Elizabeth I 'Tudor' Queen of ENGLAND

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• Fact: 15 Jan 1559, Queen of England

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Despite a traumatic early life, Elizabeth displayed strength and prudence as Queen, choosing loyal and able advisers. Throughout her 45-year reign, the 'Virgin Queen', showed considerable political acumen in defying a largely Catholic Europe intent on overturning the Protestant faith, while presiding over a period of adventure that saw a vast expansion of English trade and prosperity and significant developments in the arts.

Elizabeth spent her life surrounded by suitors including Philip II of Spain, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and Francis, Duke of Alencon, yet she never married. A shrewd observer commented : 'the Queen would like everyone to be in love with her but I doubt whether she will ever be in love with anyone enough to marry him.'

In 1588, 130 Spanish ships set sail to invade England. The English ships attacked the vastly superior Spanish force as it sailed up the Channel and anchored off Calais. The English then sent in fireships to break up the Spanish fleet, forcing it back into the Channel off Gravelines, where the decisive action was fought on 9 August. Battered by English guns, the Spanish retreated northwards, where severe Atlantic gales and the rocky coastline wrecked the majority of the surviving ships.

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In the Early years of his reign, Henry was content to leave governing in the hands of his Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey. However, Wolsey fell from power when he failed to secure a divorce for Henry from Catherine of Aragon. The King became increasingly autocratic and by his death he was much hated.

As a young man, Henry was tall and handsome. However, when older he became grossly overweight and was riddled with disease.

Although well-educated, Henry at first had no enthusiasm for statecraft or personal rule, preferring hunting, the tourney, games, mistresses, and music to governing the country. During the first two decades of his reign, Henry entrusted the business of government to his great minister, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. born in 1475, Wolsey was the son of an Ipswich butcher. He entered the church and became Archbishop of York in 1514. A year later he received his cardinal's hat and became the Chancellor of England. Cardinal Wolsey looked after England's affairs at home and abroad with great skill, presiding over a period of growing prosperity. However, Wolsey fell from grace in 1529 when he failed to secure Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. he died that year before he could be brought to trial for treason.

After Henry VIII's break with Rome, Thomas Cromwell set up a commission to examine the state of every monastery and convent in England, with a view to possible closure and appropriation of its wealth by the Crown. Many were found to be racked with corruption. Henry, who urgently needed money to finance his extravagant lifestyle, ordered their dissolution. In 1537, the smaller monasteries were closed and their property confiscated. the remainder were similarly dealt with in 1539.

Henry married Anne BOLEYN on 25 Jan 1533. Anne (daughter of Sir Thomas BOLEYN and Elizabeth HOWARD) was born about 1507; died on 19 May 1536 in Beheaded on Tower Green for alleged adultery. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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Anne was already pregnant with the future Elizabeth I when she married Henry in 1533. The King soon lost interest in Anne and in 1536, she was beheaded.

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• Fact 1: Ancestor of Tudor and later Kings and Queens of England
• Fact: 22 Aug 1485, Defeated King Richard III at Bosworth

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Henry VII (January 28, 1457 - April 21, 1509), King of England, Lord of Ireland (August 22, 1485 - April 21, 1509), was the founder and first patriarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Henry was born in Pembroke Castle, Wales, in 1457, the only son of Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort. His father died two months before he was born, which meant that the young Henry spent much of his early life with his uncle, Jasper Tudor. With the return of Edward IV to the throne in 1461, Henry was forced to flee to Brittany, where he was to spend most of the next fourteen years. After the failure of the revolt of his second cousin, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, in 1483, Henry Tudor became the leading Lancastrian contender for the throne of England. With money and supplies borrowed from his host, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, Henry made an unsuccessful attempt to land in England but turned back after encountering Richard III's (1483?85) forces on the Dorset coast. Richard III attempted to ensure his return through a treaty with the Breton authorities, but Henry was alerted and escaped to France. He was welcomed by the French court, who readily supplied him with troops and equipment for a second invasion.

Rise to the throne
Having gained the support of the in-laws of the late Yorkist King Edward IV, he landed with a largely French and Scottish force in Mill Bay, Pembrokeshire, and marched into England, accompanied by his uncle, Jasper Tudor, and the experienced John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. Wales had traditionally been a Yorkist stronghold, and Henry owed the support he gathered to his ancestry, being directly descended, through his father, from the Lord Rhys. He amassed an army of around 5000 soldiers and travelled north.

