He had, Bacon added, much to be suspicious about, "his times" being "full of secret conspiracies and troubles". Henry showed remarkable clemency to the surviving rebels: he pardoned Kildare and the other Irish nobles, and he made the boy, Simnel, a servant in the royal kitchen where he was in charge of roasting meats on a spit. Reading this, I got a much better understanding of where Henry VIII came from, and why he was destined to be the colorful ruler he became, as an antidote to his own father. Thus, Henry Tudor had no choice but to gather together an army including mercenary soldiers as well as his own supporters, and he landed in Wales in August, 1485. The Field of Cloth of Gold: Royal Revelry. Moneywise, King Henry the VII was frugal and careful with money. He died shortly afterwards in Carmarthen Castle. Iain Hollingshead reviews Henry VII: Winter King, a BBC Two documentary which examines how the first Tudor monarch came to power and went on to have a 23-year reign. [citation needed] John Cabot, originally from Genoa and Venice, had heard that ships from Bristol had discovered uncharted new found territory far west of Ireland. ||sitemap_index.xml On one side of the coin, instead of a profile of his face, there was a full length depiction of Henry sat on his throne with his crown and sceptre. After obtaining the dispensation, Henry had second thoughts about the marriage of his son and Catherine. He was the last king of England to win . Happy St Davids Day! [7] He came from an old, established Anglesey family that claimed descent from Cadwaladr, in legend, the last ancient British king,[8] and on occasion Henry displayed the red dragon of Cadwaladr. Detailed Information. In the late 20th century a model of European state formation was prominent in which Henry less resembles Louis and Ferdinand. [68] In 1505 he was sufficiently interested in a potential marriage to Joanna of Naples that he sent ambassadors to Naples to report on the 27-year-old Joanna's physical suitability. [63] Despite this, Henry was keen to constrain their power and influence, applying the same principles to the justices of the peace as he did to the nobility: a similar system of bonds and recognisances to that which applied to both the gentry and the nobles who tried to exert their elevated influence over these local officials. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. In 1501, England had been ravaged for decades by conspiracy, coups . His early reign was plagued by pretenders to the throne, giving the new Tudor dynasty a rocky start and a fear of conspiracy which dogged Henry VII throughout his life. It was not until 1506, when he imprisoned Suffolk in the Tower of London, that Henry could at last feel safe. Henry VII of England - Wikipedia Henry's father, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, a half-brother of Henry VI of England and a member of the Welsh Tudors of Penmynydd, died three months before his son Henry was born. Henry restored power and stability to the English monarchy following the civil war. [29] Henry secured his crown principally by dividing and undermining the power of the nobility, especially through the aggressive use of bonds and recognisances to secure loyalty. In 1485 Henry landed at Milford Haven in Wales and advanced toward London. He explained how Henry VII had achieved what he set out to do, he had passed on the crown successfully. One of their sons was Edmund, Henry's father. Henry VIII - Tudor History The new prince was the embodiment of the red and white rose, he was the Tudor rose incarnate. Henry VII was king of England from 1485 to 1509. For many he remained a usurper, a false king. Henry VII (28 January 1457 - 21 April 1509) was King of England from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death in 1509. [47], Henry VII's policy was to maintain peace and to create economic prosperity. It was no easy feat. Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England For many he remained a usurper, a false king. Wales was historically a Lancastrian stronghold, and Henry owed the support he gathered to his Welsh birth and ancestry, being agnatically descended from Rhys ap Gruffydd. Then in 1491 appeared a still more serious menace: Perkin Warbeck, coached by Margaret to impersonate Richard, the younger son of Edward IV. Claiming the throne by just title of inheritance and by the judgment of God in battle, he was crowned on October 30 and secured parliamentary recognition of his title early in November. How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! There were some sections I had to skim because I didn't feel they were relevant to the storyline, but mostly I was hooked into this very complex King. It took Henry, who in any case needed to marry her if the expected issue was to solve the succession problem, some six years to achieve their joint purpose. Henry VII introduced stability to the financial administration of England by keeping the same financial advisors throughout his reign. Henry was the only child of Edmund Tudor , Earl of Richmond , and Margaret Beaufort . Henry's original head was cut out of the painting and replaced at some point after the work's creation. Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England - Goodreads Stanley was accused of supporting Warbeck's cause, arrested and later executed. Four different kinds of cryptocurrencies you should know. Shakespeare, drawn to the colour on either side of the reign, skipped it. Coinage of Henry VII of England | Mintage World When they married in 1396 they already had four children, including Henry's great-grandfather John Beaufort. Henry VII is usually treated as a charmless and thrifty prelude to the big reign of Henry VIII, with the inevitable marriage of Henry and Catherine of Aragon, and the reversal of his father's bully policies for a golden age of chivalry and, you know, all the crazy shit Henry VIII was about to do. [43] According to the contemporary historian Polydore Vergil, simple "greed" underscored the means by which royal control was over-asserted in Henry's final years. The last few years of his reign were ones of repression. [21], Henry devised a plan to seize the throne by engaging Richard quickly because Richard had reinforcements in Nottingham and Leicester. [53] Later on, Henry had exchanged letters with Pope Julius II in 1507, in which he encouraged him to establish peace among Christian realms, and to organise an expedition against the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. Overblown prose trumpeting his reign seemed to be the order of the day. For him, it was never about glory and battle. So Henry was a valuable bargaining tool, whose fate always depended on what relations were between England and France, always tainted by the recent Hundred Years War, and how Brittany sought to ward off threats to its own independence. Why was Henry VII called the "Winter King"? - Quora If Penn's interpretation can sometimes seem slanted, its exposition would be hard to over-praise. Thomas Penn's Winter King is not really a biography of Henry VII, and more a study of what he was directing his government to do in his name. [a] Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a descendant of the Lancastrian branch of the House of Plantagenet. Today is Shrove Tuesday time for pancakes! [32], Next, in 1487, Yorkists led by Lincoln rebelled in support of Lambert Simnel, a boy they claimed to be Edward of Warwick (who was actually a prisoner in the Tower). It is a sobering reflection for professional historians that the apparently unpromising territory of Henry's reign has recently produced two memorable books, both of them written outside their ranks: this one, and Ann Wroe's biography of the pretender, Perkin (2003), a longer work on a shorter subject. Local gentry saw the office as one of local influence and prestige and were therefore willing to serve. Henry had only been accepted as King because the Princes in the Tower, the sons of Edward IV, were dead, so when Yorkist exiles groomed Perkin Warbeck to pose as one of the princes and raised an army it was a huge threat. Henry VII Facts, Information & Biography - Tudor Monarchs - English History BBC Two - Henry VII: The Winter King, Backdating Henry's reign [citation needed], All Acts of Parliament were overseen by the justices of the peace. No. Stanley placed Richards circlet on Henrys head, he was now King. She was Edward's heir since the presumed death of her brothers, the Princes in the Tower, King Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. And yet this time removed was summer's time, The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widow'd wombs after their lords . [42], The capriciousness and lack of due process that indebted many would tarnish his legacy and were soon ended upon Henry VII's death, after a commission revealed widespread abuses. Shakespeare, drawn to the colour on either side of the reign, skipped it. He likens the beginning of Henry VIIIs reign to a metaphorical spring, a second coming of sorts because Henry VIII seemed to be the opposite of his father. She was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (fourth son of Edward III), and his third wife Katherine Swynford. He took care not to address the baronage or summon Parliament until after his coronation, which took place in Westminster Abbey on 30 October 1485. I had an idea Henry VII was a force for stability; in fact he was a terrifying kleptocrat, abusing the law with arbitrary fines and imprisonment, scheming to effectively steal entire estates and wring every penny out of subjects as well as impose political control through financial means. There's a lot of cloak-and-dagger stuff here, something Henry and certain of his counselors seemed especially skilled at, and it was those parts that I particularly