understandably, this embarrassed Richard; he issued pardons to the English soldiers at Calais, including de Vere’s supporters, but they still rebelled. In the end, Henry’s morale went up and Richard’s fell drastically. The Oxford episode indicated the lack of loyalty to Richard’s regime. This was coupled with the disloyalty of Sir William Stanley, advising Henry from England.)

Of course, these domestic actions were accompanied by foreign policy initiatives designed to find Richard prominent allies. In this, he was successful as well. Henry Tudor’s old ally, Duke Francis of Brittany, entered into a seven-year truce with England on 2 March 1485.

One of the specific points of the truce was that neither side would support rebellion against the other, thus allying Richard and Duke Francis against the French throne. Not surprisingly, Charles VIII began to fear an English-Breton invasion of France. So he encouraged Henry Tudor to hasten his plans to invade England. In March 1485, Richard’s queen, Anne Neville, died and this personal heartbreak had to be shoved aside in the face of Henry Tudor’s rebellion.

It was soon rumored that Richard would marry Elizabeth of York or her sister Cecily, thus regaining the support of Henry’s Yorkist allies. Henry, whom Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort intended to wed Elizabeth, was upset but could do little. Meanwhile, Richard kept a shrewd eye on Lord Stanley (I’ll let you alert readers figure out the Tudor-Stanley connection from the earlier pages – here’s a clue: who was Margaret Beaufort married to?)

Around July 1485, Stanley asked permission to visit relative in Lancashire. The king was no fool; he allowed Stanley to leave London but kept his son and heir, George, Lord Strange, as hostage. Essentially, Strange remained in Richard’s household in order to assure his father’s good behavior.

Charles VIII was, of course, still encouraging Henry’s planned invasion but still hedging about financial support. When news came that Richard might marry Elizabeth of York, Henry became frantic. He cast about for another prominent Yorkist bride, with little success. More importantly, (with the support of Philippe de Commynes, an influential diplomat) Henry pressed Charles to request money from the French parliament.

The French king did so on 4 May 1485 and was successful; he returned with Henry to Paris about a month later. Already, plans to assemble an invasion fleet were being approved. At Harfleur, near the mouth of the River Seine, Henry spent about 50000 livres to assemble 4000 men. Of these, 1500 were discharged soldiers from a base at Pont de l’Arche.

The French soldiers were commanded by a nobleman from Savoy called Philibert de Chandee, who later became a good friend of Henry Tudor’s. There were also Henry’s 400 English supporters who had shared his exile. Henry placed these men under the command of Richard Guildford. (It was later rumored that about 1000 Scots joined Henry’s force; whether that number is correct or not, some Scots did fight on Henry’s side.)

Henry’s great enterprise was about to begin. On 1 August 1485, Henry and his followers left Honfleur and sailed down the Seine into the Channel. On 7 August, they sailed into Milford Sound near sunset. They actually landed at Mill Bay, inside the Sound.

This was the land of Pembrokeshire where Henry had been imprisoned as a young man. Upon landing, Henry knelt down and whispered, ‘Judge me, Lord, and fight my cause.’ He kissed the English soil, crossed himself, and told his men to follow him – in the name of God and St George. It was no coincidence that he landed in Wales, his father’s native land; it was there that he hoped to gain crucial support for his cause.

(NOTE: Historical sources regarding the actual battle at Bosworth are scanty at best. No one who actually fought at the battle recorded the battle; typically, the chroniclers from London recorded great events but they were far from the action in 1485. Also, the supporters of Richard III didn’t want to remember their defeat – and unlikely to write about in the chargged political climate.

Henry’s supporters were concerned with more immediate matters after the battle – namely, beginning the rule of a very ineexperienced monarch who had not been to England in fifteen years. And there is another very important fact – medieval battles are incredibly confusing to describe (just as they were confusing to fight.) Imagine a Revolutionary War battle – the British soldiers in matching red coats, marching in perfect cadence to a fixed point, they shoot, reload and aim with some degree of consistency.

Medieval warfare did not proceed along those lines. In general, it was chaotic and confusing to the participants – and the chroniclers. So if the following account confuses you a little, you’re in good company. I have tried to be as clear as possible, to the extent of omitting stuff which is particularly confusing (including Henry’s mysterious ‘disappearance’ the night before the battle; that will eventually be included in the Primary Sources section, directly from Polydore Vergil’s work.

The most prominent chronicler of the Battle was Polydore Vergil, Henry VII’s official court historian. Of course, his version is the official Tudor account but we must rely upon it. In most respects, Vergil had little reason to alter anything since the Tudor claimant was victorious.)

Henry’s force marched to the nearest inhabited area, a settlement called Dale. There they spent the night; the next day (8 August) they left Dale to a castle called Haverfordwest, about 12 miles to the north-east. The townsmen actually welcomed the invaders, an indication of their nebulous loyalty to Richard III. Of course, news of Henry’s arrival on English soil was only just spreading along the coast. In this northern part of Pembrokeshire, there were fewer castles and – again – it was Jasper Tudor’s former home.

Also, Richard III had extensive control over south Wales, which shows that Henry’s Welsh support was as nebulous as Richard’s English support. Richard’s control over much of Wales also meant that Henry was forced to march north into the center of Wales. And, of course, it must be recalled that the Stanleys (his mother’s in-laws) controlled much of north Wales and Cheshire.

Sir William Stanley was Richard III’s chief lieutenant in Anglesey, Caernarfonshire, and Merioneth, cities which made up the northern part of royal holdings in Wales. (Remember that Sir William was the younger brother of Henry’s stepfather.) Henry may have been in touch with the Stanleys immediately upon landing in Wales.

Oddly enough, a letter Henry sent to another supporter, John ap Maredudd ab Ieuan ap Mareddud, has survived; it was written about 8 August, immediately after the landing, and designed to gain Welsh support. The letter to ap Mareddud can be read by clicking here. What did ap Mareddud do? We don’t know – though it is true that Henry did have some significant Welsh support. Of course, it was nowhere near as great as many later remembered.

And it is false to state that every Welshman welcomed the return of Owen Tudor’s descendants. Certainly the Tudor dynasty in no way favored Wales or its native population – so any support from the Welsh was not rewarded. In 1536, in particular, the Welsh had good cause to resent any support they had given. After Bosworth, certain laudatory poems and songs were written – but as these were dedicated to an actual king than a pretender to the throne, they were naturally fawning.

In reality, Henry did not receive a rapturous welcome. On 8 August, at Haverfordwest, he received a crushing blow – John Savage, nephew of Henry’s stepfather, and the powerful Welsh lord, Rhys ap Thomas, were not planning to support his cause. Of course, they had promised otherwise while he was in France but Richard III suspected both men of disloyalty – and before Henry landed, he made certain they understood the penalty of treason.

With this crushing news, even the professed loyalty of Pembroke was small consolation. Henry’s march from Havefordwest northeast to Cardigan and there to Machynlleth (about 100 miles from the Dale settlement) is not documented. He arrived at Machynlleth on 14 August and wrote a letter to Sir Roger Kynaston, the guardian of the Grey estates; to pass safely to Shrewsbury, Henry needed – at the very least – Kynaston’s inaction.. The guardian didn’t need to declare for him but he could at least not impede his progress. Click here to read the letter to Kynaston.

Whatever Kynaston’s decision, Henry did pass safely through to Shrewsbury. To get to this point, his force had marched through the mountains of Wales but they had the continual arrival of good news to cheer them on the lonely journey – supporters were marching to join them, bringing along much-needed supplies. Among these supporters was Rhys ap Thomas, who finally decided to honor his previous promise.

Rhys later said he brought almost 2000 men with him; if true, his force made up a third of Henry’s entire army. They were in time to join Henry at Shrewsbury, the traditional gateway to the English midlands; they marched along the old Roman road even as supporters sent along money to pay the mercenary troops. But at Shrewsbury, Henry’s progress was no longer easy.

Shrewsbury was an important town and had two bailiffs, Roger Knight and Thomas Mitton, both in power for about two decades. They had prospered under Richard III, notably from the failure of Buckingham’s rebellion (notably, Mitton received Buckingham’s castle and Shrewsbury’s tax bill was significantly reduced.)

And one must remember Richard III’s admonitions to the English people, specifically warning them of the dangers of mercenary troops. The people of Shrewsbury had no desire for foreign troops to plunder and pillage their town. (Keep in mind that Henry’s army was not primarily English.)

When Henry requested permission to march through the streets, Mitton made a familiar reply – “over my belly.” Henry could not afford to go around the city so he retreated. At a nearby village, he composed a letter to the bailiffs, promising that his men would simply march through Shrewsbury peacefully, without causing any damage or harm.

He respected the oath of loyalty to Richard III and did not expect any of the townspeople to break it. The letter may not have swayed the bailiffs but the arrival of Rowland Warburton, a retainer of Sir William Stanley, arrived and persuaded the bailiffs to let Henry pass. The Stanley support was impressive enough to sway even Mitton, who lay on the ground so Henry could step over his belly (thus keeping his former oath.)

What effect did this ‘adventure’ have on Henry? He realized, once again, that his support was not widespread. Indeed, in the end he relied upon the apathy of the English population – essentially their decision to not actively support Richard III. Shrewsbury was the first English town he marched through, a test of how the average citizen would respond to his invasion. Since they did not recognize his claim to the throne, Henry had little to celebrate.

In a way, his march was as much a public relations enterprise as a military endeavor. Everywhere he went, he attempted to drum up support – and he was often successful. More men and prominent lords joined the cause, all for various reasons. At Stafford, Henry met up with Sir William Stanley. Stanley brought news that Richard III, informed of Henry’s march, was camped at Nottingham.

From there, it was just a brief march south to block Henry’s path to London. In other words, Stanley was urging Henry to hurry if he wanted to reach the capital. Henry marched to meet Richard, stopping for the night at Lichfield; as at Shrewsbury, he kept his army outside the walls so as not to offend the citizens.

Now it gets a bit confusing: Lord Stanley, whose son Lord Strange was Richard’s ‘hostage’, was marching with about 5000 men toward Lichfield (presumably to meet up with Richard III at Nottingham.) He did not dare meet with Henry Tudor, though he supported his claim. Ostensibly, Lord Stanley was loyal to Richard.

So he avoided Henry’s army though, supposedly, sent a message assuring him of eventual support. Of course, promises can be easily broken and Henry was uneasy. He knew Richard had scouts watching Stanley and held his son hostage.

Under such circumstances, Stanley’s support was not completely assured. Meanwhile, Lord Stanley’s brother – Sir William – had met up with Henry’s army at Lichfield on 20 August. Lord Stanley had arrived near Atherstone, close to the actual battlefield.

On this Saturday (20 August, still!), Lord Stanley sent his brother a message that Richard was near and fighting could begin in just three hours. This, of course, did not happen. But the Stanleys apparently met together and decided on a course of action – namely, they would not publicly declare their support for either Richard or Henry. On Sunday, they apparently decided upon their battle plans – namely, Lord Stanley’s betrayal of Richard.

Lord Stanley was, of course, Henry’s stepfather but his waffling is understandable. But it caused both Richard III and Henry a great deal of anxiety. Henry secretly met with the Stanleys on 21 August but, after the meeting, was still unsure of their unqualified support. Under such circumstances, Henry’s nervousness was greater than the king’s.

But Richard was far from secure himself. He was at Nottingham when he heard of Henry’s arrival in Pembrokeshire and, from there, his steady march through Wales to the midlands. As mentioned earlier, Richard had made preparations for this moment in 1484. So he ordered his nobles and gentry to assemble according to plan.