Though outnumbered, Henry was aware that this was his only chance to seize the throne. Using reinforcements that waited in Nottingham and Leicester his Lancastrian forces decisively defeated the Yorkists under the King at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485 when several of Richard's key allies, such as the Earl of Northumberland and William and Thomas Stanley, crucially switched sides or deserted the field of battle. This effectively ended the long-running Wars of the Roses between the two houses, though it wasn't the final battle. Henry's claim to the throne was tenuous: it was based upon a lineage of illegitimate succession, and overlooked the fact that he had been disqualified by an earlier act of attainder. However this proved to be no barrier to the throne. Following the battle all other claimants were either dead or too weak to challenge him. In the end Henry dealt with the act of attainder by claiming that it could not apply to a king.

The first of Henry's concerns on attaining the throne was the question of establishing the strength and supremacy of his rule. His own claim to the throne was limited, but he was fortunate in that there were few other claimants to the throne left alive after the long civil war. His main worry was pretenders such as Perkin Warbeck, who pretended to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower and son of Edward IV. These pretenders were backed by disaffected nobles. Henry triumphed in securing his crown by a number of means but principally by dividing and undermining the power of the nobility, especially through bonds and recognisances, as well as forcing them to disband their private armies. He also honoured his pledge of December 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York, daughter and heir of King Edward IV. The marriage took place on January 18, 1486 at Westminster. This unified the warring houses, gave him a greater claim to the throne due to Elizabeth's line of descent and ensured that his children would be of royal blood (although there is evidence that Edward was born illegitimate).

Henry's first action was to declare himself king retroactive to the day before the battle, thus ensuring that anyone who had fought against him would be guilty of treason. It is interesting to note, therefore, that he spared Richard's designated heir, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. He would have cause to regret his leniency two years later, when Lincoln rebelled and attempted to set a boy pretender, Lambert Simnel, on the throne in Henry's place. Lincoln was killed at the Battle of Stoke, but Simnel's life was spared and he became a royal servant.

Simnel had been put forward as "Edward VI", impersonating the young Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of George, Duke of Clarence, who was still imprisoned in the Tower of London. Henry had shown uncharacteristic leniency in dealing with Edward and did not find a pretext for executing him until he had grown into adulthood, in 1499. Edward's elder sister, Margaret Pole, who had the next best claim on the throne, inherited her father's earldom of Salisbury and survived well into the next century (until she fell victim to a bill of attainder for treason too, under Henry VIII).

Name:
Henry VII of England, King of England, son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, by Margaret, daughter and heiress of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of somerset, regarded by the remnants of the Lancastrian party as the hope of Lancaster (though from an illegitimate line) on the extinction of the Royal line of the House of Lancaster, having invaded England, defeated and killed Richard III at Bosworth on 22 Aug 1485, chosen King of England on the battlefield, crowned 30 Oct 1485.

Henry married Elizabeth PLANTAGENET on 18 Jan 1486 in Westminster. Elizabeth (daughter of Edward IV 'Plantagenet' King Of ENGLAND and Elizabeth WOODVILLE) was born on 11 Feb 1465 in Westminster; died on 11 Feb 1503 in Tower of London. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Knight of Garter
• Fact 1: Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond

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With his father, he was in arms against the cornish rebels at Blackheath in June 1497. He was Knight of the Body to King Henry VIII, and by 1512 was rapidly rising in royal favour. He was Ambassador to the Emperor Maximilian in the Low Countries, P.C. 1518, Ambassador to France January 1518/9, appointed to be present at the Field of Cloth of Gold, Comptroller of the Household 1520, and Treasurer thereof, 1522-25. His acquisition of numerous Stewardships and Keeperships and gradually of high honours marks the progress of the favour which his daughters Mary and Anne in turn, found in the eyes of King Henry VIII. He was creaed Viscount Rachford on 18 June 1525, Earl of Wiltshire in England and Earl of Ormond in Ireland on 8 Dec 1529. He was present at the baptism of his grand-daughter Princess Elizabeth on 10 Sep 1533. His wife died at the Abbot of Reading's place, beside Baynard's Castle, on 3 Apr 1538, and was buried in the Howard aisle in Lambeth Church. He was still at Court in 1538 but had lost most of his influence. Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, died aged sixty-one at Hever on 12 Mar 1538/9, and was buried there.

Thomas married Elizabeth HOWARD before 1506. Elizabeth (daughter of Sir Thomas HOWARD and Elizabeth TYLNEY) died on 3 Apr 1538. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Fact: Earl of Richmond

Edmund married Margaret BEAUFORT in 1455. Margaret (daughter of John BEAUFORT and Margaret BEAUCHAMP) was born between 31 May 1441 and 1443 in Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, England; died between 29 Jun and 05 Jul 1509 in Westminster Palace; was buried in Westminster Abbey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Fact: Founder of Christ's and St. John's Colleges, Cambridge University

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She was a valuable and early patron to Caxton...She was one of the few worthy and high-minded members of the aristocracy, in an essentially selfish and cruel age.

