Henry VII was born in Pembroke Castle, Wales, in 1457. Events in 1471 meant that Henry Tudor had to flee from England to Brittany. Edward IV, a Yorkist, wanted to eliminate all Lancastrian's such as Henry to prevent rivalry to the throne, although Henry was never really considered to have a chance in taking the throne, as there were many more claimants.
Henry's father, Edmund Tudor, died two months before he was born. Henry spent much of his childhood with his uncle, Jasper Tudor, and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, who both played key roles in Henry's rise to the throne. In 1485, Henry had the backing of the French King and began his bid for the English throne. He landed on the Welsh shore and marched through Wales to the midlands, gathering support as he went. He met Richard III and his forces just outside the small market town of Market Bosworth, where, for the last time in English history, an English king (Richard III) was defeated and killed in battle. Henry claimed the crown for himself (once it had been retrieved from a nearby bush - allegedly).
The Battle of Bosworth (1485)
Like most medieval battles, the events at Bosworth are difficult to interpret coherently or with great confidence. Many (if not all) of the details below are contested and are far from certain.
Richard reached Ambion Hill first where he organized his troops into three divisions on the hill. His troops were well-rested going into the battle, while Henry's men had trouble lining up on the rough ground below; it is unclear why. Richard might then have charged, slaughtering the disorganised Lancastrians, but he missed his chance. When Henry finally was ready, his men used cannons and arrows to force Richard to come down from his hilltop. When Richard did, he called for the Earl of Northumberland, who commanded the right wing of his army, to join in with fresh forces. But Percy refused, holding his forces back from action. There is some evidence that the difficult, wooded ground and narrow frontage of the Yorkist position prevented Northumberland from bringing his force up quickly, but it is far more likely that the Earl's dilatoriness was a calculated move. Although he was captured on the day, he was soon released and confirmed in all his titles and lands by the new King Henry VII. (Ironically, he was murdered in a minor riot just four years later.) But it was the decision of the Stanleys, waiting nearby, that tipped the battle's outcome in favour of Henry.
Richard's commander, John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, was slain, and the waiting armies of Lords Stanley and Northumberland still did not commit to any side. Richard was probably certain of treachery and his close staff counselled withdrawal. It was at this moment that Henry Tudor, also uncertain of the outcome, left the main body of his army and moved towards Lord Stanley, possibly to appeal to him in person. Upon seeing this, Richard attempted a charge against Henry's group. In the attack, Richard and his household hacked down Henry's small bodyguard of knights and Richard personally killed Henry's standard bearer, William Brandon, but at the moment he was within sight of Henry, Sir William Stanley's army chose to come to Tudor's rescue. They threw themselves into the fray surrounding Richard and the men of his Household, overwhelming them. In the fighting, Richard's own standard bearer, Sir Percival Thirwall, had both of his legs hewn away, possibly by a poleaxe or a hand-and-half a sword. He did not let the banner fall, but instead held onto it until he was killed by one of the many retainers under Sir William Stanley joining the battle.
Richard III was unhorsed and hacked to death in the thick of his enemies, probably by Stanley's Welsh pikemen. He was the last king of England to die in battle.
Richard III was the only English king with a strongly northern association and powerbase, and the last of the Plantagenet kings. His body was taken ignominiously by the victors to Leicester, where it was paraded, battered and naked, through the streets, and was accidentally crushed against the parapet of a bridge over the River Soar. His probable resting place is thought to be under a Tesco car park near the former site of the church of Greyfriars.
The battle proved to be decisive in ending the long-running civil wars later to be known as the Wars of the Roses, although the last battle was fought at Stoke two years later, 1487.
