Henry VII (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509), also known as Henry Tudor, became King of England and Lord of Ireland when he seized the crown on 22 August 1485. He remained king until his death in 1509. As the first monarch of the House of Tudor, Henry established a dynasty that would rule England for more than a century.
Henry was born at Pembroke Castle in Wales on 28 January 1457. His parents were Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, and Lady Margaret Beaufort. His father was the half-brother of the Lancastrian king Henry VI, while his mother descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and son of Edward III. Henry therefore based his claim to the throne on the Lancastrian line, although that claim was far from straightforward.
Wars of the Roses
His father died three months before Henry’s birth. The Wars of the Roses consequently shaped Henry’s childhood, as the rival Lancastrian and Yorkist branches of the Plantagenet dynasty fought a series of civil wars for control of England. Henry’s uncle, Jasper Tudor, raised him and fought throughout his life to restore the House of Lancaster. Henry also spent part of his childhood under the guardianship of William Herbert, a powerful Yorkist supporter.
When Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians and secured the throne, Henry’s position became increasingly dangerous. After Edward restored his rule in 1471, Henry fled England with Jasper and spent the next fourteen years in exile in the Duchy of Brittany.
For a man who would eventually become king, Henry spent remarkably little of his early life looking like one.
He had no powerful English army behind him, no secure kingdom waiting for him and a claim to the crown weaker than those of several members of the Yorkist dynasty. His greatest advantage was simply that he remained alive while the political situation around him continued to change.
The opportunity
That situation changed again after Edward IV died in 1483. Edward’s young son became Edward V, but his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, soon removed the boy from power and took the throne as Richard III. Richard confined Edward V and his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, in the Tower of London. The two princes then disappeared from public life, and their eventual fate remains one of the great unresolved mysteries of English history.
Richard’s accession created an opportunity for Henry Tudor.
With support from Lancastrian followers and opponents of Richard III, Henry returned to England in August 1485. He landed in Wales and marched eastwards, gathering supporters as he moved. On 22 August, his army met Richard’s at Bosworth Field in Leicestershire.
Richard III died during the battle.
Henry Tudor had won.
He was now King Henry VII.
From victory to dynasty
Yet winning the crown was only the beginning of Henry’s problem. He had taken the throne on a battlefield, while the kingdom he inherited had spent decades watching kings lose their crowns through violence. Richard’s death did not automatically make Henry’s position secure.
Henry understood this.
He received his coronation at Westminster on 30 October 1485, and in January 1486 he married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV. Their marriage united the two rival dynastic lines and gave the new Tudor monarchy a powerful symbol of reconciliation after the Wars of the Roses.
Henry’s reign would now become a long attempt to turn a victory into a dynasty.
He would have to deal with rebellions, rival claimants, powerful nobles, foreign rulers and the enormous financial demands of maintaining royal authority. He also had to govern a country that had spent much of the previous century fighting over who had the right to govern it.
Henry VII’s importance lies here.
He was not simply the man who defeated Richard III at Bosworth. He was the man who took a precarious claim, a fragile victory and a deeply divided kingdom and spent the next twenty-four years making the monarchy his own.
Ancestry and early life
Henry Tudor was born on 28 January 1457 at Pembroke Castle, in Pembrokeshire, Wales. His mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, was only thirteen years old. His father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, was twenty-six. Edmund had already been captured while fighting for the Lancastrian cause. He died at Carmarthen Castle three months before his son was born. Margaret then had to raise Henry without his father.
Henry’s family history was unusually complicated for a future king. His paternal grandfather was Owen Tudor, a Welshman from the Tudor family of Penmynydd on the Isle of Anglesey. Owen entered the service of King Henry V and rose to become one of the King’s squires. He fought at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and later became closely linked to the royal household.
Owen Tudor is traditionally said to have secretly married Catherine of Valois, the widow of Henry V. Their relationship produced several children, including Edmund Tudor, Henry’s father. Edmund later became Earl of Richmond, and Parliament formally recognised him as legitimate.
House of Lancaster
Henry’s maternal ancestry gave him his connection to the House of Lancaster. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and the fourth son of Edward III. Gaunt’s relationship with Katherine Swynford produced the Beaufort family. The children from that relationship later gained legitimacy, although Henry IV then declared that the Beauforts could not succeed to the throne.
This made Henry’s claim to the crown unusual.
He possessed royal blood, but he did not have a simple hereditary right to become king. His Lancastrian descent was real, yet the Beaufort exclusion weakened his legal position. By the time Henry reached adulthood, however, many stronger male claimants from the House of Lancaster had died in battle, been murdered or faced execution during the Wars of the Roses.
Henry therefore became the most important surviving male claimant of the Lancastrian cause.
Henry’s Welsh ancestry
His Welsh ancestry also helped him politically. The Tudor family came from Wales, and Henry could present himself as a member of an old Welsh family that claimed descent from Cadwaladr, a legendary ancient British king.
That connection became particularly valuable when Henry returned to Britain in 1485. He marched through Wales towards England and eventually Bosworth. Along the way, his Welsh heritage helped him attract military support.
The red dragon of Wales became associated with Henry’s cause. After his victory at Bosworth, he used the dragon alongside the standard of Saint George during his procession through London. Bernard André, a contemporary writer and one of Henry’s biographers, also emphasised his Welsh ancestry.
But Henry’s childhood was not spent as the obvious heir to a royal dynasty.
It was spent in the middle of a civil war.
A childhood shaped by war
In 1456, shortly before Henry was born, Edmund Tudor had been captured while fighting for Henry VI against the Yorkists in South Wales. He died soon afterwards at Carmarthen Castle. Edmund’s younger brother, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, then took responsibility for protecting Margaret and her unborn child.
When Edward IV took the throne in 1461, the Tudors stood on the losing side. Jasper went into exile, while Edward gave Pembroke Castle and the earldom to the Yorkist William Herbert. Herbert also became guardian of Margaret Beaufort and the young Henry.
Henry consequently grew up in the household of a man who supported the very dynasty opposed to his own family.
He remained with Herbert until 1469, when the political situation changed again. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker, abandoned Edward IV and joined the Lancastrian cause. Herbert was captured while fighting for the Yorkists and executed.
Jasper Tudor then returned from exile and brought Henry to the court of the restored Henry VI. For a brief period, the Lancastrians appeared to have recovered the throne.
It did not last.
Edward IV returned to power in 1471. He defeated the Lancastrians and destroyed the last serious resistance to Yorkist rule. Henry and Jasper fled England and crossed to Brittany. There, Henry spent most of the next fourteen years under the protection of Francis II, Duke of Brittany.
Henry was now fourteen years old
He had spent his childhood moving between rival political households. His family had repeatedly lost and regained power. His father was dead, his uncle was in exile, and the dynasty he represented had been defeated. England was under Yorkist control, and Henry had no obvious path back to the country.
Even in Brittany, his position remained uncertain.
In 1476, Francis II became seriously ill. Some of his advisers then became more willing to negotiate with Edward IV. Henry was handed over to English envoys and taken towards the Breton port of Saint-Malo, apparently so they could return him to England.
Henry, however, had no intention of making the journey easy.
While waiting at Saint-Malo, he claimed to suffer from severe stomach pains and delayed his departure. The delay made him miss the tide. Before the English could take him away, an ally of Henry’s, Jean du Quélennec, arrived with news that Duke Francis had recovered.
Henry escaped in the confusion.
He eventually sought sanctuary in a monastery. There he remained until the English envoys were forced to leave.
It was a small episode in Henry’s life, but it shows something that would become increasingly important. Henry had spent much of his youth without an army, without a kingdom and without any certainty that he would ever see England again.
What he did possess was patience.
He had learned how quickly political fortunes could change.
The Yorkists had defeated the Lancastrians. Edward IV had taken the throne. Henry had been sent into exile. Yet none of it had proved permanent. Kings had fallen before. Powerful men had changed sides. Entire dynasties had risen and collapsed within a single generation.
Henry was still alive.
And as long as he remained alive, the Lancastrian claim had not entirely disappeared.
Rise to the throne
By 1483, Henry’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, was actively promoting him as an alternative to Richard III, despite her marriage to Thomas Stanley, a powerful Yorkist lord. At Rennes Cathedral on Christmas Day 1483, Henry pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. After the presumed deaths of her brothers, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, Elizabeth had become the most important surviving heir of Edward IV.
The planned marriage gave Henry something more than a wife. It gave him a way to bring the rival Yorkist and Lancastrian claims together.
