King Henry Tudor 1485-1509

1. Henry VII mother was Margaret Beaufort who married Owen Tudor.
2. Margaret Beaufort, descended from bastards born to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, 4th son of Edward the III, legitimized by statute of Richard II in 1397, 10 years later, Henry the IV added a rider to the statute that barred Beauforts and their descendents from inheriting the throne.
3. Henry Tudor had a disputed claim to the throne, every member of the Plantagenet House of York had more right than he to the throne.
4. Bosworth Field – August 22 1485 – Battle took place between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, became king by right of conquest. King Richard III died in the battle. The location of this battle is Market Bosworth.
5. Sir William Stanley - Lord Chamberlain - switched sides during battle, pulled the crown from a bush where it had landed after Richard III was killed and placed the crown on Henry Tudor's head.
6. Henry VII married Elizabeth of York in 1486 to strengthen his claim to the English Throne
7. Elizabeth York was the 4th daughter of Edward IV and had legal claim to the throne.
8. Elizabeth of York produced 4 living children by Henry VII, Arthur, Henry VIII, Margaret, Mary
9. Elizabeth Woodville, Henry's mother in law was sent to a convent, was married (1464) to Sir John Grey a Lancastrian who had died at the battle of St Albans. Elizabeth Woodville was a commoner.
10. Henry VII claimed decent from Kings of Welsh
11. Claimed King in own right (by right of conquest and inheritance justified by William I at Hastings) and postponed marriage to Elizabeth of York until his coronation. Henry appealed to Divine Right of Kings - God chose Henry as King by granting victory to Henry at Bosworth Field.
12. Henry deposed of adversaries, killed heads of families, deprived property of those families loyal to the Yorkist factions and fined the rich barons.
13. Lambert Simnel – impersonated the Earl of Warwick while the earl was still alive. He managed to rally the Yorkists against the Tudors. At the Battle of Stoke. Lambert was captured, pardoned and put to work as a sculley boy in Henry Tudor’s (Henry VII) kitchen.
14. Perkin Warbeck – Cork Ireland - impersonator of Richard, duke of York, (Edward V’s brother who died in the tower). He was recognized in the courts of Vienna and Burgundy as the rightful king. He was captured in 1497 and put in the tower of London with the earl of Warwick. Henry Vii arranged for the 2 to escape then recaptured them. The Earl of Warwick and Perkin Warbeck were executed for treason. The main reason they both were executed is Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain refused to marry their daughter Catherine of Aragon to Henry VII’s son Author unless there was no threat to Henry’s throne and the succession.
15. Henry VII provided firm stable government
16. Henry VII was a miser

see also Medieval Castles in England

References:

UNCA Tudor History class notes

Weir, Alison, The Six Wives of Henry VIII,  Grove Press (April 2000)

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Pictures

Elizabeth York Portrait

picture of the bust of Henry VII