He was undoubtedly unnerved that Henry was receiving some measure of support and that his march was essentially unimpeded. He called the dukes of Northumberland and Norfolk to him, as well as the lieutenant of the Tower of London (where most of the king’s weaponry was stored.)

Because Sir William Stanley did not respond to summons, Richard declared him a traitor. He also intimidated Lord Strange enough for the young man to confess to some sort of ‘conspiracy’ to betray the king. This simply confirmed Richard’s fears. He realized as well that Henry was trying to reach London as quickly as possible. So he gathered his own forces to prevent this; he was later called a coward for not confronting Henry sooner but consider this – Richard wanted to assemble as many supporters as possible while dragging out the ordeal for Henry’s army.

The assembled mercenaries were tired, hungry, and – like Henry – knew the crucial Stanley support was not secure. Richard’s army was a bit larger than Henry’s though exact figures do not exist. They marched south in traditional square battle formation, Richard and his guard behind two groups of horsemen. There were about 100 knights and noblemen who had responded to Richard’s summons.

Most of these men were from the north, specifically Yorkshire and Lancashire. Richard marched with these men as the King of England, wearing his crown and coat-of-arms. It was imperative that every Englishman who watched the march be reminded the Richard was the king and Henry just a pretender. He would be crushed just like the duke of Buckingham.

Finally, on 21 August (Sunday), both armies knew battle was near. Richard knew Henry’s camp was near Atherstone; he himself camped at the plain of Redmoor. The next day the forces would meet on the battlefield, a place later called Bosworth Field. (I wanted to point out an interesting fact about Henry’s tactics prior to Bosworth; by marching toward London, he essentially determined where the battle would be fought – wherever he and Richard met up on the way to London.

So Bosworth Field was not chosen for any purpose other than the two armies met there. Today, it is impossible to adequately understand the geography of the battlefield and Richard and Henry’s camps prior to the battle; hundreds of years of building, etc. have altered the landscape.) (Also: William Brandon, Henry’s standard bearer, was slain at this battle. His son, Charles, would become Henry VIII’s best friend, husband to Princess Mary Tudor & grandfather of Lady Jane Grey . His biography is available at Tudor Citizens.)

The actual battle supposedly took place on Redmoor plain, near Richard III’s encampment. Long after the battle, it came to be called the Battle of Bosworth Field because the town of Market Bosworth lay to the north of Redmoor plain. Also, a Welsh chronicler asserted that the battle actually took place at the town. In other words, there is some debate about where the battle took place – though one can reasonably assert it occurred at Redmoor plain.

Sunday 22 August began inauspiciously for Richard III and one of his most powerful allies, the duke of Norfolk. Richard admitted he had slept little and suffered bad dreams; in the superstitious medieval world this did not bode well. Also, the duke of Norfolk found a sign outside his quarters which read, ‘Jack of Norfolk be not so bold, For Dykon thy master is bought and sold.’

After his sleepless night, Richard arose earlier than even his chaplain (so there was no morning mass) and had no breakfast. He insisted on wearing his crown throughout the day, as he had insisted upon marching to Redmoor clad in his ceremonial robes and crown. Henry Tudor had spent a sleepless night as well, and his morning began with disturbing news.

His stepfather, Lord Stanley, was still officially part of Richard’s force. In fact, Stanley’s force waited between Henry and Richard’s camps. But when Henry pushed his stepfather to join him, Stanley still demurred (this on the day of the battle!) One can imagine Henry’s response.

Stanley sent Henry a brief message; he should prepare his army for battle and wait for Stanley to join him at the appropriate moment. (Note: Richard’s archers were under the command of the duke of Norfolk while Henry’s archers were under the command of John de Vere, the earl of Oxford. The actual make-up of each army is a matter of debate as well, as is their size.

They each had a number of infantry and cavalry, complemented with cannon and guns and – of course – the traditional bows and swords. One chronicler estimated Richard’s cannon at 140; Henry had cannon brought from France.

As to the actual numbers involved, chroniclers are always prone to exaggeration and this time was no exception. We know Henry landed in Wales with about 4000 and was joined by a large number of reinforcements; Richard’s force must have been equal – at least. Sir William Stanley led about 3000 troops.)

One more mention of the Stanleys: Richard was less troubled by their waffling than Henry. After all, Richard would have been content if they simply stayed out of the battle whereas Henry was desperate for their support. Therefore, Richard’s army had higher morale – and supposedly larger numbers.

Henry marched northeast at a leisurely pace toward Richard’s camp. Were his troops wary of attacking first? Undoubtedly; but, in the end, Richard decided to order his attack when Henry’s force passed by a march. At this time, he also realized that Lord Stanley was not joining him. (He could see Stanley’s army motionless on the field.) Richard ordered his hostage, Lord Strange, beheaded but in the heat and confusion of battle, the order was not carried out.

The first moments of battle were an indication of the chaos to come. Immediately, arrows were exchanged and then hand-to-hand combat began. Swords, pikes, aces, spears…. These were the weapons of choice. (Interesting note: Richard’s ally, the duke of Northumberland, waited at the rear of the army with a well equipped force which never entered battle for one simple reason – the topography of the battlefield.)

Richard’s scouts told him that Henry, too, remained outside the fighting, observing the battle with a small group of supporters. By identifying Henry’s standard, Richard determined his exact position. Then he undertook a most courageous and incredible feat – he spurred his horse to ride directly at Henry, the pretender to his throne. He knew that if Henry was slain – before Stanley intervention – the battle would end.

On his horse, at full gallop, he slay a great number of those around Henry (notably his standard bearer, William Brandon, and that respected soldier, the ‘giant’ John Cheyne.) Henry, of course, was innocent of real experience in battle but he did not run – though he also kept a horse nearby in case the battle was lost. Still, the tide would have turned against Henry except…. the Stanleys finally entered the battle, on the Tudor side!

It cannot be emphasized enough that Richard III died valiantly in battle. Every later chronicler asserted his bravery and skill. One wrote that, after Stanley’s men swarmed around him, Richard fought ‘manfully in the thickest press of his enemies.’ According to Polydore Vergil, ‘that day he would make end either of war or life’; he would ‘die like a king or win victory in this field.’

He was wounded several times but refused the advice of his few companions to flee. He also refused the offer of a horse. His heroism was evident to all. In the end, he could not prevail. His crown was knocked from his head; his head was struck so many times that the helmet was beaten into the skull; even after his death, his body continued to be beaten.

Around him lay the bodies of his few companions – Conyers, Brackenbury, Ratcliffe…. There is a legend that his crown landed in a hawthorne bush; true or not, it was soon enough in Henry Tudor’s hands – and not because of any personal bravery on the part of the first Tudor king.

The battle lasted about two hours. Its outcome – Henry’s triumph – was only made possiblee by Stanley’s disgraceful betrayal of his king. Had he waited a few moments longer, Henry may have been personally killed by Richard.

That single action inaugurated the Tudor dynasty – and it was a shameful inauguration. Whatever his qualities before the battle, his actions immediately afterwards are not endearing. Richard III, who had fought so heroically and suffered an awful death, continued to be humiliated and abused. His body was slung naked over a horse, arms and legs hanging over the sides; a halter was tossed around his neck to symbolize his defeat.

In this manner, he was taken to a friary in Leicester where his body lay on view for two days; it was naked from the waist down except for a scant and cheap black cloth. He was buried at the friary with no ceremony. The church no longer exists – Henry’s son ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s and Richard’s grave was opened and the body thrown out.

Later, the coffin was supposedly used as a horse trough and cellar steps in a nearby manor. Richard III remains the only English king since 1066 to have no burial place. He was also the last English king to die in battle.

Henry Tudor had now declared himself Henry VII and Lord Stanley placed Richard’s crown upon his stepson’s head. His officers were busy settling old scores, executing old foes and rounding up the prisoners. In the end, we can reasonably estimate that about 400 men – in total – died that day. Of course, after the battle few wanted to talk about the actual fighting – those two hours which ended in betrayal and death for one king and the beginning of one of the most celebrated dynasties in English history .

On a personal note…. I do want to stress that Henry Tudor did nto participate in the fighting – and, in fact, he kept a horse nearby so he could flee if the battle was lost. In other words, he planned to ‘turn tail and run’, as the cliché goes.

It might seem odd that a king who supposedly won his crown in battle was actually quite cowardly on the battlefield, and didn’t participate – but it’s the truth. Richard III only lost because Lord Stanley disgracefully betrayed his king. And he did so after Richard had already forgiven him numerous offenses (many bordering on treason), and had treated him kindly. Henry may have claimed a crown that day, but he claimed no glory.

You may visit the Richard III Society site for the other side of the story.

Henry Tudor as King ‘His [Henry VII] body was slender but well built and strong; his height above the average. His appearance was remarkably attractive and his face was cheerful especially when speaking; his eyes were small and blue; his teeth few, poor and blackish; his hair was thin and grey; his complexion pale’. Polydore Vergil, from the Anglica Historia

Many historians have long argued that Bosworth Field marked the end of medieval England, and the beginning of more modern government. This assumes at least some drastic changes occurred during the 24 years Henry ruled England. However, no such changes occurred. Henry maintained the government of his predecessors; he simply had a more efficient administration.

This should detract from his formidable accomplishments. Despite his very questionable claim to the throne, Henry proved himself to be an able and enthusiastic king. He devoted himself to the minutiae of government, personally initialing household account books. He was quite miserly, which greatly benefited his spendthrift son Henry VIII, but this was understandable – the first Tudor king knew financial success would be the life or death of his new dynasty.

Like all monarchs, he needed money – and often badly. But he needed parliament’s permission to raise taxes or create new ones. Yet Henry knew that parliament would be opposed to giving a new – and unpopular king – more sources of revenue, particularly since England’s economy was not prosperous. And so Henry only called parliament seven times during his reign.

Instead of creating new methods to raise money, he cannily exploited the existing sources. Every loophole that existed was stretched wide – Henry sought every penny he could from eevery source of revenue. And he protected the money fanatically.

Few monarchs lived so frugally, and as Francis Bacon noted, ‘towards his queen [Elizabeth of York] he was nothing uxorious, nor scarce indulgent….’

For Henry VII, money equaled security. And so rights of Wardship, Marriage, Promotions, and Death, forced loans and benvolences, and trade dues were all tools to gain financial security.

Upon becoming king, Henry’s immediate problem was the same as his Yorkist predecessors – the legitimacy of his claim to the throne. Bosworth Field had not ended the struggle for England’s crown, and Henry faced considerable unrest throughout the early years of his reign.

The Northerners (who never lost their distrust of the Tudors) had supported Richard III, and did not welcome a Welsh king. And Yorkist support continued in Ireland (where Lambert Simnel was crowned Edward VI 1487), and in Europe (where Edward IV and Richard III’s sister Margaret lived on as the influential duchess of Burgundy.)

Also, because Henry’s claim to the throne was so weak, he inevitably had to work harder to create the impression of royal authority. By all accounts, he lacked the majesty, or charisma, of his son Henry VIII and granddaughter Elizabeth I. But charisma was perhaps a negligible quality during those early years; more important were hard work, dedication, and discipline. And Henry possessed those qualities in abundance.

First, Henry benefited directly from the Wars of the Roses – heirs to many of the old noble families were killed during the battles. Henry simply appropriated their lands and revenue. Those that had supported Richard III (those that survived, that is) were attainted and their estates confiscated.