Henry's victory was very unexpected and the victory invited further instability in England, as shown by pretenders who would later threaten Henry's position in Lambert Simnel and especially Perkin Warbeck.Richard reached Ambion Hill first where he organized his troops into three divisions on the hill. His troops were well-rested going into the battle, while Henry's men had trouble lining up on the rough ground below; it is unclear why. Richard might then have charged, slaughtering the disorganised Lancastrians, but he missed his chance. When Henry finally was ready, his men used cannons and arrows to force Richard to come down from his hilltop. When Richard did, he called for the Earl of Northumberland, who commanded the right wing of his army, to join in with fresh forces. But Percy refused, holding his forces back from action. There is some evidence that the difficult, wooded ground and narrow frontage of the Yorkist position prevented Northumberland from bringing his force up quickly, but it is far more likely that the Earl's dilatoriness was a calculated move. Although he was captured on the day, he was soon released and confirmed in all his titles and lands by the new King Henry VII. (Ironically, he was murdered in a minor riot just four years later.) But it was the decision of the Stanleys, waiting nearby, that tipped the battle's outcome in favour of Henry.
Richard's commander, John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, was slain, and the waiting armies of Lords Stanley and Northumberland still did not commit to any side. Richard was probably certain of treachery and his close staff counselled withdrawal. It was at this moment that Henry Tudor, also uncertain of the outcome, left the main body of his army and moved towards Lord Stanley, possibly to appeal to him in person. Upon seeing this, Richard attempted a charge against Henry's group. In the attack, Richard and his household hacked down Henry's small bodyguard of knights and Richard personally killed Henry's standard bearer, William Brandon, but at the moment he was within sight of Henry, Sir William Stanley's army chose to come to Tudor's rescue. They threw themselves into the fray surrounding Richard and the men of his Household, overwhelming them. In the fighting, Richard's own standard bearer, Sir Percival Thirwall, had both of his legs hewn away, possibly by a poleaxe or a hand-and-half a sword. He did not let the banner fall, but instead held onto it until he was killed by one of the many retainers under Sir William Stanley joining the battle.
Richard III was unhorsed and hacked to death in the thick of his enemies, probably by Stanley's Welsh pikemen. He was the last king of England to die in battle.
Richard III was the only English king with a strongly northern association and powerbase, and the last of the Plantagenet kings. His body was taken ignominiously by the victors to Leicester, where it was paraded, battered and naked, through the streets, and was accidentally crushed against the parapet of a bridge over the River Soar. His probable resting place is thought to be under a Tesco car park near the former site of the church of Greyfriars.
The battle proved to be decisive in ending the long-running civil wars later to be known as the Wars of the Roses, although the last battle was fought at Stoke two years later, 1487.
Henry's Priorities
Henry had to immediately face the problems of being King:
-The nobility
- Money
- Stability
- Securing London
The nobility:
Henry knew that he had to act decisively. He knew this before the battle had even started. He made the extraordinary move of having himself proclaimed King of England the day before the Battle of Bosworth. (So for one day there were two Kings of England!) Why would he do such a thing? Because it gave him the opportunity to treat all those who fought against him to be treated as traitors. This meant that they would either flee the country, be executed, be imprisoned, or be fined a considerable amount of money and placed under a kind of Royal bondage.
Those that had supported him in the field at Bosworth, or while in exile in France, were rewarded with positions in government or in the localities. His uncle Jasper became the Duke of Bedford. He did not give gifts - a trait that continued throughout his reign.
Reorganisation of Government and use of Parliament
You may think that one of the first things that this Lancastrian King would do is get rid of all of the Yorkists in government, and replace them with loyal Lancastrian supporters. But Henry did not do this. The Historian, Lotherington maintains that Henry's main concern was to neutralise opponents, in other words, not to alienate them. Consequently, men like the Thomas Howard stayed in government.
Nevertheless, the new council did see a number of new faces, like John de Vere and Richard Fox. The first council was appointed in September.
Henry used parliament a lot at the beginning of his reign and very seldomly at the end of it. He needed parliament to do two things for him in 1485. He needed them to swear an oath of allegiance to him, and he needed to raise taxes. (Taxes could not be raised without parliament's consent.)
Union of the Roses
Keeping true to the promise that he made in Rennes cathedral to the Yorkist supporters in the winter of 1483, Henry set about marrying Elizabeth of York. She was in fact the elder sister of the two princes that had disappeared while under the guardianship of Richard III. It was Elizabeth's mother, Elizabeth Woodville, who had really pressed for the match.
