King Henry VII (1485 - 1509)

Henry was the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who died before Henry was born, and Margaret Beaufort, a descendant of Edward III through John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Although the Beaufort line, which was originally illegitimate, had been specifically excluded (1407) from all claim to the throne, the death of the imprisoned Henry VI (1471) made Henry Tudor head of the house of Lancaster. At this point, however, the Yorkist Edward IV had established himself securely on the throne, and Henry, who had been brought up in Wales, fled to Brittany for safety.

The death of Edward IV (1483) and accession of Richard III, left Henry the natural leader of the party opposing Richard, whose rule was very unpopular. Henry made an unsuccessful attempt to land in England during the abortive revolt (1483) of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Thereafter he bided his time in France until 1485 when, aided by other English refugees, he landed in Wales. At the battle of Bosworth Field, Leicestershire, he defeated the royal forces of Richard, who was killed. Henry advanced to London, was crowned, and in 1486 fulfilled a promise made earlier to Yorkist dissidents to marry Edward IV's daughter, Elizabeth of York. He thus united the houses of York and Lancaster, founding the Tudor royal dynasty.

Although Henry's accession marked the end of the Wars of the Roses, the early years of his reign were disturbed by Yorkist attempts to regain the throne. The first serious attempt, an uprising in favour of the imposter Lambert Simnel, was easily crushed (1487). In 1494, Henry sent Sir Edward Poynings to Ireland to consolidate English rule there. Poynings drove out of Ireland the Yorkist pretender Perkin Warbeck, who then sought support from the Scottish king, James IV. James attempted (1496) to invade England, but the next year, under pressure from Spain, he expelled Warbeck. The latter was defeated shortly thereafter in an attempted invasion of Cornwall. A truce (1497) between England and Scotland was followed by the marriage (1503) of Henry's daughter Margaret Tudor to James a marriage that led ultimately to the union of the monarchies of England and Scotland.

Henry succeeded in crushing the independence of the nobility by means of a policy of forced loans and fines. His chancellor, Cardinal Morton, was made responsible for the collection of these fines, and they were enforced by the privy councillors Empson and Dudley. Henry married his son Arthur to Catharine of Aragón, daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragón and Isabella of Castile, his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland, and his youngest daughter Mary to Louis XII of France. After Arthur died in 1502, an agreement was reached by which Catharine married Arthur's brother Henry (later Henry VIII).

King Henry VII's Signature

Timeline for King Henry VII