He also created a council ‘Learned in the Law’ in 1495 to deal with enforcement of already-existing taxes, particularly those owed by the nobility.

Henry also forbid nobles to retain their own armies. A small number of attendants was acceptable, but Henry did not want any lord to have more power than the king. Edward IV had attempted the same maneuver, with less success. Henry was aided by a simple fact – as king, he owned most of the gunpowder in the country.

Therefore, he simply blew up the castles and keeps of recalcitrant barons. It was quite an effective policy, though Henry did not curb the power and influence of all nobles. But it is worth noting that the English nobility, already in decline during the Wars of the Roses, fell from influence rapidly under the Tudors – under Elizabeth I, for instance, England had just one duke (and he was executed for treason.)

Henry did continue the Yorkist tradition of promoting government officers from the middle class (primarily clerics and lawyers.) But he did not create the middle class government that many historians propose; nobles still retained the most powerful positions.

Henry kept many of Edward IV and Richard III’s councilors, and these were either from the aristocracy, or related through marriage. But it should be noted that the middle class was growing in power and influence, and carefully making its way through the corridors of power.

Henry also revived the powers of the Justices of the Peace, first introduced by Henry II. They administered the king’s justice throughout England, and were supposedly free of local prejudices. His Yorkist predecessors had appointed a Council of the North and thus allowed the great border families of Neville, Dacre, Scrope, and Percy to rule as virtually independent princes with their own armies.

This was necessary because the Scottish border was notoriously difficult to maintain; raids from the north were all too common, and the Yorkists had needed the Northern lords to protect English interests. When Edward IV was king, Richard had been ‘Lord of the North’, having inherited the vast Neville estates through his wife.

Henry was not so inclined – he did not want the Northern families to be too powerful; after all, they could turn that power against their king. But he also knew the North needed a strong leader, a servant of the crown. And so he released the last Percy heir, the earl of Northumberland, from the Tower of London and appointed him Lord Warden of the East and Middle Marches.

But Henry carefully trimmed Percy’s powers, and only allowed the council to meet sporadically. He successfully subdued it into becoming a mere extension of his own London-based authority.

Henry also attempted to quell the Scottish problem, and undercut the Auld Alliance (the alliance between France and Scotland), by marrying his eldest daughter Margaret to the king of Scots in 1503. He planned to marry his youngest daughter, Mary , to Charles, the prince of Castile.

His eldest son and heir apparent, Prince Arthur , was wed to the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella , the powerful ‘Catholic Kings’ of Spain. With these marriage alliances, Henry hoped to protect his domestic interests; he did not want to engage in costly foreign wars since the establishment of his own dynasty was more important, but he needed foreign allies.

Marriage was less costly than war, and – Henry hoped – more effective. The matches were impressive, particularly the match with Spain since it meant that the most powerful European monarchs recognized his shaky claim to the throne.

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World » Europe » Britain

The best books on henry vii, recommended by thomas penn.

Winter King by Thomas Penn

He was the Machiavelli of English kings – a chancer and usurper with a highly dubious claim to the throne. But Henry VII ruled for 25 years and founded a dynasty. His biographer tells us how he did it

The King’s Mother by Michael K Jones and Malcolm G Underwood

Perkin by Ann Wroe

The History of the Reign of Henry VII by Francis Bacon

A Daughter's Love by John Guy

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

1 The King’s Mother by Michael K Jones and Malcolm G Underwood

2 perkin by ann wroe, 3 the history of the reign of henry vii by francis bacon, 4 a daughter's love by john guy, 5 wolf hall by hilary mantel.

S o many people have written books about Henry VIII and studied that period – what makes you so interested in the lesser-known early Tudor period?

One of the interesting things for me about this period is that it links two epochs. The Middle Ages is generally seen as ending in 1485 – and Henry’s accession is also popularly seen as the endpoint of the Wars of the Roses, the destructive civil wars that flare intermittently in the three decades before that. The early modern period in England, on the other hand, is seen as starting in 1509 when Henry VIII came to the throne as a 17 year old. That quarter-century in between is Henry VII’s reign.

The late 15th and early 16th centuries is a distinctive age in its own right. It’s a world in which England is still part of Christendom, owing allegiance to the Pope. England is still a feudal kingdom, one that’s recognisably medieval – but at the same time you have the emergence of what we think of as the early modern world – the discovery of America, new Renaissance ideas about politics and government, and the widespread appearance of print culture which in terms of communicating these ideas is absolutely crucial.

So this is a volatile world, a world in flux. In a sense Henry VII is typical of this age. He’s somebody who seems to come out of nowhere, seizes power and makes the throne his own.

And hangs on to it for dear life.

Your first book is Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood’s The King’s Mother , which shows what a crucial figure Margaret Beaufort was in helping Henry VII achieve his goals.

Lady Margaret Beaufort was Henry VII’s mother. She gave birth to him in January 1457 when she was just 14 years old – pretty early even by the standards of the time. The Beauforts are descended from the House of Lancaster, one of the sides contesting the Wars of the Roses – the other, of course, being the House of York.

Lady Margaret Beaufort has a claim to the throne but the Beauforts, although descended from Edward III’s son, John of Gaunt, were his illegitimate offspring, so they were banned by an Act of Parliament from ever laying claim to the throne. Lady Margaret is a great political operator, and has a huge influence on events which lead her son to the throne, and subsequently throughout his reign.

The book is a fantastic piece of scholarship, based on meticulous archival work, and paints a wonderfully rich picture of Lady Margaret’s world, from the day-to-day running of her huge household to how she negotiates and at times dominates the politics of the age.

How did she manage to get Henry VII into power and keep him there?

In April 1483 the Yorkist King Edward IV dies and leaves two young sons – Edward V, the heir to the throne, and Richard, Duke of York – by his wife Elizabeth Woodville. The boys’ uncle, Richard of Gloucester, puts the boys in the Tower of London – they are, of course, the Princes in the Tower – and they’re never seen again. Richard then claims the crown for himself and becomes Richard III. It’s at this point, with resistance to Richard III looking for a figurehead, that people start to think of Henry, Earl of Richmond, the man who will become Henry VII. And what prompts his emergence is, to a great extent, secret and ongoing negotiation between Elizabeth Woodville and Lady Margaret Beaufort.

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Between them, these two powerful women decide that Lady Margaret’s son – who will become Henry VII and who, of course, has Lancastrian blood – will marry Elizabeth Woodville’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, the older sister of the Princes in the Tower. This marriage will create a new dynasty, uniting the houses of Lancaster and York, and carry England into a glorious new future. The interesting thing is that this pact is as much a stitch-up between the houses of Beaufort and Woodville as it is about any genuine union between the houses of Lancaster and York.

How was it that women managed to have so much power in those days?

Next up we continue with the idea of the various usurpers around at the time.  Perkin: A Story of Deception by Ann Wroe is all about Perkin Warbeck who tried to pass himself off as Richard, Duke of York in order to steal Henry VII’s throne.

Perkin Warbeck claims to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower who went missing in 1483. The two princes, of course, were the Yorkist heirs to the throne. The fact that they disappear – and are presumed to be dead – is crucial to Henry VII being able to claim the throne. But the great problem for Henry is that he can’t prove that the princes ever died. Just the possibility, then, of Richard, Duke of York’s existence serves to cast fundamental doubt on Henry’s right to the throne.

Perkin Warbeck appears in the early 1490s. His performance as Richard, Duke of York is so convincing – and so many people want to believe that he is who he says he is – that he manages to destabilise, and at one point almost bring down, Henry VII’s reign for a decade.

Which just shows how unstable Henry’s reign really was.

Yes, it does. And Ann Wroe’s book is a wonderful evocation of the uncertainty of the age, as encapsulated in the shadowy figure of Perkin Warbeck.

Isn’t there this suggestion that Perkin Warbeck actually began to believe that he was in fact Richard of York, which seems rather far-fetched?

I am interested to hear what you learnt from your next choice, Francis Bacon’s book on Henry VII, when you were writing Winter King ?

Bacon’s book is a terrific psychological portrait of Henry VII. As well as a philosopher and pioneering scientist, Bacon was an influential politician: Lord Chancellor during the reign of James I, who came to the throne in 1603 after the death of Elizabeth I. In 1621, Bacon’s career ended in disgrace – he was convicted of corruption and sacked. He went away to his large house in the country and wrote the history of Henry VII, who was James I’s great-great-grandfather.

What is interesting about this book for me is that it’s a book written by someone who was himself a practising politician. Bacon is the first writer to get into Henry VII’s mind and under his skin. What I love about what Bacon does is that he intends the book to be true to life – it’s not a hagiography. Bacon said that if Henry were alive again, he hoped that the king would not be angry with the portrait that Bacon had painted but would rather be pleased, “in seeing himself so truly in colours that will last and be believed”.

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Although I think he is wrong in some of his interpretations – for example, I argue in my book that Henry and his wife were close, rather than distant, as Bacon says, and I also think that Bacon to an extent misunderstands Henry’s avarice and the way it functions – it remains an exceptional study of power.

Why do you think that Henry VII has been so differently interpreted by other historians as this rather grey figure?

I think partly it is because Henry doesn’t lend himself to caricatures in the way that Henry VIII – the fat monarch with lots of wives – does. What is intriguing about Henry VII is his ability, despite having no claim to the throne, to gain power and hold on to it. And the oppressive control that he exercises over government, particularly in the last years of the reign, which are years of secrecy, intrigue and terror. Henry VII is unable to make his subjects love him – so he makes them fear him instead.

Because he is so paranoid about losing his throne.

Exactly so, and when the 17-year-old Henry VIII ascends the throne in 1509 he has to go through this extraordinary contortion of presenting himself both as heir to his father, and – because his father’s reign became so oppressive – as something fundamentally different from him at the same time. Henry VIII had to portray himself as the antithesis of his wintry, avaricious father – as this young prince who would usher England into a glorious new age.

Which at the beginning of his reign he did embody.  He was very much the poster boy king.

Your next choice moves us firmly into the reign of Henry VIII with an interesting father-daughter portrait written by John Guy about Sir Thomas More and his daughter Margaret.

This is an exceptional double biography, written by one of the foremost experts on Tudor England. Thomas More, of course, was executed in 1535 for refusing to acknowledge the validity of Henry VIII’s break from Rome and his supremacy over the Church. Guy combines brilliant interpretation of primary sources with absorbing narrative to paint More’s relationship with Margaret and in so doing places Margaret right at the centre of More’s life. As More wrestled with his spiritual doubts in the 1530s he was deserted by most of his relatives. But Margaret stays faithful to him. The book also shows Thomas More’s encouragement of his daughter’s considerable intellect.

He tutored her.

Your final choice is a novel and the winner of the Booker Prize, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

Yes. It may seem curious to choose a work of fiction, but Hilary Mantel possesses an extraordinary historical imagination and her recreation of the world of the 1530s through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell is, I think, utterly convincing. Cromwell, of course, is More’s contemporary and his nemesis.

One of the fascinating things for me about this book is that in exploring Cromwell’s world, Mantel is also looking at the mentality of the new men – the lawyers, financiers and administrators – who helped to forge Tudor England.

Cromwell was an exceptional man, but he also exemplified a type of royal servant who was able to multitask, to turn their hands to anything from finance to espionage to government. These were the kings of men, in fact, with whom Henry VII surrounded himself. Chief among the new men of Henry VII’s reign are the likes of Richard Fox and Thomas Lovell who are Thomas Wolsey’s mentors – Wolsey then, of course, becomes Cromwell’s mentor.