Henry soon made an attempt to return to England. With money and supplies borrowed from Francis II, Duke of Brittany, he prepared to land in England and challenge Richard III. The plan collapsed, however, and Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, one of his main supporters, was captured and executed.
Richard then tried to have Henry removed from Brittany. With the support of Francis II’s chief minister, Pierre Landais, Richard sought Henry’s extradition. Henry escaped to France before Richard could secure his return.
The French welcomed Henry and provided him with soldiers and equipment for another invasion. He also gained the support of the Woodville family, the relatives and political allies of Edward IV. Henry therefore had a stronger position when he made his second attempt to take the English crown.
Henry sailed from France with a small French and Scottish force and landed at Mill Bay, near Dale in Pembrokeshire. He was accompanied by his uncle Jasper Tudor and John de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
Wales gave Henry an important advantage
The region had long held strong Lancastrian sympathies, and Henry’s Welsh birth and Tudor ancestry helped him gather support as he moved through the country. His family also claimed descent from Rhys ap Gruffydd, giving Henry another connection to the Welsh past.
Henry’s force continued to grow as he marched towards England.
By the time he prepared to face Richard III, he had gathered an army of roughly 5,000 to 6,000 soldiers.
Henry knew that he needed to move quickly. Richard had reinforcements at Nottingham and Leicester, and every delay gave the king more time to strengthen his army. Henry therefore planned to force a battle before Richard could gather his full strength.
Bosworth Field
The two armies met at Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485.
Henry’s Lancastrian army was outnumbered, but Richard’s forces did not act as one. Several of Richard’s most important allies failed to commit themselves fully to the battle. Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, did not enter the fighting decisively, while Thomas Stanley and his brother William kept their forces apart from Richard’s army.
Their decisions would prove crucial.
As the battle developed, Stanley eventually committed his forces against Richard. Henry’s army defeated the Yorkists, and Richard III personally entered the fighting in an attempt to reach Henry.
Richard was killed on the battlefield.
Henry Tudor had won the crown.
Richard III’s death at Bosworth brought the Yorkist monarchy to an end and effectively closed the main period of the Wars of the Roses.
Henry had spent fourteen years in exile, crossed the Channel with a small army and entered England with no certainty that he would succeed.
On 22 August 1485, he left Bosworth as King Henry VII.
Reign
Henry’s first task after Bosworth was to secure his position as king. He declared himself king by right of conquest, dating his reign from 21 August 1485, the day before the battle. This allowed Henry to treat those who had fought for Richard III as traitors. He could also take Richard’s lands and property while restoring his own.
Henry did not punish every Yorkist who had opposed him. He spared John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, Richard’s nephew and designated heir. He also made the Yorkist heiress Margaret Plantagenet Countess of Salisbury in her own right. Henry was careful not to summon Parliament or formally deal with the barons until after his coronation.
Henry was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 30 October 1485. After his coronation, he promised that any gentleman who swore loyalty to him would remain secure in his person and property, regardless of any previous attainder.
In 1486, Henry fulfilled the promise he had made before Bosworth and married Elizabeth of York at Westminster Abbey. Henry was twenty-nine years old and Elizabeth was twenty. They were third cousins, as both descended from John of Gaunt. The marriage was intended to unite the rival Lancastrian and Yorkist sides of the Plantagenet dynasty and give the new Tudor monarchy a stronger foundation.
Titulus Regius
Henry also had Parliament repeal Titulus Regius, the statute that had declared Edward IV’s marriage invalid and his children illegitimate. The repeal restored Elizabeth’s legitimacy and strengthened the Yorkist side of the Tudor settlement. Henry’s own claim remained less straightforward, however, and he remained suspicious of anyone with a strong Plantagenet connection.
Henry therefore worked to weaken the power of the nobility and prevent another rebellion. He used bonds and recognisances to secure the loyalty of powerful subjects. He also introduced laws against livery and maintenance, practices that allowed great lords to keep large numbers of retainers who wore their lord’s badge or uniform and could form a potential private army.
Henry began taking precautions against rebellion almost immediately after Bosworth. While he remained in Leicester, he turned his attention to Edward, Earl of Warwick, the ten-year-old son of Edward IV’s brother, George, Duke of Clarence. Warwick was the senior surviving male member of the House of York.
Before Henry left for London, he sent Robert Willoughby to Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire to arrest Warwick and take him to the Tower of London. Henry understood that Warwick’s royal blood could make him a useful figure for Yorkist opponents who wanted to challenge the Tudor monarchy.
Despite these precautions, Henry faced several rebellions during the following years. The first came in 1486, when the Stafford brothers, supported by Viscount Lovell, attempted to challenge his rule. The rebellion collapsed without developing into a major battle.
In 1487, Yorkist supporters led by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, rebelled in support of Lambert Simnel, a young boy whom they claimed was Edward of Warwick. The claim was false because the real Edward of Warwick remained a prisoner in the Tower.
Irish rebellion
The rebellion began in Ireland, where the Yorkist nobility still held considerable influence. Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare, supported Simnel and provided troops for his invasion of England. The rebels eventually faced Henry’s army at the Battle of Stoke, where Henry defeated them and Lincoln was killed.
Henry showed considerable clemency towards the surviving rebels. He pardoned Kildare and several other Irish nobles. He also spared Lambert Simnel and brought him into the royal household, where the former pretender eventually worked in the royal kitchens.
In 1490, another pretender appeared. A young Fleming named Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, the younger of the two Princes in the Tower. Warbeck gained the support of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV. He attempted invasions of Ireland in 1491 and England in 1495, and persuaded James IV of Scotland to invade England in 1496 in support of his claim.
Cornwall
In 1497, Warbeck landed in Cornwall with several thousand troops. His rebellion failed, and he was eventually captured. Henry initially kept him alive, but Warbeck later became involved in an attempted escape and was executed in 1499.
The Warbeck affair also exposed a threat within Henry’s own household. The King’s agents searched the property of William Stanley, the King’s Chamberlain, and discovered around £10,000 in coins together with a Yorkist livery collar. Stanley was accused of supporting Warbeck, arrested and later executed. Henry responded by introducing stricter security around access to his person.
Henry’s fear of Plantagenet claimants eventually reached its most serious point in 1499. Edward, Earl of Warwick, who had spent much of his life as a prisoner in the Tower, was tried for treason and executed. Henry spared Warwick’s elder sister, Margaret Plantagenet, who survived until 1541, when Henry VIII ordered her execution.
By the end of the 1490s, Henry had survived rebellions, rival claimants, foreign intervention and opposition from powerful nobles. The Tudor dynasty had survived its most dangerous early years, but Henry’s reign was still far from finished. He had secured the crown, but he now had to turn a fragile victory into a stable monarchy.
Economics
For most of Henry VII’s reign, Edward Story was Bishop of Chichester. Story’s register still exists and, according to the 19th-century historian W. R. W. Stephens, provides evidence of the king’s avaricious and parsimonious character. Henry became skilled at extracting money from his subjects on many pretexts, including the threat of war with France or Scotland. Much of the money raised in this way increased the King’s personal fortune rather than being spent for the purpose given.
Unlike his predecessors, Henry VII came to the throne without personal experience in estate management or financial administration. Despite this, he became a fiscally cautious monarch who restored the fortunes of an effectively bankrupt Exchequer. Stability became a central feature of his financial administration. Henry kept the same financial advisers for most of his reign. Except for the first few months, John Dynham, Baron Dynham, and the Earl of Surrey were the only Lord High Treasurers during his reign.
Henry also improved the collection of taxes across the realm. His government introduced increasingly efficient methods of taxation, supported by his chancellor, Archbishop John Morton. Morton’s famous “Morton’s Fork” provided a simple method of arguing that nobles should pay more tax. Those who spent little must have saved much and could therefore afford higher taxes. Those who spent heavily, meanwhile, clearly possessed enough wealth to pay them.
The Crown also increased its wealth by recovering lands through the Act of Resumption of 1486. Henry had delayed this measure while he concentrated on defending the Church, his person and his kingdom. Once his position became more secure, however, the recovery of royal lands strengthened the financial position of the monarchy.
Henry’s financial methods
Henry’s financial policies became increasingly unpopular in the later years of his reign. His government used bonds and recognisances to place financial obligations on subjects and to secure their loyalty. Modern historians have emphasised that these methods were not simply instruments of greed. They formed part of a wider system through which Henry attempted to centralise royal authority, enforce the law and make the monarchy financially stable.
Nevertheless, the system could be harsh. Contemporary criticism focused particularly on the increasingly aggressive enforcement of financial penalties during the final years of Henry’s reign. After his death, a commission investigated widespread abuses. Henry’s agents, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, became especially associated with these practices. Henry VIII later arrested and executed both men on charges of treason.
