January 18, 1486 ~ King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York.

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Battle of Bosworth Field, Catherine of Valois, Duke of Richmond, Edmund Tudor, Edward IV of England, Elizabeth of York, Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Owen Tudor, Richard III of England, Wars of the Roses

Henry VII (January 28, 1457 – April 21, 1509) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on August 22, 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor.

Henry VII was born at Pembroke Castle to Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. His father, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, died three months before his birth. Henry’s paternal grandfather, Owen Tudor, originally from the Tudors of Penmynydd, Isle of Anglesey in Wales, had been a page in the court of King Henry V.

Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland

Owen Tudor rose to become one of the “Squires to the Body to the King” after military service at the Battle of Agincourt. Owen is said to have secretly married the widow of King Henry V, Catherine of Valois. One of their sons was Edmund, Henry’s father. Edmund was created Earl of Richmond in 1452, and “formally declared legitimate by Parliament”.

Henry’s mother, Margaret, provided Henry’s main claim to the English throne through the House of Beaufort. She was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (fourth son of Edward III), and his third wife Katherine Swynford.

Initially Katherine was Gaunt’s mistress for about 25 years. When they married in 1396 they already had four children, including Henry’s great-grandfather John Beaufort. Thus, Henry’s claim was somewhat tenuous; it was from a woman, and by illegitimate descent.

Hereditarily the Portuguese and Castilian royal families had a better claim to the throne of England than the Beaufort family since they were descendants of Catherine of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt and his second wife Constance of Castile.

John of Gaunt’s nephew King Richard II legitimised Gaunt’s children by Katherine Swynford by Letters Patent in 1397. In 1407, Henry IV, Gaunt’s son by his first wife, issued new Letters Patent confirming the legitimacy of his half-siblings but also declaring them ineligible for the throne.

Elizabeth of York, Queen of England and Lady of Ireland

Henry IV’s action was of doubtful legality, as the Beauforts were previously legitimised by an Act of Parliament.

Nonetheless, by 1483 Henry Tudor was the senior male Lancastrian claimant remaining after the deaths in battle, by murder or execution of Henry VI (son of Henry V and Catherine of Valois), his son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, and the other Beaufort line of descent through Lady Margaret’s uncle, Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset.

By 1483, Henry’s mother was actively promoting him as an alternative to Richard III, despite her being married to Lord Stanley, a Yorkist. At Rennes Cathedral on Christmas Day 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, the Princes in the Tower, King Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.

Henry devised a plan to seize the throne by engaging Richard III quickly because Richard had reinforcements in Nottingham and Leicester. Though outnumbered, Henry’s Lancastrian forces decisively defeated Richard III’s Yorkist army at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 22, 1485. Several of Richard’s key allies, such as Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, and also Lord Stanley and his brother William, crucially switched sides or left the battlefield. Richard III’s death at Bosworth Field effectively ended the Wars of the Roses.

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

On January 18, 1486 Henry honoured his pledge of December 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York. They were third cousins, as both were great-great-grandchildren of John of Gaunt. Henry married Elizabeth of York with the hope of uniting the Yorkist and Lancastrian sides of the Plantagenet dynastic disputes, and he was largely successful.

However, such a level of paranoia persisted that anyone (John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, for example) with blood ties to the Plantagenets was suspected of coveting the throne.

Henry had Parliament repeal Titulus Regius, the statute that declared Edward IV’s marriage invalid and his children illegitimate, thus legitimising his wife.

Legal Succession: Henry VIII

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Anne Boleyn, Duke of Richmond, Edward VI of England, Elizabeth I of England, Henry FitzRoy, Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, Mary I of England, Plantagenet

When Henry VII died on April 21,1509 he left the throne secure for his second surviving son, Henry VIII. He would be the last king of that name (well, so far) and he would become memorable for his many marriages and tyrannical behavior. For the topic of this series Henry VIII was his father’s legal successor.

There so much to cover with the reign of Henry VIII but sticking with the theme of this series I will concentrate on his struggle to secure the succession. Being only the second Tudor monarch there was still some competition among the Plantagenet descendants of Edward III. One of the things I may have failed to mention during the entries on the War of the Roses was the fact that there was so many marriages with the descendants of Edward III and the English nobility that it gave many nobles a hereditary claim to the crown. One of the more notable nobles with a claim to the throne was Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. He and Henry VIII had an on and off again friendship throughout the early parts of Henry’s reign. In 1521 Stafford was found guilty of treason and executed.

Henry honored his father’s wished by marrying Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow, and for years they struggled to secure an heir to Henry’s throne. During the marriage two sons, both named Henry, Duke of Cornwall, only lived for a few months. Tha majority of Queen Catherine’s pregnancies ended in still births. Only one daughter, Mary, born in 1516, survived until adulthood. However, to Henry, a daughter was considered unsuitable partly because he believed a daughter would be unable to consolidate the Tudor dynasty and the fragile peace that existed following the Wars of the Roses.

In 1519 Henry also had a son with his mistress, the 17-year-old Elizabeth Blount. The boy, Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, was publicly acknowledged by Henry, the only illegitimate child he ever acknowledged as being his, was proudly shown at court to assuage the kings pride over not having a male heir at this time in his reign. In 1536 with the question of the succession still not settled an Act of Parliament was being made which would have given Henry FitzRoy the legal right to succeed his father. Sadly, this Act was never completed as Henry Fitzroy died of consumption July 23, 1536.

I do not feel the strong need to go through all of Henry’s marriages. That is another topic for this blog. We all know the story though. Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Bolyne. The marriage between Henry and Anne also produced only a daughter, Elizabeth, named after Henry’s mother, Elizabeth of York. After the execution of Anne, Henry married Jane Seymour and finally had his male heir when Jane gave birth to Edward on October 12, 1537. Jane, herself died as a result of this childbirth and was deeply mourned by the king. None of Henry’s three subsequent marriages produced any more children. Historians speculate that as Henry grew older he was impotent and unable to produce any more children.

When Henry died on January 28, 1547 his legal heir, the sickly Prince Edward, mounted the throne of England as King Edward VI. However, the struggle for the Tudor dynasty to produce legal heirs was far from over.