Although Mantel’s portrait of Cromwell is fictional it has, I think, a real truth about it. It has this wonderful quality of bringing to us in a very immediate way a world that is very strange, very distant from our own.

November 7, 2011

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Thomas Penn

Thomas Penn is the author of the critically acclaimed Winter King , which redefines the reign of Henry VII. Penn received his PhD in early Tudor history from Cambridge University. He lives in London, where he works in publishing

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Key Facts & Summary

• Henry Tudor usurped Richard III’s throne, and became King of England from August 22, 1485, until his death on April 21, 1509.
• He fought for the kingdom in the Battle of Bosworth.
• Henry VII is known as the diplomatic king that avoided wars at all cost.
• He was extremely Catholic and supported the Observant Franciscans. The king also carried out extensive work of charity.

Henry Tudor was the illegitimate son of the first Earl of Richmond, Edmund Tudor (son of dowager queen Catherine of Valois), and Lady Margaret Beaufort, a Welsh court servant. He was born in Pembroke Castle in Wales, on January 28, 1457. Through his mother, he could trace his descent from John of Gaunt, son of Edward III. In 1471, he was taken to Brittany by his uncle Jasper Tudor to protect him from the victorious Yorkists led by Edward IV (Pierce 1959). Henry’s attempted invasion of England in 1483, made to enforce his claim to the throne, failed, but in 1485, he defeated and killed Richard III at the battle of Bosworth.

After his coronation as the first king of the house of Tudor, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, and so attracted the loyalty of many Yorkists.

Following his victory at Bosworth, Wales felt it had regained its independence (Pierce 1959).

Although Henry had to meet the revolts of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, his reign proved successful in many ways. He brought the surviving nobles to heel, partly by vigorous use of the Star Chamber; he established order and security and so obtained the support of the rising middle and merchant class. He married his daughter Margaret to James IV, king of Scotland, and his son to Catherine of Aragon, thereby gaining increased recognition of his new dynasty; he kept peace and piled up a large financial reserve. Interested in the new learning, astute in diplomacy, he was an able if not too popular sovereign. He died in Richmond (in Surrey) on April 21, 1509.

The Battle of Bosworth

The Battle of Bosworth was carried out in Leicester on August 22, 1485: its contenders were King Richard III (belonging to the York dynasty), and Henry VII (belonging to the Tudor dynasty). Curiously, the battle was not actually fought in Bosworth Field: rather, it took place near the Market of Bosworth, and it is also known as the Battle of Redemore Field or Dadlington Field (Kramer 2018).

Henry VII was the first of the Tudors: he became the King of England after Richard III (belonging to the Plantagenets) lost his life in the War of the Roses (also known as the hundred year war). Richard III belonged to the York family, whereas Henry VII was part of the Lancaster family.

Throughout the War of the Roses, the two families fought against each other by employing their own private armies. However, also barons had a strong army, and they would offer their military forces to the family that offered and paid the most.

Henry VII was not as experienced a combatant as his opponent: in fact, he spent much of his life in exile between Wales and France where his uncle, John Tudor, took care of him and ‘fought along his side’ (Kramer 2018). Not only was Bosworth Henry VII’s first important battle, his troops were also inferior in number to Richard III’s. Whilst Richard III’s army was comprised of around 10,000-15,000 men, Henry’s forces were between 4,000-5,000 soldiers (Kramer 2018): these were French mercenaries, Welsh and English rebels (Knighton 2018). In fact, Richard’s had strong military skills and leadership qualities: in fact, following the death of his father, the Duke of York, Richard grew up with the Earl of Warwick, Richard Neville, who provided him with thorough military training since he ‘trained as a knight’ in the Earl’s castles (Kramer 2018). Moreover, Richard had also participated in other combats: for instance, he had fought in other battles of the War of the Roses including the ones in Barnet and Tewkesbury.

Henry VII’s first attempt to dethrone Richard III was not successful and was easily ‘put down’ because of the stormy weather in the West Country (Knighton 2018). However, the fate of the battle radically changed when Sir William Stanley and Sir Thomas Stanley supported Henry: in fact, since Thomas Stanley’s son was held hostage by Richard III, he sided with Henry VII by engaging his private army of six-thousand people. His man force was composed of ‘infantry carrying spears and billhooks’, as well as archers (Knighton 2018). On the other hand, Richard did not have much support from nobles and dukes: in fact, the Earl of Northumberland refused to engage his forces in the battle against Henry. At the end of the battle, as soon as Richard III’s crown was found on the ground of the battlefield by Lord Stanley, Henry VII was crowned. Thanks to his support, Sir Thomas Stanley was ensured the Earldom of Derby as soon as Henry was proclaimed king.

At the end of the battle, Richard III’s army endured a loss of one-thousand men (including Richard himself), whereas Henry’s army saw the death of two-hundred men.

Richard III’s dead body was transported to Leicester and ‘displayed as proof of his death’: he did not receive a dignified burial since he was deposed in the Church of the Greyfriars until 2013 (Battle Fields of Britain). In fact, up to 2013, it was not known were the king’s rests were: his body was found under one of Leicester’s carparks. Subsequently, he was interred in Leicester Cathedral.

Henry VII and Religion

During the reign of Henry VII, England was a Catholic nation, and also his son Henry VIII, continued along his father’s Catholic footsteps (in fact, although Henry VIII will be responsible for the Reformation in England, he nonetheless detested Protestantism, and had strong Catholic values).

Moreover, Henry Tudor’s faith becomes obvious at his death: the king had requested ten-thousand masses for his soul.

The king was above all interested in the Church’s wealth, and regarded it as a ‘source of revenue’: Henry VII also transferred several bishops from one dioceses to another ‘not [because] he had strong and shifting views as to which churchman should serve which diocese, but that the royal prerogative included ‘regalian rights’ over Church property’ (World History 2015). As a consequence, the king would receive revenues during episcopal vacancies.

Although the king took advantage of the Church as a source of income, his faith should not be underestimated: in fact, Henry was devoted to the Observant Franciscans: such branch of the Franciscans intended to promote the most rigid and strict rules of religious observance, and were devoted to St. Francis (World History 2015). It is claimed that Henry came across the Franciscan order when he was exiled in Brittany and in France.

The king founded two Observant Franciscan houses: one in Greenwich (1482), and one in Richmond (1500). Moreover, he encouraged already existing Franciscan orders to ‘adopt the Observant lifestyle’ (World History 2015). In his will he stated that at his death the Franciscan order would continue to receive cash donations.

The king was devout to the saints and partook in the ‘traditional pity’ of the Catholic religion. However, one of the greatest act of devotion to God was the creation of ‘a magnificent chantry chapel’ in Westminster Abbey (World History 2015).

Henry VII also financed the construction of the Savoy Hospital in order to help the poor people in London.

Henry VII and policies

Throughout his reign, Henry avoided wars and pursued a peaceful foreign policy. In fact, when in 1494 Europe was alarmed by Charles VIII’s invasion of Italy, Henry VII maintained his neutrality (Encyclopedia of World Biography 2004).

When Scotland invaded England the following year, Henry imposed a tax in order to cover the expenses of the army. Such a decision caused numerous riots and rebellions in Cornwall. However, the king assigned the military campaign against the Scots to the Earl of Surrey, Thomas Howard, who achieved successful results.

Henry also negotiated his children’s marriages in order to form strategic alliances: when he wed his daughter Margaret to the king of Scotland James IV, his intention was that of ending the ‘Auld Alliance’ between Scotland and France; moreover, when he arranged the marriage between princess dowager Catherine of Aragon and his son, Henry VIII, the king wanted to strengthen the contacts and peace between England and Spain (Encyclopedia of World Biography 2004).

Although Henry’s government was ‘medieval in its structure’, he nonetheless favoured investments in commerce and welcomed technological advancements in the construction of ships (the king also sponsored John Cabot’s expedition to America) (Encyclopedia of World Biography 2004).

Bibliography

[1.] World History (2015). Henry VII’s Religion. [online] Available from: https://www.worldhistory.biz/modern-history/86036-henry-vii-s-religion.html

[2.] Encyclopedia of World Biography (2004). Henry VII. The Gale Group Inc. [online] Available from: https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/british-and-irish-history-biographies/henry-vii

Image sources:

[1.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Warwick_Castle_-_Caesar%27s_Tower_2016.jpg

[2.] https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3486/3716455379_29afc3e721_b.jpg

[3.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Family_of_Henry_VIII%2C_an_Allegory_of_the_Tudor_Succession.png

[4.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/James_Doyle%27s_Battle_of_Bosworth.jpg

King Henry VII 1457 – 1509 Biography

King Henry VII was the first Tudor monarch . He came to the throne in 1485 after winning the Battle of Bosworth Field . His reign laid the foundation for the Tudor dynasty.

King Henry VII was born on 28th January 1457 at Pembroke Castle, Wales. His mother was thirteen year old Margaret Beaufort , daughter of John Beaufort. His father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond , half brother to the Lancastrian King Henry VI, had died before he was born. Henry Tudor inherited his father’s title Earl of Richmond.

Henry VI was a weak King who relied on his wife and his favourites and suffered bouts of insanity. In 1455 Richard Duke of York had challenged his place on the throne and the Wars of the Roses had begun. Edmund and his brother, Jasper Tudor , had chosen to support King Henry VI. In 1456, Edmund was captured and imprisoned in Carmarthen Castle where he died of bubonic plague. A year after the birth of Henry, Margaret Beaufort married Henry Stafford.

In 1461, Edward, the son of Richard Duke of York defeated the Lancastrians at the battles of Mortimer’s Cross and Towton. He took the throne as King Edward IV.

Henry Tudor left the care of his mother when he was made the ward of William Lord Herbert in February 1462. In 1470 Henry VI was restored to the throne and young Henry was allowed more contact with his mother. When Edward IV regained the throne six months later, Henry VI was murdered. As the Lancastrian heir to the throne, Henry Tudor was in danger. His uncle Jasper took him to Brittany.

In Brittany, Henry and his uncle were given protection by Francis II, Duke of Brittany. They were comfortably housed in the Chateau de Suscinio. The Duke ignored requests by Edward IV to extradite the pair to England. However, in 1476 the Duke was finally convinced by Edward IV that he would not harm Henry Tudor but wanted to marry him to one of his daughters. Arrangements were made to hand Henry to the English. However, before he could be handed over, Henry Tudor either became ill or feigned illness. He was taken to a monastery where he claimed sanctuary. Edward IV made no further attempt to have Henry returned to England.

Princes in the Tower

In April 1483, King Edward IV died. His young son became King Edward V with his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester as regent. Edward V was placed in the Tower of London to await his coronation and was soon joined by his younger brother, Richard. Shortly afterwards, Richard declared the children of Edward IV to be illegitimate because Edward IV had been contracted to marry Eleanor Butler at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. This meant that Richard was next in line to the throne and he was crowned King Richard III. The two princes in the tower of London were never seen again.

Scheming Mothers

Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, had married Thomas Stanley, steward to King Edward IV. She became a member of the court and quickly befriended Edward IV’s wife, Elizabeth Woodville. After Richard took the throne, the two women worked together to effect Henry Tudor’s return to England at the head of an army to depose Richard.

It was agreed that Henry would marry Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV. On 25th December 1483 Henry publicly swore an oath at Reims Cathedral that he would marry Elizabeth of York once he was King of England.

