Henry Tudor (ruled 1485-1509) traced his royal blood through his mother, Margaret Beaufort, who was a descendant ofJohn ofGaunt, the younger son of Edward III (ruled 1327-1377). After the death of Henry, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI (ruled 1470-1471), in 1471, Henry Tudor was the surviving male heir of the house of Lancaster. In 1485 he deposed the usurper, Richard III (ruled 14831485) at the Battle of Bosworth Field, and was crowned Henry VII. Henry survived numerous plots early in his reign but seemed secure on the throne by 1500. His heir, Prince Arthur (born 1486) died in 1502 and his brother, Henry, duke of York, succeeded to the throne in April 1509 as Henry VIII, shortly after marrying his brother’s widow, Catherine of Arag(Sn. Henry’s desire for a male heir led him, in the late 1520s, to seek a divorce from his wife. This could only be achieved by breaking with the Roman Catholic Church and thus heralded the beginning of the English Reformation.
Henry died in 1547, leaving the throne to Edward VI, his nine-year-old son by his third wife, Jane Seymour. Edward actively supported Protestant reform but on his premature death in 1553, the throne passed to his elder sister, Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Arag(Sn, despite efforts to place the Protestant Lady Jane Grey on the throne. Mary restored Catholicism and in 1554 married the Spanish prince, who became King Philip II in 1556. Mary died childless in 1558 and the throne passed to Elizabeth, Henry VIII’s daughter by his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth again broke from Rome and asserted her authority by refusing to marry or name her successor. The second half of Elizabeth’s reign was dominated by war with Spain from 1585 over English support for Philip’s rebellious Dutch subjects. Elizabeth survived the plots of her Stuart rival, Mary, Queen of Scots (whom she had executed in 1587) and the Spanish Armada of 1588. Despite a decade of war, factional intrigue at court, and economic crisis, it was Elizabeth’s greatest achievement to pass the throne peacefully to her chosen successor, James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England in 1603.
See also Church of England; Edward VI (England); Elizabeth I (England); England; Henry VII (England); Henry VIII (England); James I and VI (England and Scotland); Mary I (England); Stuart Dynasty (England and Scotland).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brigden, Susan. New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485-1603. London, 2000.
Guy, John. Tudor England. Oxford, 1988.
David Grummitt
World History
