Henry VII: The Man Who Founded the Tudor Dynasty

Photo by Scott Precious on Unsplash

Henry VII was born on 28 January 1457 at Pembroke Castle in the English-speaking portion of Pembrokeshire known as Little England beyond Wales.

He was the only child to He was the only child of Lady Margaret Beaufort, who was 13 years old at the time, and Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond. His father was only twenty-six and had died before Henry VII was born.

Because Henry’s mother, Margaret, was legitimized through the House of Beaufort, this bolstered Henry’s claim to the English throne.

By 1483, Henry was the senior male claimant heir to the House of Lancaster remaining after the deaths in battle, by murder, or execution of Henry VI.

By 1483, Henry’s mother was actively promoting him as an alternative to Richard III, despite her being married to Lord Stanley at the time. Then at Rennes Cathedral on Christmas Day in 1483, Henry pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. She was Edward’s heir since the presumed death of her brothers, who were the Princes in the Tower.

Henry devised a plan to seize the throne by engaging Richard quickly; he did this because Richard had reinforcements in Nottingham and Leicester. Henry’s Lancastrian forces decisively defeated Richard’s Yorkist army at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485. (Also known as the War of the Roses)

To secure his hold on the throne, Henry declared himself king by right of conquest retroactively from 21 August 1485, the day before Bosworth Field. This meant that anyone who had fought for Richard against Henry would be guilty of treason, and Henry could legally confiscate the lands and property of Richard III, while restoring his own lands.

Henry VII honoured his pledge of December 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York, and the wedding took place in 1486 at Westminster Abbey. He was 29 years old, she was 20. And they were third cousins, as both were great-great-grandchildren of John of Gaunt.

Henry VII married Elizabeth of York with the hope of uniting the Yorkist and Lancastrian sides of the Plantagenet dynastic disputes, and he was largely successful. But the level of paranoia persisted that anyone with blood ties to the Plantagenets was suspected of coveting the throne.

Henry VII secured his crown principally by dividing and undermining the power of the nobility, especially through the aggressive use of bonds and recognisances to secure loyalty. He also enacted laws against livery and maintenance, the great lords’ practice of having large numbers of “retainers” who wore their lord’s badge or uniform and formed a potential private army. It is also believed that Henry VII was involved with the death of the princes in the Tower, since they held more of a legitimate claim to the throne than Henry VII.

Despite such precautions, Henry VII faced several rebellions over the next twelve years. The first was the 1486 rebellion of the Stafford brothers, abetted by Viscount Lovell, which collapsed without fighting.

The rebellion began in Ireland, where the historically Yorkist nobility, headed by the powerful Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, proclaimed Simnel king and provided troops for his invasion of England. Simnel was later saved, and Henry VII made him a servant in the kitchens.

In 1502, Henry VII’s life took a difficult and personal turn in which many people he was close to died in quick succession. His first son and heir apparent, Arthur, Prince of Wales, died suddenly at Ludlow Castle, very likely from a viral respiratory illness known at the time as the “English sweating sickness”. (We will talk about Arthur, Prince of Wales later.)

Henry VII died of tuberculosis at Richmond Palace on 21 April 1509 and was buried in the chapel he commissioned in Westminster Abbey next to his wife, Elizabeth.