Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, died before his son Henry was born at Pembroke Castle in Wales. Henry's mother Margaret Beaufort was a descendant of Edward III and his link to the House of Lancaster.
After the battle of Tewkesbury and the murder of Henry VI in 1471, the life of 15-year-old Henry Tudor, the last surviving male heir of the Lancastrians, was in danger. Urged by his mother, he crossed the Channel to Brittany where he endured 15 years of exile.
In 1485, two years after an abortive attempt to land in England and take the throne. the 30-year-old Henry Tudor set sail once again with an army of about 3,000 soldiers. Only 400 of them were English; the rest were French, as were Henry's own ideas of kingship. They landed on 7 August 1485 at Milford Haven, just a few miles from Henry's birthplace. The pretender knelt and called for his troops to follow him in the name of God and St George.
Fourteen days later, Henry and his army came face to face with the armed might of Richard III at Bosworth Field. Mainly due to good luck, Henry defeated the last Plantagenet king, who was conveniently killed. In October, the former pretender was crowned Henry VII, and the symbolic union of York and Lancaster was made flesh in January 1486, when Henry married Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward VI. The Tudor dynasty was born.
In September 1486, the king's wife gave him a son and heir. Baby Arthur's godmother was Elizabeth Woodville, the Yorkist dowager queen, who was also the king's mother-in-law. But just five months later, she was effectively banished from court because of the jealousy of the king's mother Margaret Beaufort. This action proved to be a political disaster.
The Yorkist nobility felt spurned too, and the illusion of unity that Henry had been promoting was shattered. Within a year, he faced a rebellion backed by disgruntled Yorkists. The king beat off the uprising, but it exposed how insecure he was.
In 1491, Henry had a chance to strengthen his position: when the French king Charles VIII invaded Brittany, Henry declared war on him. But he delayed sailing for France until October 1492, almost the end of the campaigning season, then agreed to withdraw in return for an annual pension of £12,500. The English soothed their injured pride by calling the payment a tribute, but the world knew better.
In autumn 1496, a man arrived on the scene claiming to be Richard, duke of York, the younger of the princes in the Tower. This Yorkist pretender, Perkin Warbeck, had powerful backers in the Scots, and in September 1496, they invaded England. A reluctant Parliament gave Henry £120,000 and the royal army moved north. Then a rebel Cornish army, angry at the taxes they had to pay to support this campaign, marched unopposed across the south of England. They were joined by Warbeck.
On 17 June 1497, Henry VII defeated the rebels at Blackheath, and on 5 October, Warbeck himself was captured. But the king had learned his lessons well: he eventually had Warbeck executed, he would call only one more, brief Parliament and he imposed no more direct parliamentary taxation.
In 1501, Henry's 14-year-old son and heir Arthur died, perhaps of tuberculosis, and two years later, his much-loved wife Elizabeth died in childbirth. Henry was grief stricken and greatly changed by these deaths: his character became harder, his circle of advisers narrower and his style of government more authoritarian.
During his last years, his commissioners levied huge fines on the nobility for the tiniest of transgressions. The king was pushing the law to the limit for his own enrichment and punishing the aristocracy for their part in the plots against him. Contemporaries despised him for this, calling him avaricious and mean. By the time that he died on 21 April 1509, undermined by political instability and personal tragedy, he resembled an absolute monarch.
Henry VII by S B Chrimes (Yale University Press, 1999)
Explores the circumstances surrounding Henry's acquisition of the throne, examines the personnel and machinery of government and surveys the king's social, political and economic policies, law enforcement and foreign strategy. Get this book
Pembroke Castle Castell Penfro
Pembrokeshire
South Wales
Tel: 01646 681 510
E-mail: Pembroke.castle@talk21.com
The castle is located in the town centre, off Westgate Hill. 56 miles west of Swansea. Website: www.pembrokecastle.co.uk
This mighty Norman castle sits on a high ridge between two tidal inlets on the south-west coast of Wales. What is now called the 'Henry VII Tower' is said to be where the king was born in 1457.
Westminster Abbey London SW1P 3PA
Tel: 020 7222 5152
Fax: 020 7233 2072
E-mail: info@westminster-abbey.org Website: www.westminster-abbey.org
The Lady Chapel at the eastern end of the abbey was intended to be the last resting place of Henry VI, but the man who had it built, Henry VII, was the only king to be buried here. He lies behind the altar, next to his beloved wife Elizabeth of York. His mother Margaret Beaufort is interred nearby, as are Elizabeth I, Mary I and Mary Queen of Scots.
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