But the marriage had to be delayed. As far as the church was concerned, Henry and Elizabeth were too closely related to marry without dispensation (special permission) from the Pope. (Elizabeth's grandmother was a Beaufort.) The Pope granted this dispensation on the grounds that the two were marrying in order to put an end to the conflicts between the two houses. They were married on the 16th January 1486.
Rivals and Rebellions
The Yorkist threat: the de la Poles
There was a branch of the Yorkist family tree that survived Bosworth and the events that followed. The sons of Elizabeth of York, that is the new Queen's great aunt, survived.
One, John, supported the pretender Lambert Simnel, but came to a sticky end in the Battle of Stoke, 1487. Another, Edmund, challengingly known as 'The White Rose', fled to the Low countries where he was welcomed by the Burgundy court. He was handed over to Henry in the early 1500s as part of an Anglo-Burgundy peace treaty, and promptly banged up in the Tower of London, later to be executed by Henry VIII. Richard, the youngest of the sons, stayed abroad, but was killed at Pavia in 1525.
These three brothers must have been a real worry for the King, especially as they had support from the influential Burgundy court. They must have been like loose cannons to Henry's security.
Lambert Simnel
We now move on to the two pretenders. Both of the attempts by Lambert Simnel and the Perkin Warbeck seem like fanciful tales, rather than historical truth. You couldn't make up more bizarre stories about attempts to usurp the King. But we must be careful not to be too flippant about these two uprisings, as they must have alarmed Henry considerably.
Lambert Simnel was a dead ringer for the Earl of Warwick, and so he claimed to be this grandson of Edward IV. He secured the support of Margaret of Burgundy (always a supporter of Yorkist claimants) and John de la Pole. He made his way with 2000 mercenaries to Ireland, where he was crowned King of England, and then to England. He landed on the Lancashire coast, where the families that had supported Richard III and had suffered hardship under Henry met him. To Henry, the threat was very real, he had no way of assessing the amount of support Simnel had mustered on his route south. These forces met the King's army at Stoke on 24th May 1487, where they suffered a complete defeat. But it wasn't until 1497 that Simnel was handed over to Henry. Two years later he made his way to the scaffold.
There was a rather large flaw in the plans of Lambert Simnel. The real Earl of Warwick had been in Henry's custody since he became King. There was no way that he could have been Edward Warwick. He was in fact the son of a joiner from Oxford! Henry considered him harmless and, instead of being executed, he was allowed to live out his life in the royal kitchens.
Perkin Warbeck
Like Lambert Simnel, Perkin Warbeck claimed to be an heir to the throne of England. He was a Flemish man, and like Simnel had the backing of a foreign country. This time it was France. The French King, Charles VIII was eager to distract Henry away from his designs on Brittany. In addition, Warbeck also secured Scottish aid. James IV welcomed Warbeck in 1495, marrying him to a rich Scottish aristocrat.
However, in 1497, Henry renewed a truce with Scotland and James was forced to abandon his Flemish pretender. Warbeck fled to the south of England, and was arrested while trying to escape from the port of Southampton.
Initially, Henry showed clemency. But he abused this clemency and was executed in November 1499.
This saw the last of the pretenders, and from this point onwards Henry ruled in relative security.
The Cornish Rebellion
John Guy says that this was Henry's major threat, and so it was. This time the threat was not of a dynastic nature, it was a tax riot that turned into full-scale rebellion.
The tax riot began in Cornwall in 1497. The Cornishmen felt that it was unfair that they should be taxed to fund a campaign in Scotland, and that by tradition the northern counties should bear the brunt of this taxation.
The riot quickly grew into a rebellion as 15 000 rebels marched to Exeter, Salisbury, Winchester, and then on to Kent.
The threat to the capital was so severe that London was called to arms. On the 17th June, the rebels faced the King's forces at Blackheath - only a few miles away from London, and dangerously close to the royal arsenal at Greenwich. Thousands were slain and the three ringleaders, Michael Joseph, James Touchet and Lord Audley were captured, taken to the tower, tried and executed. Their heads were raised on poles on London Bridge as a warning to others who considered insurrection as a form of protest.
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