Battle of Bosworth Field

On 1st August 1485, Henry Tudor landed at Milford Haven. He marched inland gaining support along the way. He reached Market Bosworth on 21st August. 

On 22nd August 1485 the forces of Henry Tudor and Richard III met in battle . Thomas, Lord Stanley and Sir William Stanley had not decided which side to support. They and their armies remained on a hill overlooking the battlefield. They finally joined the battle on Henry’s side. Shortly afterwards, Richard III was killed and Henry was proclaimed King Henry VII.

First Year as King

Henry Tudor was crowned King of England and Wales on 30th October 1485 in Westminster Abbey. He immediately repudiated the law that had declared the marriage of Elizabeth Woodville and King Edward IV invalid. He also kept his word and married Elizabeth of York . The Tudor Rose was created by merging the white rose of Lancaster with the red rose of York and signified an end to the Wars of the Roses.

Prince Arthur was born on 20th September 1486. Henry was delighted to have a son to carry on the Tudor dynasty but was also aware that he needed more sons to ensure the future of the dynasty.

Pretenders to the Throne

Henry’s position was threatened by three pretenders to the throne. Lambert Simnel was the first, appearing in 1487. He claimed to be Henry’s cousin, Edward Earl of Warwick. The real Earl of Warwick was imprisoned in the Tower of London and Henry paraded him through the streets to show Simnel was an impostor. Simnel’s supporters were defeated at the Battle of Stoke Field . Henry realised that Simnel had been used by his opponents and gave him a position in the royal kitchens.

Perkin Warbeck presented a more serious challenge since he was backed by Margaret of Burgundy, sister of King Edward IV, King Charles VIII of France, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian and King James IV of Scotland. He appeared in 1492 and claimed to be Richard Duke of York, son of Edward IV. It took five years of negotiations and conflict before Warbeck was captured and exposed as a pretender. 

When Ralph Wulford appeared in 1499, claiming to be Edward Earl of Warwick, Henry wasted no time in having him captured and executed. Perkin Warbeck, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London and Edward Earl of Warwick were also executed.

Foreign Policy

(See main article – Henry VII’s Foreign Policy )

Henry Tudor was a frugal man and, aware of the high cost of war, preferred to settle disputes by diplomacy rather than conflict.

By 1489 Henry reigned over England, Wales and the Channel Islands. He held the title Lord of Ireland which had been passed down from the twelfth century but he had little control over Irish affairs. The marches of Calais and the castle of Guisnes, both in France, were held by the English and the king of England was technically entitled to call himself King of France. However, Henry VII, agreed not to use the title provided he received a yearly pension from the French King.

In retaliation for Margaret of Burgundy’s support for Perkin Warbeck, Henry placed a trading embargo on Antwerp and then negotiated a trade agreement with the Netherlands that included a phrase stating that neither side would give aid to the other’s enemies.

Similarly King James IV was offered the hand in marriage of Henry’s eldest daughter, Margaret Tudor and a peace deal if he withdrew support from Warbeck. 

The Treaty of Medina del Campo 1489 , provided for the marriage of Prince Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Spain was the dominant force in Europe and a useful ally to the new Tudor dynasty. 

In 1507 he successfully negotiated a treaty with Philip of Burgundy that would be sealed with the marriage of Princess Mary to Philip’s son, Charles.

King Henry VII was determined that the Tudor dynasty would be financially secure and kept a Book of Rates that listed rates of tax payable. He revised the rates twice during his reign. The 1490’s increase brought in around £33,000 per year while the 1507 increase brought £40,000.

By the end of his reign he had become increasingly unpopular due to the financial burden placed on his people. A man now had to pay a tax to: gain his inheritance, to marry an heiress, to sell property and to hunt in royal forests. Henry had also introduced ‘Feudal Aids’. These were taxes payable to cover the cost of state functions such as the weddings of Prince Arthur and Princess Margaret. 

King Henry VII married Elizabeth of York on 14th January 1486 at Westminster Abbey. They had eight children:

Arthur born 19th September 1486 Margaret born 28th November 1489 Henry born 28th June 1491 Elizabeth born 2nd July 1492 Mary born 18th March 1496 Edward born 1498 Edmund born 21st February 1499 Katherine born 2nd February 1503

On 14th September 1495 Henry and Elizabeth’s daughter, Elizabeth died. This was a blow because Henry had been negotiating a treaty with France to be sealed with the marriage of Elizabeth to the dauphin, Francis. 

Henry’s sons Edward and Edmund both died before they were a year old in 1499 and 1500 respectively.

Henry’s eldest son and heir, Prince Arthur, had married Catherine of Aragon on 14th November 1501. After the Christmas festivities the newly-wed couple departed for the Welsh Marches. In March 1502 both were struck with a viral illness and on 2nd April Arthur died. Henry and Elizabeth were devastated at the loss of their eldest son. They were also fearful for the future of the Tudor dynasty as Prince Henry was the sole remaining male heir. Elizabeth, who was thirty-seven years old, became pregnant and they hoped for a son.

In February 1503 Elizabeth of York gave birth to a daughter, Katherine. The child died on 10th February and Elizabeth died a day later.

With only one surviving male heir, Henry knew that the Tudor line was not secure. He therefore began to think of remarrying. His first choice was Arthur’s widow, Catherine of Aragon, who was in good health and looked strong enough to bear sons. Her dowry was settled and Henry thought that the Spanish sovereigns would approve the match. They did not. Instead they pressed for the marriage of Catherine and Prince Henry to go ahead.

In 1505 Henry sent an embassy to Spain to report on the suitability of the widowed Joanna Queen of Naples as a bride. However, when he discovered that the young lady was penniless Henry abandoned thoughts of marrying her. His thoughts turned to Margaret of Savoy as a possible bride. Philip of Burgundy, who was in England in January 1506 after being shipwrecked, gave formal assent for the marriage of his sister, Margaret of Savoy, to King Henry VII of England. He agreed that she would bring a dowry of 300,000 crowns. Margaret of Savoy was not happy and stated that she would never marry the King of England who was old enough to be her father.

Final Years

By 1508 Henry’s heath was beginning to fail. He had lost weight, had a nasty cough and could not walk unaided. In March 1509 Henry collapsed. He rallied slightly but it was clear he was dying. He dictated his will on 31st March and died on 21st April 1509. King Henry VII was buried in a chapel in Westminster Abbey. He had left money in his will for the chapel, known as the Henry VII chapel, to be built.

Published Jun 6, 2020 @ 7:18 pm – Updated – Apr 24, 2024 @ 3:45 pm

Harvard Reference for this page:

Heather Y Wheeler. (2020 – 2024). King Henry VII 1457 – 1509 Biography Available: https://www.tudornation.com/king-henry-vii-1457-1509 Last accessed [date]

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The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

• Early Modern

The 6 Main Achievements of Henry VII

Sarah Roller

07 may 2023, @sarahroller8.

The coronation of Henry VII, on 30 October 1485, marked the official beginning of a new Tudor dynasty. Perhaps the least glamorous of the Tudors, Henry VII successfully consolidated his power and ensured a smooth succession for his son, the future King Henry VIII.

Whilst he may not have captured the imagination in the same way the strong personalities, bloodshed, drama and intrigue of his descendants would do, Henry VII is widely credited with being one of the most successful monarchs of the Tudor dynasty.

Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights of Henry VII’s reign, from his achievements to his shortcomings.

1. Uniting the Houses of Lancaster and York

Henry Tudor was descended from Lancastrians: his mother, Margaret Beaufort , was the granddaughter of John of Gaunt. His victory at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, where he defeated the Yorkist King Richard III, marked a major turning point in the Wars of the Roses.

Capitalising on his victory, he married Elizabeth of York , daughter of King Edward IV, uniting the Houses of York and Lancaster through marriage and ensuring the pair’s heirs and children would have a strong claim to the throne through the bloodlines of both parents.

Tudor roses incorporated into Victorian wallpaper in the Houses of Parliament.

Image Credit: V&A Images / Alamy Stock Photo

2. Ending the Wars of the Roses

Historians have long debated when the so-called Wars of the Roses actually begin and end: general consensus has them ending on 22 August 1485, although would some claim earlier and later. Whilst Henry did unite the warring factions, that did not mean he was entirely unopposed.

Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel, known to many as the two pretenders, were two of the main challengers to Henry’s throne. Both posed as Yorkist claimants to the throne and gathered support in Europe for their causes. Whether or not anyone actually believed them to be who they claimed to be is unclear, but they proved useful figureheads for those hoping to bring about a regime change.

In both cases, Henry dealt swiftly with the problem: both conspiracies were crushed and Simnel and Warbeck were captured. Simnel, a mere figurehead for the powerful Earl of Lincoln, was sent to work as a scullion in the royal kitchens, whereas Warbeck was executed.

It is largely thanks to Henry’s quick thinking and decisiveness that his son, Henry VIII , faced no challenges to his accession or in the early years of his reign.

3. Improving royal finances

When Henry VII became king, the royal exchequer was effectively bankrupt. Years of instability, factionalism and his predecessors’ penchant for war had seen royal finances severely battered.

During his 23-year reign, Henry had only two Lord High Treasurers, and this continuity helped provide stability. Between them, they ruthlessly improved the collection of taxes from all sections of society, including the enforcement of taxes on the nobility. The introduction of tariffs on imports helped protect home industries (and increase customs dues), while expeditions abroad aimed to find new markets.

Henry also demanded his feudal dues and kept a tight grip on Crown Lands, preferring to have a steady income from renting them out rather than dishing them out as rewards to his favourite nobles – as his predecessors had done.

Whilst Henry’s policies were not exactly popular, and they helped create his reputation as somewhat miserly and tight on the purse strings, they were highly successful. He died completely solvent and passed on full coffers to his son, who subsequently executed two of his most hated tax collectors, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, on trumped-up treason charges as scapegoats.

A contemporary painting of Henry VII with Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, his two most notorious tax collectors.

4. Enforcing law and order

Years of civil war throughout the 15th century had led to a gradual breakdown of law and order across the country, and in particular, overmighty nobles, which were a threat to the crown’s authority. These powerful, wealthy nobles effectively had their own private armies at their disposal.

Henry passed laws against livery and maintenance, making it much more difficult for nobles to keep mercenaries/servants and to deter them from forming any kind of army.

The introduction of Justices of the Peace (JPs) across the country helped keep local law and order by enforcing Henry’s will, and the revival of the Court of Star Chamber was an effective tool for dealing with powerful nobles, although the law it meted out could be highly subjective. Both helped make law enforcement more efficient and restored some degree of royal authority.

5. Inconclusive foreign policy

Perhaps one of Henry’s biggest weaknesses was his foreign policy. War was seen as a means of bringing glory, but it was also extremely expensive and potentially ruinous. In the early years of his reign, he found himself drawn into a war with France over Brittany. However, he managed to make peace in 1492 when France agreed to give Henry an annual pension and to recognise his claim to the throne.

Henry made efforts to recognise the growing power of the newly united Spain, marrying his son Arthur to the Infanta, Catherine of Aragon , as well making some amount of peace with Scotland by marrying his daughter Margaret to the Scottish King James IV.

He also allied himself with the Holy Roman Emperor, further increasing his power in Europe.

6. Laying the foundation for the Tudor dynasty

Henry VII’s policies laid the foundation for nearly another century of Tudor rule. His shrewd fiscal policies built a solid financial system that allowed his successors a degree of security and prosperity that he could only have dreamed of at his coronation.

