Moonday’s Heroic Hunk: King Henry VII of England

     This Moonday’s Heroic Hunk in History is King Henry VII of England (as in father of Henry VIII). He was the last king of England to assume the throne by right of conquest when he defeated Richard III at 

Bust of Henry VII

 

Bosworth Field in 1485. His father Edmund was the son of the widowed Queen Catherine Valois by a liaison with a member of her household, Owen Tudor. Through his mother, Henry was also descended from John of Gaunt (Edward III’s son), through the latter’s illicit affair with Catherine Swynford.
     Edmund, the Earl of Richmond, married Margaret Beaufort when she was only twelve years old. Henry was born in 1457 when Margaret was thirteen and after the death of his imprisoned father. Although Margaret married twice again, she never had more children and participated little in raising Henry. Henry’s uncle, Jasper, was primarily responsible for raising him and arranging the diplomatic ties that gained him the throne.
     Henry married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV and great-granddaughter (on the legitimate side of the blanket) in 1486—but crowned her his Queen 

Elizabeth of York

 

 only after she produced a male heir. The unification of the houses of York and Lancaster by the marriage is symbolized by the heraldic emblem of the Tudor rose, a combination of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster.
     After he disposed of the Pretenders to the English throne through execution (Lambert Simnel) and demotion to the kitchen (Perking Warbeck), Henry began a series of innovations that strengthened the monarchy by weakening the power of the nobility. He established the Court of the Star Chamber to increase royal involvement in civil and criminal cases. As an alternative to a revenue tax disbursement from Parliament, he imposed forced loans and grants on the nobility. He also created the Committee of the Privy Council as an executive advisory board, a forerunner of the modern cabinet.
      Henry was not popular with the common people and was regarded as grasping and stingy. He subsidized ship building and entering into lucrative trade agreements to increase the wealth of both crown and nation. He also enacted laws against livery and maintenance, the great lords’ practice of having large numbers of “retainers” who wore their lord’s badge or uniform and formed a potential private army. The laws were used to levy fines on those that he perceived as threats and to increase the wealth of the Tudors.
     Henry’s marriage which was reportedly successful produced four surviving children: Arthur, Henry, Margaret and Mary. Arthur married Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. When Arthur died within months, Henry-though personally devastated-secured a papal dispensation for Catherine to marry Arthur’s brother, the future Henry VIII. The marriage of Henry’s daughter, Margaret, to James IV of Scotland connected the royal families of both England and Scotland led to the Stuarts claims to the English throne. His other daughter, Mary, married first the heir of France and later the Duke of Brandon (the ancestors of Lady Jane Grey). 

The Royal Family

Prince Arthur

 

     Elizabeth who had a mother-in-law from hell in Margaret Beaufort had little political influence but the couple cared for each other. When their son Arthur died-leaving only one son, she became pregnant again to insure the succession. Unfortunately, in 1503 she died from a postpartum infection and her daughter died also. Her otherwise cheap husband spared no expense at her funeral. Henry did not remarry and he lies next to Elizabeth in his chapel in Westminster. By the time of his death in 1509, he had amassed a personal fortune of £1.25 million (£648 million as of 2010). Next week, more Tudors. RitaVF

Before the Tudors: The War of the Roses

Henry IV

 

This week we meet the Tudors. The Tudor family origins can be traced back to the widowed Queen Catherine Valois’s liaison with a member of her household, Owen Tudor. Catherine Valois, a daughter of the mad King of France, married the English King Henry V (of Joan of Arc fame) in 1420. Two years later, Henry died of dysentery (the curse of the battlefield) and Catherine returned to England with her young son who was crowned Henry VI of England.
     Catherine was kept under close supervision to prevent her remarriage, since her heirs by English standards had some rights of succession to the throne of France (despite the fact that France adhered to Salic Law which disallowed inheritance of women to the throne). Not close enough, however, because Owen fathered four or five children (depending on the source) before their relationship (and children) was discovered. Catherine was sent to a convent where she died soon afterwards and Owen was arrested and imprisoned but later released to live out a full life.   King Henry VI, Queen Catherine’s son, was a pathetic king who suffered fits of madness. They had one child—Edward—in 1453. Edward’s Queen-Margaret of Anjou-ruled in his stead-under the banner of the Lancastrians whose emblem was a red rose. The Duke of York whose emblem was the white rose opposed Henry and Margaret and sought the crown for himself. In the War of the Roses, possession of the King alternated between the Yorkists and Lancastrians with Earl Warwick-the Kingmaker-pulling the strings. When Prince Edward- the King’s only child-was killed after the Battle of Tewkesbury and King Henry most likely murdered later, the Yorkists under Edward IV Plantagenet gained the throne.  

Wedding of Henry & Catherine

 

     Edward was well-liked but had problems with women. He was a known seducer of women, married or unmarried. He secretly married a beautiful widow, Elizabeth Woodville (from a Lancastrian family), despite a previous betrothal which placed in question the legitimacy of their 10 children. When Edward died at 42, his brother Richard stepped in as regent for his young son Edward V.  Richard, however, declared his nephew Edward illegitimate and took the crown for himself. Richard III imprisoned young King Edward and his brother Richard the Duke of York in the Tower. The Young Princes in the Tower were most likely smothered by Sir James Tyrrell and their bodies buried beneath a staircase.
     King Richard fell to the Lancastrians at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 where Shakespeare famously had him running around the field yelling “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.” Henry Tudor won the throne by right of conquest with only tenuous lines of inheritance. King Henry VII’s descendents—Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth—ruled England in its Golden Age. More next week on the Tudors.  RitaVF