Henry VII of England (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) was King of England from 22 August 1485 to 21 April 1509, succeeding Richard III and preceding Henry VIII. He was the first Tudor monarch, having defeated and slain Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field during the Wars of the Roses.
Biography[]
Henry praying before the Battle of Bosworth Field
Henry was born in Pembroke Castle, Pembrokeshire, Wales on 28 January 1457, the son of Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond and Margaret Beaufort. Henry's mother was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, making him a claimant to the throne of England. By 1483, Henry was the only remaining Lancastrian claimant to the throne, as all of the others had been killed or defeated during the Wars of the Roses. At Rennes Cathedral on 25 December 1483, Henry pledged to marry the eldest daughter of King Edward IV of England, Elizabeth of York, and the marriage united the House of York and the Lancastrian House of Tudor. In 1485, he invaded England with a small French and Scottish force, but his army rose to 5,000 troops after his family's supporters in Wales backed him. In the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485, Henry battled King Richard III of England's army, and many of Richard's supporters left the battlefield at crucial moments or switched sides. Henry won his throne on the field of battle, and Richard was slain. Henry then carried out his promise to marry Elizabeth of York, ending the feud.
Reign[]
As King, Henry sought to restore stability to the country, which had been fragmented as a result of the disaster of the Hundred Years' War and feuds between the major families. In 1487, he defeated the last of the Yorkists, led by John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln, at the Battle of Stoke. In 1490, Perkin Warbeck landed in England and became the impostor of Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, and he attempted invasions of Ireland in 1491 and England in 1495. In 1496, he persuaded James IV of Scotland to invade England, but Warbeck's rebellion in Cornwall was crushed in 1497, and Warbeck was executed two years later.
In foreign policy, King Henry strengthened the Royal Navy, married his son Arthur, Prince of Wales to Catherine of Aragon, concluded a treaty of perpetual peace with Scotland, betrothed his daughter Margaret Tudor to King James IV, formed an alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and declared war on France in 1496 during the Italian War of 1494-98 (although there was little to no fighting between the two nations). Henry also supported the British Isles' wool industry, allowing for England to prosper in trade.
King Henry VII died at Richmond Palace in Surrey on 21 April 1509 at the age of 52. He was succeeded as King by his son, King Henry VIII of England, who married the late Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon.