Henry VII
Under the leadership of Edward III (1327 to 1377) England became one of the most powerful
countries in Europe. The so-called Wars of the Roses were fought between the families
descended from two of Edward’s sons, John of Gaunt and Edmund, Duke of York. From 1399
to 1461 England was ruled by the House of Lancaster (descendants of John of Gaunt), and
from 1461 to 1485 it was ruled by the House of York (descendants of Edmund).
Henry Tudor (Henry VII, 1485-1509) belonged to the House of Lancaster. The unpopular
Richard III, the last of the Yorkist kings, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth (1485) and Henry
married Richard’s niece, uniting the two families, and took the throne.
Richard III is famously portrayed by Shakespeare and others as a hunchback who ordered the
murder of his two nephews (12 and 9 years old) for fear that they might grow up to challenge
him for the throne. It has been hotly debated whether there is any truth to that image of him.
The bones of Richard III were found on the site of an old church in 2012, and show that he did
have a deformity of the spine, but it would have led to his right shoulder being raised, not to a
hunched back.
Henry’s marriage to Richard’s niece Elizabeth united the Houses of Lancaster and York and
put an end to the Wars of the Roses. The Plantagenet dynasty, which had ruled England since
1154, and included both the House of York and the House of Lancaster, also came to an end.
The beginning of the Tudor period can also be considered the end of the Middle Ages in
England. The two languages of the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons had grown together into
one language and the Normans no longer really existed as a distinct ethnic and cultural
identity. The prolonged struggles of the Wars of the Roses had weakened the nobility and
strengthened the merchant classes, and the feudal system had more or less come to an end.
And there was a cultural flowering, particularly in literature and music, on the heels of the
Italian Renaissance.
Henry’s first priority was to consolidate his power. He declared himself king as from the day
before the Battle of Bosworth Field, so those who fought against him were technically traitors.
However, he promised that all those who swore support for him would not be punished.
Internationally, Henry’s main successes were in the trade agreements he made with France
and the Netherlands. These, together with his strictness in collecting taxes at home, built up
England’s economy while at the same time ensuring peace with her neighbours.
An alliance with Scotland was achieved through the marriage of Henry’s daughter Margaret to
James Stuart (James IV of Scotland) and his eldest son, Arthur, married the Spanish princess
Catherine of Aragon. He also made an alliance with Germany.
Henry’s economic policies left him with a large personal fortune, which his son, Henry VIII,
squandered in a few years. Equally, England’s economy, which had flourished under Henry
VII, was weakened by his son, largely because of the high cost of foreign wars.
The two marriages that Henry VII had engineered for his children both had important
consequences. His daughter’s marriage to James IV of Scotland gave the Stuarts a claim to the
English throne, a claim which was actualized when Elizabeth I died childless.
Henry’s son Arthur died only a few months after marrying Catherine of Aragon, but after
Henry VII’s death in 1509 she married his second son, Henry VIII and their child, Mary, went
on to become queen of England.