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• Fact: bet. 1461-1470, King of England
• Fact 1: Between 1471-1483, King of England

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Edward IV Plantagenet, eldest surviving son and heir, born at Rouen 28 Apr 1442, known as Earl of March till he succeeded his father on 30 Dec 1460 as 4th Duke of York, proclaimed King of England by his supporters on 4 mar 1461, and crowned at Westminster on 29 June 1461, deposed by Richard Neville 'the Kingmaker', 1st Earl of Warwick and 2nd Earl of Salisbury, and fled to Flanders, returned to England 14 Mar 1471, and defeated Warwick and the Lancastrians at Barnet on 14 Apr 1471, and at Tewkesbury, 4 May 1471, died at Westminster 9 Apr 1483, buried St. George's Chapel, Windsor; married, privately, at the manor house of the bride's father at Grafton Regis, co. Northhampton, 1 May 1464, Elizabeth Wydeville (Woodville), born about 1437, crowned at Westminster 26 May 1465, died testate at Bermondsey Abbey, where for some time she had resided, or had been compelled by King Henry VII to reside, on 8 June 1492, buried with the King, her second husband.

Edward IV came to the throne with two aims: to restore the system of justice and to improve royal finances, both of which had suffered during the reign of Henry VI. Edward proved himself an able ruler, and during his reign, which was briefly interrupted, the country enjoyed a well-deserved period of peace.

When Edward became King at the age of 18, he was described by many as a beautiful young man, about 2 metres (6 feet) tall, with polished manners and a genial disposition.

Edward married Elizabeth WOODVILLE on 01 May 1464 in Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire. Elizabeth (daughter of Richard WOODVILLE and Jacquetta Of LUXEMBOURG) was born about 1437; died in 7 or 8 June 1492. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Also Known As: Elizabeth Wydeville

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Elizabeth was queen consort of Edward IV, King of England.

Excerpt from Blood Royal: Elizabeth and Edward had Edward V, uncrowned ing of England, and Richard of York, the two princes in the Tower who were believed murdered after the usurpation of the throne by their uncle, Richard III.

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• Fact: Son of Geoffrey Boleyn and Anne Hoo

William married Margaret BUTLER in 1485. Margaret (daughter of Thomas BUTLER, K.B. and Anne HANKEFORD) was born about 1465; died between 30 Sep 1539and 20 Mar 1539/40. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Fact: 28 Jun 1483, cr. Earl of Surrey
• Fact 1: 10 Jul 1510, cr Earl Marshal
• Fact: 1 Feb 1513/4, 2nd Duke of Norfolk

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Thomas Howard, Knt., K.B., K.G., Sherif of Norfolk and Suffolk, M.P. for Norfolk, P.C. son and heir by first marriage, was born at Stoke Nayland in 1443, and was educated at Thetford Grammar School. He was yeoman in the household of King Edward I. He fought at the Battle of Barnet on 14 Apr 1471, and was severely wounded. After service with the Duke of Burgundy, he became Esquire of the Body to King Edward IV, whom he attended both in England and France. He was created Earl of Surrey on 28 June 1483 (the same day his father was created Duke of Norfolk). He was wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Bosworth on 22 Aug 1485. Finding favour with King Henry VII, he entered upon a career of employment for many years. He did notable service in the North, especially stamping out insurrections in 1489 and 1492. His first wife died, as Countess of Surrey, on 4 Apr 1497. He was married for the second time (with dispensation dated 17 Ag 1497 as related in the second degree, to marry in the chapel of the castle of Sheriff Hutton) to Agnes Tilney, daughter of Hugh Tilney, of Skirbeck and Boston, co. Lincoln, by daughter of Walter Tailboys. He was made Lieutenant General in the North in July 1513, and gained victory over the Scots at Flodden Field on 9 September. He was rewarded therefor by being created (with a grant of lands) Duke of Norfolk on 1 Feb. 1513/4. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, died aged about eighty at Framlingham Castle on 21 May 1524, and was buried at Thetford Abbey. His widow was imprisoned in the Tower in 1541 (with her son Lord William Howard and Margaret his wife, and her daughter the Countess of Bridgewater), and attainted for misprision of treason in concealing the 'evil life' of her step-granddaughter, Katherine Howard, before her marriage to the King Henry VIII.

Thomas married Elizabeth TYLNEY on 30 Apr 1472. Elizabeth (daughter of Sir Frederick TYLNEY and Elizabeth CHENEY) died on 04 Apr 1497; was buried in Chapel of St. Edmund, Westminster Abbey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]