Moreover, Henry’s successful re-establishment of royal authority in every aspect of political, social and cultural life ensured that his son, the future King Henry VIII, faced no opposition on his ascension to the throne in 1507.

Whilst many would consider Henry VII’s reign the least exciting of the Tudor period, it is perhaps for this reason that it is generally viewed as the most successful.

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Edmund Tudor was the son of Owen Tudor and Catherine Valois (Catherine of France), widow of Henry V and mother of Henry VI. Margaret Beaufort was the daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, who was descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and third son of King Edward III, and his mistress, and eventual wife, Katherine Swynford. Neither of Henry's parents had a strong claim to the throne, with Edmund having no English royal blood and Margaret being descended from a line which was deliberately excluded from the succession, but Henry became the senior Lancastrian claimant to the throne following the deaths of Henry VI and his son, Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1471.

In 1483, Edward IV died unexpectedly. His brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed Lord Protector to act as regent for Edward's son, Edward V, who was just a child. To cut another long story short, Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was deemed to be invalid, thus making the claims of their sons, Edward and Richard, to the throne invalid, and Richard seized the throne becoming Richard III. The boys, who were lodged in the Tower of London, disappeared and it is not known what exactly happened to them.

Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, rose up against Richard III in 1483, planning to replace him with Henry Tudor, but the revolt was unsuccessful and Buckingham was executed as a traitor. In 1485, Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper Tudor, rebelled against Richard. On Christmas Day 1483, in Rennes Cathedral, France, Henry pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and the sister of the Princes in the Tower (Edward V and his brother Richard), thus gaining more support for his claim to the English throne. Henry also had the support of the Welsh, being descended through his father, Edmund Tudor, from Rhys ap Gruffydd, The Lord Rhys.

On 1st August 1485 Henry Tudor sailed from Harfleur in France to Milford Haven in Wales with a force of French mercenaries and English exiles. He landed on the Welsh coast on the 8th August and set about gathering further support and troops as he marched through Wales and the Welsh Marches, aiming for London. Henry also asked for support from his stepfather, Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, who, although married to Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a Yorkist supporter. Henry knew that his stepfather had money and influence and could rally his own private army. Stanley, and his brother William, did bring troops down from the North West of England, but we don’t know whether they committed to supporting Henry prior to the battle, they may well have wanted to keep their options open, and we know that Richard, on hearing of Henry's arrival, took Stanley's son, Lord Strange, hostage to guarantee his support.

Richard III gathered his troops and marched from Leicester, aiming to cut off Henry who was marching from Wales to London. The two forces met in Leicestershire in a field near Stoke Golding, Sutton Cheney and Market Bosworth. The Bosworth Battlefield website tells of how the King's army was on higher ground, with Henry's forces “strung out in a line below” and that the Stanleys' forces stayed out of the battle at first, while they decided on which side to support. The website tells the story:

“Richard ordered his friend, the Duke of Norfolk, to attack Henry's men, who were strung out in a long line after negotiating the marsh. Henry had never fought in battle before, but had the Earl of Oxford with him, an experienced soldier. Oxford placed two banners in the ground, and encouraged Henry’s men to form up between them. This created a solid wedge of men and when Norfolk charged, he found Oxfords Wedge difficult to attack. During the fierce fighting Norfolk was killed, however, the advantage of numbers was still with Richard and the Yorkists. Henry decided to ride out with a small bodyguard to appeal to Lord Thomas, who was still uncommitted. Richard, from his higher vantage point, intended to stop Henry from reaching his step father. As the King and his Cavalry charged towards Henry, the force was so great that one of his Knight’s lances pierced through Henry’s standard bearer, and snapped in half. At this point William Stanley finally committed to support Henry and his men attacked Richard and his Cavalry. Richard suddenly found himself outnumbered, and was cut down and killed."

Richard was buried at Grey Friars monastery in Leicester.

On the 27th August 1485, Henry entered London as King Henry VII and he was crowned on the 30th October. On the 10th December, Parliament petitioned him to marry Elizabeth of York, the Speaker declaring "Which marriage, they hoped God would bless with a progeny of the race of kings, to the great satisfaction of the whole realm". Henry agreed and the marriage took place five weeks later. It had been planned for some time and their betrothal, which had been cooked up by Elizabeth Woodville, Elizabeth of York's mother and Edward IV's widow (and mother of the missing princes in the Tower) and Margaret Beaufort, saw the union of the Houses of York and Lancaster.

The marriage between Henry and Elizabeth was happy and successful. The couple had four children who survived childhood: Arthur, Henry (Henry VIII), Margaret and Mary. Elizabeth died on 11 February 1503 and Henry was said to be devastated by her death.

Henry VII ruled for over 23 years and died on 21 April 1509, aged fifty-two. His achievements include:

• Securing the throne and passing his crown unchallenged on to his son and heir, Henry VIII.
• Uniting the kingdom and bringing peace to England after decades of unrest.
• His reform of administration – e.g. The setting up of the Court of the Star Chamber.
• Restoring the Crown's fortunes.

Further reading on Henry VII and the Battle of Bosworth

• Battle Story: Bosworth 1485, Mike Ingram
• Bosworth 1485: Psychology of a Battle, Michael Jones
• Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England, Thomas Penn
• The Journey to Bosworth , Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre and Country Park.

You may also be interested in our primary sources pages:

• Wars of the Roses and Richard III Primary Sources
• Henry VII Primary Sources

URL for this post : https://www.tudorsociety.com/henry-vii/

There are 4 comments Go To Comment

I go to Sixth form and my avid interest in both the Plantagenets and history has caused me to do my disseration on Richard and the Plantagenet downfall and subsequent Tudor rule.

As I am doing my Extended Project Qualification on Richard III, with the question of choice, “To what extent did Richard III cause the downfall of the Plantagenet dynasty?”, and was hoping to ask what you believe on this subject matter. How do you feel about Henry VII’s victory? Why do you believe he won and not Richard? Is the modern view of Richard III down to Tudor propganda, woven into our society? I would like your opinion on this.

Many thanks, Niamh Whiston.

Hi Niamh, That’s great that you’re doing your dissertation on such a fascinating project. It would take me an essay to answer your questions so I’ll just share a few points. If you’re a member, you can also browse the site for resources – our July talk is on the survival of the princes and recently we’ve had talks on Henry VII and Bosworth. Re Bosworth:

• Henry was obviously helped by the Stanleys making the decision to side with him
• The Earl of Oxford, who led his vanguard and who was experienced, was able to navigate around the marsh and was able to defeat Richard’s vanguard
• Northumberland’s rear guard (on Richard’s side) didn’t manoeuvre when needed
• Richard’s decision to move forward and personally get involved
• Henry’s skilled mercenaries

Just a few things to consider.

I don’t think the Tudor propaganda has much bearing on our views of him today as I think the discovery of his remains and all the documentaries in recent years have educated people. Just my opinion. Sorry I can’t write more.

Members might be interested to see my treatment of Henry Vii in my five act play in pseudo Shakespearean verse. Search for Henry VII Play online or go to my website shakespeareshenryvii.co.uk It starts the day after Bosworth and finishes just after his death. It features all the characters you would expect, including Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York, Katherine of Aragon and many others. I’d be glad to have any comments. I have added a whole lot of notes! David Collard

My play Henry VII: A Play After William Shakespeare by David Collard has now been published by Saron Publishers 2020 and is available from Amazon at £4.99 or from booksellers.

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A DESCRIPTION OF HENRY VII

His body was slender but well built and strong; his height above the average. His appearance was remarkably attractive and his face was cheerful, especially when speaking; his eyes were small and blue, his teeth few, poor and blackish; his hair was thin and white; his complexion sallow. His spirit was distinguished, wise and prudent; his mind was brave and resolute and never, even at moments of the greatest danger, deserted him. He had a most pertinacious memory. Withal he was not devoid of scholarship. In government he was shrewd and prudent, so that no one dared to get the better of him through deceit or guile. He was gracious and kind and was as attentive to his visitors as he was easy of access. His hospitality was splendidly generous; he was fond of having foreigners at his court and he freely conferred favours of them. But those of his subjects who were indebted to him and who did not pay him due honour or who were generous only with promises, he treated with harsh severity. He well knew how to maintain his royal majesty and all which appertains to kingship at every time and in every place. He was most fortunate in war, although he was constitutionally more inclined to peace than to war. He cherished justice above all things; as a result he vigorously punished violence, manslaughter and every other kind of wickedness whatsoever. Consequently he was greatly regretted on that account by all his subjects, who had been able to conduct their lives peaceably, far removed from the assaults and evil doing of scoundrels. He was the most ardent supporter of our faith, and daily participated with great piety in religious services. To those whom he considered to be worthy priests, he often secretly gave alms so that they should pray for his salvation. He was particularly fond of those Franciscan friars whom they call Observants, for whom he founded many convents, so that with his help their rule should continually flourish in his kingdom, but all these virtues were obscured latterly only by avarice, from which...he suffered. This avarice is surely a bad enough vice in a private individual, whom it forever torments; in a monarch indeed it may be considered the worst vice, since it is harmful to everyone, and distorts those qualities of trustfulness, justice and integrity by which the state must be governed.

From Polydore Vergil, The Anglia Historia, 1485-1537 (spelling modernized)

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 3, 2022 | Original: November 9, 2009

Henry VIII ruled England for 36 years, presiding over sweeping changes that brought his nation into the Protestant Reformation. He famously married a series of six wives in his search for political alliance, marital bliss and a healthy male heir. His desire to annul his first marriage without papal approval led to the creation of a separate Church of England. Of his marriages, two ended in annulment, two in natural deaths and two with his wives’ beheadings for adultery and treason. His children Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I would each take their turn as England’s monarch.

WATCH: Britain: Blood and Steel on HISTORY Vault  

Henry was born in Greenwich, England, on June 28, 1491, the second son of Henry VII, the first English ruler from the House of Tudor. While his older brother Arthur was being prepared for the throne, Henry was steered toward a church career, with a broad education in theology, music, languages, poetry and sports.

Did you know? An accomplished musician, Henry VIII of England wrote a song entitled "Pastime With Good Company" that was popular throughout Renaissance Europe.

As a young man, Henry displayed an admirable degree of intellectual curiosity, religious devotion and athletic achievement. One observer described a youth who “speaks good French, Latin and Spanish; is very religious; heard three masses daily when he hunted ... He is extremely fond of hunting, and never takes that diversion without tiring eight or ten horses ... He is also fond of tennis.”.

Catherine of Aragon

Henry’s brother and heir apparent Arthur had been betrothed since age 2 to Catherine of Aragon , the daughter of the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. In November of 1501, the teenage couple were married.

Months later, however, Arthur died of a sudden illness. Henry became next in line for the throne and in 1503 was betrothed to his brother’s widow.

Henry VIII took the throne in 1509 at age 17, and married Catherine of Aragon six weeks later. Over the next 15 years, while Henry fought three wars with France, Catherine bore him three sons and three daughters, all but one of whom died in infancy. The sole survivor was Mary (later Mary I ), born in 1516.

Henry as Monarch

Henry was an active king ruling over a prosperous realm in those years, and a leader in the English Renaissance . He lorded over a festive court while hunting, jousting, writing and playing music.

Henry issued a book-length attack on Martin Luther ’s church reforms that earned him the title “Defender of the Faith” from Pope Leo X (a somewhat ironic accolade, given his eventual break with Roman Catholicism).