Henry VII also established the pound avoirdupois as a standard of weight. This system later became part of the Imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. In 1506, Henry resumed construction of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, which had begun under Henry VI. He provided financial guarantees that allowed the work to continue after his death.
Foreign policy
Henry VII’s foreign policy aimed to preserve peace while creating economic prosperity. To a considerable degree, he achieved both. The Treaty of Redon was signed in February 1489 between Henry and representatives of Brittany. Under its terms, Henry agreed to send 6,000 troops to fight for Brittany, with the Breton government paying the cost. The purpose was to prevent France from annexing the duchy.
The treaty marked an important change in Henry’s policy. He had previously remained relatively cautious while France threatened Brittany. Now he was willing to intervene directly against French expansion. Henry also began to revive English claims to Guyenne and other territories once held by the Plantagenets.
France eventually became more willing to negotiate. Henry concluded the Peace of Étaples with the French crown, securing a payment for England and an agreement that France would not support pretenders such as Perkin Warbeck. The settlement followed Henry’s military pressure on France, including his expedition into Brittany and the siege of Boulogne in 1492.
Henry had spent much of his own life dependent upon the protection of French and Breton rulers. As king, he therefore understood the importance of preventing England from becoming dependent upon another European power. He strengthened the navy, encouraged shipbuilding and improved opportunities for overseas trade. In 1495, he commissioned a dry dock at Portsmouth, one of the earliest of its kind in Europe.
Spain and Scotland
Henry also recognised the growing importance of the newly united Spanish monarchy. Through the Treaty of Medina del Campo, he arranged the marriage of his eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Catherine of Aragon. The marriage strengthened England’s relationship with Spain and gave Henry a powerful diplomatic counterweight to France.
A similar strategy shaped Henry’s relations with Scotland. He concluded the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with James IV of Scotland, the first treaty between England and Scotland for almost two centuries. Henry arranged the marriage of his daughter Margaret Tudor to James IV.
Henry hoped that this marriage would weaken the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France. It did not achieve that aim during his lifetime, but its long-term consequences were considerable. Margaret’s descendants eventually inherited both the English and Scottish crowns, leading to the Union of the Crowns in 1603 under her great-grandson, James VI and I.
Henry also formed an alliance with Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and secured the support of Pope Innocent VIII. The pope issued a papal bull of excommunication against pretenders to Henry’s throne, strengthening the legitimacy of the Tudor monarchy.
In 1506, Emery d’Amboise, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, asked Henry to become protector and patron of the order. Henry showed an interest in crusading and later exchanged letters with Pope Julius II. In 1507, he encouraged the Pope to promote peace among Christian rulers and to organise an expedition against the Ottoman Empire.
Trade agreements
Henry VII became heavily involved in international trade. One particularly valuable commodity was alum, which was used in the production and dyeing of wool and cloth. At the time, the main European source was the mine at Tolfa in Italy, making alum scarce and expensive.
England’s economy depended heavily on wool production, so Henry recognised the commercial importance of the alum trade. With assistance from Italian merchant bankers, including Lodovico della Fava and Girolamo Frescobaldi, the King became involved in importing alum from the Ottoman Empire and selling it in England and the Low Countries.
Henry’s involvement reduced the price of alum and challenged the monopoly held by the Pope over the Tolfa mine. The policy demonstrated how Henry increasingly treated foreign trade as an extension of royal finance and diplomacy.
His most successful commercial agreement was the Magnus Intercursus, or “great agreement”, of 1496. Four years earlier, Henry had imposed an embargo on trade with the Burgundian Netherlands because Margaret of Burgundy supported Perkin Warbeck. English merchants involved in the Flemish wool trade moved from Antwerp to Calais, while Flemish merchants were expelled from England.
The dispute eventually damaged both sides. England needed access to Flemish markets, while the Burgundian Netherlands depended heavily on English wool. The restoration of trade through the Magnus Intercursus therefore benefited both parties, although England gained particularly favourable conditions.
Antwerp
Antwerp became an important centre of European trade. Baltic goods, eastern spices and Italian silks passed through the city, while English cloth travelled in the opposite direction. The agreement helped increase English commercial wealth and strengthened England’s position within the European trading system.
