If you’re writing a book, and want a bit of publicity for it, sometimes you have to throw out a chapter for people to look at. Not that I know who will look at it, given that this site had 13 views last week.
Anyway, here you go.
Henry VII (Henry Tudor)
Lived: 1457 – 1509
Reigned: 1485 – 1509
Henry 7 was actually a descendant of the clandestine marriage between Catherine of Valois, widow of Henry V, and Owen Tudor, a member of a lesser Welsh family. He invested considerable resources in attempting to prove his lineage traced back to King Arthur, even naming his firstborn son Arthur to reinforce this claim.
Throughout his reign, Henry faced several pretenders to the throne but bolstered his legitimacy by marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, who Richard III had uncharacteristically forgotten to kill.
This marriage united the houses of Lancaster and York, symbolized by the Tudor Rose, which combined the red rose of Lancaster with the white rose of York. The Tudor Rose remains the floral emblem of England today. Elizabeth also introduced the characteristic red headed Tudor trait. She was intelligent, attractive, pious, and well-loved by the people, and although she wielded little political influence, Henry held her in great esteem.
Unlike many monarchs of the era, Henry appears to have remained faithful to Elizabeth throughout their marriage. Historians have found no credible evidence of any mistresses, and the only rumored illegitimate child was fathered before their union. Together, they had several children, with their firstborn arriving just eight months after the wedding. When their eldest son died as a teenager, Henry and Elizabeth shared their grief, though they coped in different ways.
Elizabeth encouraged Henry to try for another child, but tragically, the birth of this child led to her own death on her 37th birthday. Her passing left Henry devastated. He fell into deep mourning and became gravely ill, allowing only his mother near him—an unusual display of vulnerability for the otherwise stoic king, which alarmed the court. Though still young enough to remarry, Henry showed little interest in doing so. Even when he permitted his advisers to seek a new bride, his list of requirements resembled Elizabeth so closely that they knew it was impossible to find her equal. Henry remained a widower for the rest of his life, cherishing the memory of Elizabeth as his beloved wife and mother of his children.
The deaths of Henry’s wife, Elizabeth, and their eldest son, Arthur, within a year of each other seemed to deeply affect him. Afterward, Henry grew noticeably harsher toward his nobles and the general populace, and he himself passed away only a few years later. He was laid to rest next to Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey, in a chapel named in his honor.
Today, Henry VII is often seen as a stable, albeit somewhat dull, leader. However, this perception stems from comparisons to his more flamboyant and dynamic son, Henry VIII. In reality, Henry VII was a shrewd, cautious, and competent ruler, which was exactly what England needed after the chaos of civil war. Yet, some historians argue that Henry may have contributed to rekindling the Wars of the Roses, as Yorkists with stronger claims to the throne made repeated attempts to overthrow him. These threats prompted Henry to eradicate the male line of York. Ironically, Sir William Stanley, who had once supported Henry at the Battle of Bosworth, was executed for allegedly conspiring with one of the pretenders.
In a rare moment of mercy, Henry spared one of these pretenders, Lambert Simnel, a ten-year-old commoner who resembled the deceased Yorkist princes and was used as a puppet by rebel nobles. Henry recognized that Simnel, as a child, could not have masterminded the rebellion and instead gave him a position in the royal kitchens rather than executing him. Henry extended this clemency to the next pretender, Perkin Warbeck. However, when Warbeck attempted to escape – possibly to reignite rebellion – he was quickly recaptured, tortured, and hanged.
Henry is also remembered for being one of the few monarchs to leave the treasury fuller at the end of his reign than at its start, earning him the nickname “The Tight-Fisted Tudor” due to his rigorous taxation policies. In one controversial instance, he taxed his subjects for the knighting of his son Arthur—after Arthur had already died. While Henry’s wealth was gained through frugality, it also came from practices that bordered on extortion, and many of his lords regarded his methods as outright exploitative.
Under Henry, the use of the Star Chamber, a court used to address contentious and often extralegal matters, grew significantly. His reliance on the chamber to swiftly resolve issues of extortion or political suppression became a hallmark of the Tudor dynasty’s governance style.
Henry VII died of tuberculosis.
There is an urban legend that the Queen of Hearts in a standard pack of playing cards is based on Elizabeth of York, at the insistence of the King. Quite a romantic gesture, and not something that his one surviving son, and the next monarch would do, even though out of the four Queens in a deck, he had six candidates to choose from.