He made a significant investment in the Royal Navy , increasing its size from a mere 5 ships up to 53. But the lack of a male heir—especially after he fathered a healthy illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy, in 1519—gnawed at the young king.

Anne Boleyn

By the 1520s, Henry had become infatuated with Anne Boleyn , a young woman in his wife’s entourage. He also worried that his marriage to Catherine had been cursed by God because of the Old Testament ban on marrying the widow of one’s brother. The king decided to seek a papal annulment that would free him to remarry.

With the assistance of his powerful adviser Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry petitioned Pope Clement VII but was rebuffed due to pressure from Catherine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V . Wolsey was forced from power for his failure and died in 1530 awaiting trial for treason.

With the backing of the British Parliament —led in large part by Thomas Cromwell, Henry's chief adviser—and the English clergy, Henry ultimately decided that he didn’t need the pope’s permission to rule on issues affecting the Church of England . In 1533 Henry and Anne Boleyn were married, and their daughter Elizabeth was born.

These actions linked Henry to the growing Reformation movement then sweeping northern Europe — they also earned him the enmity of Pope Clement VII. In response, the Vatican had Henry excommunicated in 1533.

Nonetheless, Henry’s other daughter Mary was declared illegitimate, and Elizabeth was named his rightful heir. Then, during the dissolution of the monasteries, England’s monasteries were closed and in most cases sold off to add to Henry’s wealth

Jane Seymour

In January of 1536 Henry was knocked off his horse and injured during a jousting tournament. When news of his accident reached the pregnant Anne, she miscarried, delivering a stillborn son. Henry then spurned her, turning his affections to another woman of his court, Jane Seymour .

Within six months, Henry had Anne executed for treason and incest. He then married Jane, who quickly gave him a son (the future Edward VI), although she died 12 days after giving birth.

Anne of Cleves

Henry’s fourth marriage bore similarities to his first. Anne of Cleves was a political bride, chosen to cement an alliance with her brother, the ruler of a Protestant duchy in Germany. The marriage only lasted a few days before Henry had it annulled. He then married Catherine Howard, but two years later she too was beheaded for treason and adultery.

In the last years of his reign Henry grew moody, suspicious and famously obese, hobbled by personal intrigues and by the persistent leg wound from his jousting injury. His final marriage, to the widow Catherine Parr in 1543, saw his reconciliation with Mary and Elizabeth, who were restored to the line of succession.

READ MORE:  Who Were the Six Wives of Henry VIII?

Death and Legacy

Henry VIII died at age 55 on January 28, 1547. His 9-year-old son Edward VI succeeded him as king but died six years later. Mary I spent her five-year reign steering England back into the Catholic fold, but Elizabeth I , the longest-reigning of the Tudor monarchs, restored her father’s Protestant religious reforms.

Henry VIII (r.1509-1547). The Royal Family . Facts about Henry VIII. Royal Museums Greenwich . Henry VIII: Renaissance Prince or Terrible Tudor? Who Was the Real Henry VIII? Historic Royal Palaces . Henry VIII, King of England (1491-1547). Royal Collection Trust . 

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Henry VIII: The King and His Court Paperback – October 29, 2002

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• Print length 672 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Ballantine Books
• Publication date October 29, 2002
• Dimensions 5.5 x 1.5 x 8.3 inches
• ISBN-10 034543708X
• ISBN-13 978-0345437082
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (October 29, 2002)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 672 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 034543708X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345437082
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.38 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.5 x 8.3 inches
• #318 in Historical British Biographies
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• #480 in Royalty Biographies

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Alison Weir lives and works in Surrey. Her books include Britain's Royal Families, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Children of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry VIII: King and Court, Mary, Queen of Scots and Isabella: She-Wolf of France.

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The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers

Margaret george.

939 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1986

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Henry VIII: The Quest for Fame by John Guy – review

Dangerous charisma, stylish tyranny, black farce … the moody monarch with a touch of Stalin and problems in the bedroom – by a historian who knows him better than anyone

H ow horrid to be Henry VIII. Life starts well, very well: your father has just snatched the throne of one of the best-regulated kingdoms in Europe, everyone loves you, and you grow up tall, clever and handsome (even if your mouth is a bit small). But it all goes inexplicably wrong. You marry a queen who doesn’t stay young and beautiful, and then she doesn’t evendoesn’t even provide you with a son to take over from you in due course. How dare she not? And, horror of horrors, you begin to suspect that God is cross with you for marrying her, because the Bible says that you shouldn’t have married her at all; she was previously married to your brother. Well, that’s easily dealt with: you explain to her quite clearly about the Bible, and that you’re not really married at all. And what does she do? Bursts into tears wailing that she loves you and will always love you and always be married to you. Her behaviour is not just inconvenient, it is a profound offence to God.

And it gets worse: there is a glamorous, spirited lady who could console you as only a king’s mistress can, but she insists that there will be no enjoyable sexual congress until she is crowned queen. Then such ingratitude from the Holy Father in Rome, who could sort all this out perfectly easily and owes you several favours for championing him on the battlefield and also in print against the wicked German friar Luther, but he does damn-all about it. Such hard work being a great king and loved by all. And your mouth is still a bit small, even when the greatest portrait painter in Europe makes you look as stern and impressive as you could possibly be.

I could go on. It is an almost invariable rule that the more historians study Henry VIII, the less they like him. John Guy is a very good historian who knows Henry VIII better than almost anyone, and actually he’s quite fair to Henry. He accentuates the positive: in particular, he notes that there were those who should have been grateful to their king. Noblemen and other property-owners enjoyed a sudden bonanza of land on the market at the expense of monks, friars and bishops, and an even larger number benefited because later in the century England didn’t experience prolonged civil wars about religion when France or the Netherlands did (those benefiting naturally didn’t include the various folk hanged, disembowelled or castrated in pursuit of this praiseworthy result). Guy rightly reminds us that even Mary Tudor, whom her father had treated abominably, looked back with nostalgia when her subjects were getting stroppy, complimenting Henry on his brisk response to troublemakers, even though his method had been not so much knocking heads together as removing them, and among the heads that had rolled were such heroic defenders of her mother and her church as Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. Henry had that Stalin factor, the dangerous charisma of stylish tyranny: in both cases, their subjects wept for them when they died, and politics in their realms wobbled dangerously when their powerful presence had gone.

Guy presents us with the key to understanding Henry: he was never the great king he wanted to be. England was a second-rate power in comparison with the big boys, the Holy Roman empire, France and Poland, and their monarchs could treat Henry as a loud-mouthed nuisance whose armies rarely won battles. Symptomatic was the moment both tragic and humiliating when under Henry’s appalled gaze, his great flagship the Mary Rose fell over and sank while about to attack the French fleet just off Portsmouth, drowning the vast majority of its crew, though mightily pleasing future archaeologists. Not so much Great Harry as Edmund Blackadder ; hence all the bluster.

Equally suggestive of black farce was the king’s marital history: those wives, whose poetically symmetrical fates my six-year-old goddaughter turned into a much-appreciated Christmas present by laboriously tabulating their fates for me on a sheet of notepaper: “Divosd Bhedid Diad Divosd Bhedid Svivd”. In fact, Henry would have been indignant to have been told that he had married six times, because he had convinced himself, with the aid of some legal fancy footwork from the obliging Archbishop Cranmer , that he only ever married three wives, and that the other marriages never existed. Such a marital history is not a sign of sexual prowess, but of ineptitude in relations with women; and Guy more than once reminds us of Henry’s repeated problems with erectile dysfunction, one episode of which was necessarily given publicity in order to get his fourth marriage annulled. Wife no 4, Anne of Cleves, had the good sense to cause no problems with that annulment, got a handsome estate out of her relieved non-husband, and lived contentedly on in England till 1557, safe from any second marriage and generally considered by all who knew her to be a good sort. By contrast, Wives nos 1 and 2 demonstrated extreme bad taste in having minds of their own, particularly the highly intelligent and theologically adventurous Anne Boleyn , and suffered accordingly. Jane Seymour, submissive by temperament and strategy, produced the vital son, but died in the process. Catherine Howard was a brainless teenager whose love of a good time and hunky young men blinded her to obvious consequences, and the only one who got the formula right, by the skin of her teeth, was the devout, beautiful, kindly and shrewd Catherine Parr, who therefore “Svivd” .

Guy’s little book is an immensely satisfying introduction to the large and moody monarch. His cover image is artfully derived from a famous mural by Holbein that has only survived to us in copies, after its destruction by fire in Whitehall Palace in 1698. This portrait in Whitehall’s privy chamber was said to have terrified viewers because of Henry’s piercing stare, reproduced as Guy’s dustjacket. The paradox is that those who actually met the king rather than his spin-doctored picture noticed a curious feature of the man: he would rarely look you in the eye. In fact, the art of survival in his dangerous court often involved choosing the right moment to do precisely that, and the road to destruction was to lose the opportunity. So Cranmer could look directly into his beloved master’s eyes on the eve of arrest for heresy in 1543, and ask him why he was about to destroy such a loyal servant. The king turned his embarrassment into his favourite pose of hearty generosity and presented the archbishop with a ring from his own finger, which was all Cranmer needed the following day to frustrate the politicians who had gleefully looked  forward to arresting him. By contrast, in 1540 Thomas Cromwell’s enemies had kept him securely locked up in the tower, away from any such opportunity, and the best Cromwell got from the king whom he had served so faithfully and sometimes so dubiously was a quick death by axe, rather than by burning at the stake or the disemboweller’s slow torments. Happy the man, or woman, who never needed to stare at Henry VIII.

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Hip to be square: Anne Boleyn’s neckline inspires catwalks

Tudor coins dedicated to three of Henry VIII's wives found in family garden

Chilling find shows how Henry VIII planned every detail of Boleyn beheading

Henry VIII wife Jane Seymour – new acquisition for National Portrait Gallery

Prayer book that may have been Henry VIII's could fetch £2.5m at auction

Henry VIII’s hat to go on display at Hampton Court

Headboard from bed of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves on its way to London

The Private Life of Henry VIII: a pork-gorging, head-chopping, liberty-taking romp

National Portrait Gallery reunites Henry VIII with Catherine of Aragon

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(1491-1547)

Who Was King Henry VIII?

Henry Tudor was the king of England from 1509 until his death in 1547. The son of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth York, Henry became king of England following the death of his father. He married six times, beheading two of his wives, and was the main instigator of the English Reformation. His only surviving son, Edward VI, succeeded him after his death.

Henry Tudor was born on June 28, 1491, at the royal residence, Greenwich Palace, in Greenwich, London, England. The son of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth York, Henry VIII was one of six children, only four of whom survived: Arthur, Margaret and Mary. As a young man and monarch, second in the Tudor Dynasty, Henry VIII exuded a charismatic athleticism and diverse appetite for art, music and culture. He was witty and highly educated, taught by private tutors for his entire upbringing. He loved music and wrote some as well.

Henry’s older brother Arthur was expected to take the throne. In 1502, Prince Arthur married Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of the Spanish king and queen, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. After less than four months of marriage, Arthur died at the age of 15, leaving his 10-year-old brother, Henry, the next in line to the throne.

Upon King Henry VII’s death in 1509, Henry VIII took the crown at age 17. Henry was good-natured, but his court soon learned to bow to his every wish. Two days after his coronation, he arrested two of his father's ministers and promptly executed them. He began his rule seeking advisers on most matters and would end it with absolute control.

