Henry VII King Of ENGLAND

Male 1457 - 1509  (52 years)


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  • Name Henry VII King Of ENGLAND  [1, 2, 3
    • 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. [1]
    Birth 28 Jan 1457  Pembroke Castle, Wales Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 3
    Gender Male 
    Fact 22 Aug 1485  Defeated King Richard III at Bosworth Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Fact 1 Ancestor of Tudor and later Kings and Queens of England Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Death 21 Apr 1509  Richmond Palace Find all individuals with events at this location  [2, 3
    Burial Henry VII's Chapel, Westminster Abbey Find all individuals with events at this location  [2
    Notes 
    • 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). [3]
    Person ID I21338  Main Tree
    Last Modified 18 May 2018 

    Father Edmund TUDOR,   b. Abt 1430, Hertfordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 03 Nov 1456, Carmarthen Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 26 years) 
    Relationship Birth 
    Mother Margaret BEAUFORT,   b. Between 31 May 1441 and 1443, Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Between 29 Jun and 05 Jul 1509, Westminster Palace Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Relationship Birth 
    Marriage 1455  [2
    Family ID F06879  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Elizabeth PLANTAGENET,   b. 11 Feb 1465, Westminster Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 11 Feb 1503, Tower of London Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 38 years) 
    Marriage 18 Jan 1486  Westminster Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Children 
     1. Arthur Prince Of WALES,   b. 20 Sep 1486, St. Swithin's Priory, Winchester Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 02 Apr 1502, Ludlow Castle Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 15 years)  [Natural]
    +2. Margaret TUDOR,   b. 28 Nov 1489   d. 18 Oct 1541 (Age 51 years)  [Birth]
    +3. Henry VIII King Of ENGLAND,   b. 28 Jun 1491   d. 28 Jan 1547 (Age 55 years)  [Birth]
     4. Elizabeth Tudor Princess Of ENGLAND,   b. 02 Jul 1492   d. 14 Sep 1495 (Age 3 years)  [Natural]
     5. Mary Tudor Princess Of ENGLAND,   b. 18 Mar 1496   d. 25 Jun 1533 (Age 37 years)  [Birth]
     6. Edmund Tudor Duke Of SOMERSET,   b. 21 Feb 1499   d. 19 Jun 1500 (Age 1 year)  [Natural]
     7. Katherine Tudor Princess Of ENGLAND,   b. 02 Feb 1503   d. 02 Feb 1503 (Age 0 years)  [Natural]
    Family ID F07097  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 20 Apr 2022 

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsBurial - - Henry VII's Chapel, Westminster Abbey Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 

  • Sources 
    1. [S5008] David Faris, "Plantagenet Ancestry of Seventeenth-Century Colonists", (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.).

    2. [S01910] Blood Royal, Issue of the Kings and Queens of Medieval England 1066-1399 by. T. Anna Leese.

    3. [S03581] Wikipedia Encyclopedia.