enjoyed. Its restoration by the Magnus Intercursus was very much to England's benefit in removing taxation for English merchants and significantly increasing England's wealth. He was the founder of the Tudor dynasty, and his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville brought together the too sides that were facing off during the Wars of the Roses (the Lancasters and the Yorks) basically uniting the two houses into a single family. Penn went on to show Henry VIIs wax funeral effigy, which I saw on my recent trip to London, and which shows his fine-boned features and his crooked eye, but also a face bearing the signs of stress and illness. Penn's picture of a reign of terror carries disturbing echoes of the Roman historian Tacitus's account of the emperor Tiberius, another ruler whose abridgements of liberty followed an era of civil strife. The reigns of his three predecessors were interrupted or foreshortened. He stabilised the government's finances by introducing several new taxes. He is credited with many administrative, economic and diplomatic initiatives. But Henry had a crucial asset: his queen and their children, the living embodiment of his hoped-for dynasty. [13] When the Yorkist Edward IV regained the throne in 1471, Henry fled with other Lancastrians to Brittany. Wow, it was like being battered by facts without remission for good intentions. Claiming to be Edward, earl of Warwick, the son of Richard IIIs elder brother, George, duke of Clarence, he had the formidable support of John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, Richard IIIs heir designate, of many Irish chieftains, and of 2,000 German mercenaries paid for by Margaret of Burgundy. Story's register still exists and, according to the 19th-century historian W.R.W. Edward would have liked to rid himself of Henry, a rival to his throne, but Francis kept Henry safe. Henry Tudors claim to the throne was, therefore, weak and of no importance until the deaths in 1471 of Henry VIs only son, Edward, of his own two remaining kinsmen of the Beaufort line, and of Henry VI himself, which suddenly made Henry Tudor the sole surviving male with any ancestral claim to the house of Lancaster. Henry, recognizing that Simnel had been a mere dupe, employed him in the royal kitchens. Doubtless the plotters were encouraged by the deaths of Henrys sons in 1500 and 1502 and of his wife in 1503. ), The Reign of Henry VII. He spent his entire reign fixated on eliminating or disarming his enemies, and stabilizing England after the bloody, seemingly endless War of the Roses. The future Henry VIII, in contrast,. [69] The wedding never took place, and the physical description Henry sent with his ambassadors of what he desired in a new wife matched the description of his wife Elizabeth. Philip died shortly after the negotiations. He attained the throne when his forces, supported by France, Scotland, and Wales, defeated Edward IV's brother Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the culmination of the Wars of the Roses. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). There are an awful lot of books written about the Tudor era, both fiction and non-fiction, so you have to ask whether this book adds anything new. 7.1 59min 2013 16+. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. His first chance came in 1483 when his aid was sought to rally Lancastrians in support of the rebellion of Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, but that revolt was defeated before Henry could land in England. After the Holy Roman Emperor . Warbeck was finally captured in 1497 and executed. Watch Henry VII: The Winter King | Prime Video - amazon.com [citation needed], To secure his hold on the throne, Henry declared himself king by right of conquest retroactively from 21 August 1485, the day before Bosworth Field. Henry VII: The Winter King. [citation needed], Henry's most successful diplomatic achievement as regards the economy was the Magnus Intercursus ("great agreement") of 1496. He had gone from a refugee landing on an isolated beach in Wales to being a great king. Happy 14th Birthday to the Anne Boleyn Files! Henry gained the support of the Woodvilles, in-laws of the late Edward IV, and sailed with a small French and Scottish force, landing at Mill Bay near Dale, Pembrokeshire. [citation needed], Henry also made some political capital out of his Welsh ancestry in attracting military support and safeguarding his army's passage through Wales on its way to the Battle of Bosworth. Since we are in the middle of winter, Ive been thinking of a volume on my shelves on Henry VII, who could be called the Winter King. He was probably baptised at St Mary's Church, Pembroke,[1] though no documentation of the event exists. Henry VII The Winter King is also the title of a book by Thomas Penn, and a useful read. Fittingly he dressed in expensive black. His claim to the throne was tenuous and permanently contested. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. He created the sovereign coin to spread the message that he was King. [48], Henry later concluded a treaty with France at Etaples that brought money into the coffers of England, and ensured the French would not support pretenders to the English throne, such as Perkin Warbeck. Old rivalries simmered, however. Still, as Penn observes, the national sense of relief in 1509 was palpable. All the information is from Thomas Penn. Penn showed a genealogical roll that had belonged to the de la Pole family which showed Henry VI being the end of the Lancastrian line and the Yorkist line continuing on to Richard III. He invited artists, musicians and scholars to live at his court. Indeed he was born in winter, on January 28th 1457, in Pembroke Castle, in Wales and that is one of the reasons why the Welsh dragon always formed part of his insignia. During his 23-year reign, Henry had only two Lord High Treasurers, and this continuity helped provide stability. Penn explained that the marriage had been one of genuine love and that Henry was shattered by his wifes death. Henry VII | Biography & Facts | Britannica Henry VII is known for successfully ending the War of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York and for founding the Tudor dynasty. In that, he was quite successful, but he was neither loved nor admired. For inheriting an unstable throne, holding it for 25 year and leaving England relatively stable, Henry VII deserves his own biography and a lot more credit. Even if the king outfaced his enemies in his lifetime, would they not forestall a Tudor succession? With the English economy heavily invested in wool production, Henry VII became involved in the alum trade in 1486. By 1600 historians emphasised Henry's wisdom in drawing lessons in statecraft from other monarchs. This revived an earlier practice of using a small (and trusted) group of the Privy Council as a personal or Prerogative Court, able to cut through the cumbersome legal system and act swiftly. Henry was devastated. Henry VII: Winter King, BBC Two, review - The Telegraph [44] Following Henry VII's death, Henry VIII executed Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, his two most hated tax collectors, on trumped-up charges of treason. The Great Debasement (1544-1551) was a currency debasement policy introduced in 1544 England under the order of Henry VIII which saw the amount of precious metal in gold and silver coins reduced and in some cases replaced entirely with cheaper base metals such as copper. Here is a rundown of the programme for those who missed it. Henry started a new policy to recover Guyenne and other lost Plantagenet claims in France. He had enough of that getting himself to the throne. Henry VII was also shown, but his black line just traced back to Owen Tudor, a chamber servant. The Treaty of Redon was signed in February 1489 between Henry and representatives of Brittany. [41] Henry also increased wealth by acquiring land through the act of resumption of 1486 which had been delayed as he focused on defence of the Church, his person and his realm. [49] The confused, fractious nature of Breton politics undermined his efforts, which finally failed after three sizeable expeditions, at a cost of 24,000. [74] Margaret Tudor wrote letters to her father declaring her homesickness, but Henry could do nothing but mourn the loss of his family and honour the terms of the peace treaty he had agreed to with the King of Scotland. In 1497 Warbeck landed in Cornwall with a few thousand troops, but was soon captured and executed. Henry VIII Books Exploring the Best Books on Englands Most Infamous King, 18 February 1516 The birth of Queen Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. [62], Henry VII used justices of the peace on a large, nationwide scale. Two themes of his book preside: the permanent vulnerability of Henry's regime, and his ruthless methods of rule. [70] Henry VII falls among the minority of British monarchs that never had any known mistresses, and for the times, it is very unusual that he did not remarry: his son Henry was the only male heir left after the death of his wife, thus the death of Arthur created a precarious political position for the House of Tudor. The nobility was forced into bonds, legal agreements that they would act as the King wanted or be fined. People saw him as being like a traditional king and hoped that his reign would bring positive change. But definitely rewarding! [75], Henry VII died of tuberculosis at Richmond Palace on 21 April 1509 and was buried in the chapel he commissioned in Westminster Abbey next to his wife, Elizabeth. Pembroke Castle, and later the Earldom of Pembroke, were granted to the Yorkist William Herbert, who also assumed the guardianship of Margaret Beaufort and the young Henry.

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