English Reformation

From 1514 to 1529, Henry VIII had relied on Thomas Wolsey, a Catholic cardinal, to guide his domestic and foreign policies. Wolsey enjoyed a lavish existence under Henry, but when Wolsey failed to deliver Henry's quick annulment from Catherine, the cardinal quickly fell out of favor.

After 16 years of power, Wolsey was arrested and falsely charged with treason. He subsequently died in custody. Henry's actions upon Wolsey gave a strong signal to the pope that he would not honor the wishes of even the highest clergy and would instead exercise full power in every realm of his court.

In 1534, Henry VIII declared himself supreme head of the Church of England. After Henry declared his supremacy, the Christian church separated, forming the Church of England. Henry instituted several statutes that outlined the relationship between the king and the pope and the structure of the Church of England: the Act of Appeals, the Acts of Succession and the first Act of Supremacy, declaring the king was "the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England."

These macro reforms trickled down to minute details of worship. Henry ordered the clergy to preach against superstitious images, relics, miracles and pilgrimages, and to remove almost all candles from religious settings. His 1545 catechism, called the King's Primer , left out the saints.

Fully separated now from the pope, the Church of England was under England's rule, not Rome's. From 1536 to 1537, a great northern uprising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace took hold, during which 30,000 people rebelled against the king's changes. It was the only major threat to Henry's authority as monarch. The rebellion's leader, Robert Aske, and 200 others were executed. When John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, Henry's former Lord Chancellor, refused to take the oath to the king, they were beheaded at Tower Hill.

Henry VIII’s Wives

Henry VIII had a total of six wives, including Catherine of Aragon , Anne Boleyn , Jane Seymour , Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.

Catherine of Aragon

At the age of 17, Henry married Catherine of Aragon, Spain, and the two were crowned at Westminster Abbey. Henry VIII’s father wanted to affirm his family's alliance with Spain, so he offered his young son to Catherine, who was the widow of Henry’s brother Arthur. The two families requested that Pope Julius II officially grant a dispensation to Arthur and Catherine's marriage. The pope conceded, but the official marriage of Henry and Catherine was postponed until the death of Henry VII in 1509.

Although Catherine gave birth to Henry’s first child, a daughter, Mary, Henry grew frustrated by the lack of a male heir and began keeping two mistresses at his beckon. His philandering ways were tame by the standards of his contemporaries, but they nonetheless resulted in his first divorce in 1533.

Anne Boleyn

One of Henry’s mistresses during his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Mary Boleyn, introduced him to her sister, Anne, and Anne and Henry began secretly seeing one another. Because Catherine was now 42 and unable to conceive another child, Henry set on a mission to obtain a male heir by configuring a way to officially abandon his marriage with Catherine.

The Book of Leviticus stated that a man who takes his brother's wife shall remain childless. Though Catherine had borne him a child, that child was a girl, which, in Henry's logic, did not count. He petitioned the pope for an annulment but was refused due to pressure from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Catherine's nephew. The debate, during which Catherine fought mightily to maintain both her own and her daughter's titles, lasted for six years.

In 1533, Anne Boleyn, who was still Henry's mistress, became pregnant. Henry decided he didn't need the pope's permission on matters of the Church of England. Thomas Cranmer, the new archbishop of Canterbury, presided over the trial that declared his first marriage annulled. Henry VIII and Anne married secretly in January 1533.

Inside the court, however, Queen Anne suffered greatly from her failure to produce a living male heir. After she miscarried twice, Henry became interested in one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. In an all-out effort to leave his unfruitful marriage, Henry contrived an elaborate story that Anne had committed adultery, had incestuous relations and was plotting to murder him.

Henry charged three men on account of their adultery with his wife, and on May 15, 1536, he put her on trial. Anne, regal and calm, denied all charges against her. Four days later, Henry's marriage to Anne was annulled and declared invalid. Anne was then taken to the Tower Green, where she was beheaded in private on May 19, 1536.

Jane Seymour

Within 11 days of Anne Boleyn's execution, on May 30, 1536, Jane Seymour and Henry VIII formally wed. However, Jane was never officially coronated or crowned queen. In October 1537, following a difficult pregnancy, Jane Seymour produced the king’s long-hoped-for son, Edward.

Just nine days after giving birth, Jane died from a pregnancy-related infection. Because Jane was the only of Henry’s spouses to bear him a son, he considered her to be his only "true" wife. He and his court mourned for an extended period of time after her passing.

Anne of Cleves

Three years after the death of Jane Seymour, Henry was ready to marry again, mainly to ensure the succession of his crown. He inquired in foreign courts about the appearances of available women. Anne, the sister of the Duke of Cleves, was suggested. The German artist Hans Holbein the Younger, who served as the king's official painter, was sent out to create a portrait of her. However after the couple married, in January 1540, Henry disapproved of Anne in the flesh and divorced her after six months. She received the title of "The King's Sister" and was given Hever Castle as ample residence.

Catherine Howard

Within weeks of his divorce to Anne of Cleves, Henry married the very young Catherine Howard, a first cousin of Anne Boleyn, in a private marriage on July 28, 1540. Henry, 49, and Catherine, 19, started out a happy pair. Henry was now dealing with tremendous weight gain and a bad leg, and his new wife gave him zest for life. He repaid her with lavish gifts.

Happiness would not last long for the couple. Catherine began seeking the attention of men her own age—a tremendously dangerous endeavor for the queen of England. After an investigation into her behavior, she was deemed guilty of adultery. On February 13, 1542, Henry had Catherine executed on the Tower Green.

Catherine Parr

Independent and well-educated, Catherine Parr was Henry's last and sixth wife; the pair were married in 1543. She was the daughter of Maud Green, a lady-in-waiting to Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Maud named her daughter after the queen; thus Henry's last wife was named after his first. Parr was a twice-made widow.

The most well-documented incident of Catherine Parr's life was her effort to ban books, a truly horrible act under her husband's leadership that practically got her arrested. When Henry came to admonish her for her brash actions, she submitted to him, saying she was merely looking to create a circumstance when he could teach her the proper way to behave. Henry accepted the sentiment, either true or devised, saving her from a brutal end.

King Henry VIII’s Children

Mary Tudor , Henry’s first child to survive infancy with Queen Catherine, was born on February 18, 1516. Following the death of her half-brother Edward in 1553, Mary became the queen of England and ruled until her death in 1558.

On September 7, 1533, Anne Boleyn gave birth to Henry VIII’s second daughter, Elizabeth. Although Elizabeth was born a princess, Henry eventually declared her illegitimate. After Mary Tudor’s death, Elizabeth was crowned as Queen Elizabeth I in 1558 and remained on the throne until her death in 1603.

King Henry VIII’s only son, Edward, was born on October 12, 1537. Upon Henry’s death in 1547, Edward succeeded him as king at the tender age of 10 and ruled until his death in 1553.

Henry VIII’s Death

On January 28, 1547, at the age of 55, King Henry VIII of England died. As a middle-aged man, Henry became covered with pus-filled boils and possibly suffered from gout. A jousting accident opened a violent wound in his leg which ulcerated and left him unable to play sports. His eventual obesity required that he be moved with mechanical inventions. His habit of binge-eating highly fatty meats was perhaps a symptom of stress. A recent and credible theory suggests that he suffered from untreated type II diabetes.

Henry VIII was interred in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle alongside his deceased third wife, Jane Seymour. Henry's only surviving son, Edward, inherited the throne, becoming Edward VI. Princesses Elizabeth and Mary waited in succession.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1491
• Birth date: June 28, 1491
• Birth City: Greenwich, London, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Henry VIII, king of England, was famously married six times and played a critical role in the English Reformation, turning his country into a Protestant nation.
• World Politics
• Astrological Sign: Cancer
• Death Year: 1547
• Death date: January 28, 1547
• Death City: London, England
• Death Country: United Kingdom

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Henry VIII Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/royalty/henry-viii
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 23, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
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Allen Bratton's 'Henry Henry' gives the Shakespearan character a modern twist

Scott Simon

In "Henry Henry," Shakespeare's Prince Hal gets a modern, queer recast. NPR's Scott Simon talks with Allen Bratton about his debut novel.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Hal Lancaster is the son of a rich, entitled man named Henry, cousin of the late and flamboyant Richard, Duke of Lancaster. And Hal has had romantic encounters - though romantic may not be quite the word - with an aging actor named Jack Falstaff. Then others with a lover named Henry Percy (ph), as he cruises through London's undersides in 2014, just before Brexit - boozing, bleeding, snorting, disgorging and cringing. And we want to caution listeners our conversation will include a discussion of sexual abuse. "Henry Henry" is Allen Bratton's highly-anticipated debut novel. He joins us now from Washington, D.C. Thanks so much for being with us.

ALLEN BRATTON: Thank you so much for having me.

SIMON: Why did you - on the surface, at least - decide to use Shakespeare's Henry to tell a more contemporary story?

BRATTON: Yes, I think that it's one of the most compelling things to imagine what these Shakespeare characters and what these medieval, historical figures might make of life - how they might live in contemporary London, which is so different but still carries within it that core of history.

SIMON: How does carrying that lineage affect Hal? What kind of person does that begin to make him?

BRATTON: It's difficult to say that Hal really is an individual because of this weight of lineage. There have been so many Dukes of Lancaster before him, that when it gets to Hal, he is born with this expectation that he is going to carry these ancestors' lives forward into the future. And he doesn't really get a choice to be himself, to decide who he wants to be.

SIMON: (Laughter) is it valid for readers - at least for, I don't know, the first three-quarters of the novel - to dismiss Hal as kind of a whiny, rich kid who uses his privilege just to get blotto?

BRATTON: People may certainly have that reaction. Writing the novel, I wasn't really thinking about, will readers consider this character good or likable? I imagined what life would be like for Hal to be stuck and how people react to that - I kind of wanted to play with. I wanted to play with people's moral responses and moral feelings and suggest some things that might make people recoil. And then try to kind of bring them back in and show them where these attitudes and behaviors are coming from.

SIMON: Great, unspeakable crime at the center of his soul, too, isn't there?

BRATTON: Yes. The center of the novel really is Hal's relationship with his father, which is tainted from the very beginning by this idea that he's just an extension of Henry, which is complicated not just by the fact of their being aristocrats, but by their Catholicism. The father is meant to be the spiritual leader, the imitation of God within the family. And Hal really has no choice but to submit to the will of his father.

SIMON: Can we be a little more explicit than that? His father - can we say - he was abusive?

BRATTON: Yes, absolutely. Hal's father has been sexually abusing him since he was an adolescent. And that abuse has continued on at aged 22, which seems maybe to some too old of an age to be abused by a parent in this way. But I wanted to show that these ideas that had been seeded in Hal from birth are not so easily shaken off.

SIMON: Without giving away anything about how the novel concludes. How do we reach a state of coexistence with Hal - accepting him for who he is?

BRATTON: Well, I'd like to think that the reader will follow along Hal's journey. And how he reaches that state of equilibrium with himself is by looking into his family's past - the life and death of his cousin Richard, who was gay and closeted and died of an AIDS-related illness. He was always held up as the person that Hal shouldn't be like. And as Hal grew up, he realized, oh, no, this is the person who I'm like. I'm not moving away from that legacy. I'm reenacting it. And by the end of the novel, Hal decides that he's happy to be echoing Richard, if not entirely repeating his life.

SIMON: Allen Bratton's novel, "Henry Henry." Thank you so much for being with us.

BRATTON: Thank you so much for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF VISION STRING QUARTET'S "PLUNK BALLAD")

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