In 1506, Henry attempted to secure an even more favourable agreement from Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy. Philip had been shipwrecked on the English coast and came under Henry’s hospitality. The King used the situation to pressure Philip into accepting the Treaty of Windsor, an agreement so favourable to England that it became known as the Malus Intercursus, or “evil agreement”.
Other European powers rejected the treaty, and it never came into force. Philip died shortly after the negotiations.
Law enforcement
Henry’s principal domestic problem was the restoration of royal authority after the Wars of the Roses. Powerful noble families still possessed considerable regional influence. Many maintained large numbers of retainers who could act as private armies. Historians have traditionally associated this system with bastard feudalism.
Henry therefore worked to limit the military and political independence of the nobility. Following the example of Edward IV, he created a Council of Wales and the Marches for his son Arthur. The council helped govern Wales and the Marches, as well as areas such as Cheshire and Cornwall.
Henry did not always attempt to destroy regional power. Loyal nobles could retain considerable influence as long as they maintained order and obeyed the law. The Stanley family, for example, exercised considerable authority in Lancashire and Cheshire. Henry accepted this arrangement because the Stanleys remained loyal to the Crown.
Other powerful subjects received less freedom. Henry passed laws against livery and maintenance, practices through which noblemen provided badges, uniforms and protection to large groups of retainers. These laws allowed the Crown to restrict the creation of private armies and, when necessary, impose substantial fines.
The Star Chamber
One of Henry’s most important instruments was the Court of Star Chamber. It developed from an earlier practice in which a small group of trusted members of the Privy Council heard cases involving powerful individuals and threats to royal authority.
The system allowed the Crown to deal with serious disputes more quickly than the ordinary courts could manage. It was particularly useful when Henry believed that a powerful nobleman had abused his position or challenged royal authority.
Justices of the peace
Henry also expanded the use of justices of the peace throughout England. Each shire received appointed justices who served for a year and helped enforce the law in their local areas. Their responsibilities and influence grew steadily during the Tudor period, with Henry VII’s reign marking an important stage in that development.
The King nevertheless remained cautious about allowing local officials to become too powerful. He applied the same principle to the justices as he did to the nobility, using bonds and recognisances to restrain officials who abused their influence.
Justices of the peace also carried out a wide range of administrative duties. They helped enforce Acts of Parliament, supervised weights and measures and could intervene in cases where juries appeared to have been corrupted. The system gave the Crown a much stronger presence in local government.
By 1509, justices of the peace had become an important part of Henry’s system of law and order. They received no salary, which reduced the direct cost of enforcement to the Crown, while local members of the gentry regarded the office as a position of influence and prestige.
The policy was therefore useful to Henry in two ways. It strengthened the enforcement of royal law while reducing the independence of the nobility and local elites. Modern historians have also linked Henry’s wider use of financial and judicial obligations to the increasing centralisation of royal government.
Later years and death
In 1502, Henry VII’s life changed dramatically. His eldest son and heir, Arthur, Prince of Wales, died suddenly at Ludlow Castle. The exact cause remains uncertain, although a viral respiratory illness, possibly the sweating sickness, has often been suggested.
Arthur’s death made Henry’s second son, Henry, Duke of York, heir to the throne. The King’s reaction surprised his court. Henry was normally reserved and rarely displayed strong emotion in public unless he was angry. The death of his eldest son, however, caused him profound grief.
Henry’s grief became even greater the following year when Elizabeth of York died. The Queen’s death appears to have affected him deeply. He withdrew from public life for a period and refused to speak to many people. The evidence from his surviving financial records and correspondence also suggests that his private relationship with Elizabeth and his children was warmer than his austere public reputation might suggest.
Arranged marriage and Spanish alliance
Henry still wanted to preserve the Spanish alliance. He therefore obtained a papal dispensation allowing his surviving son to marry Catherine of Aragon, Arthur’s widow. Such a marriage would normally have been prohibited by canon law because Catherine had been married to Henry’s brother.
The King later became uncertain about the arrangement. Catherine’s political position had weakened after the death of her mother, Isabella I of Castile, and the succession of her sister Joanna of Castile. Henry therefore reconsidered the value of the marriage.
The marriage did not take place during Henry VII’s lifetime. His son was also too young to marry under canon law, which generally required a male to reach the age of fourteen before contracting such a marriage.
Henry considered several possibilities for a second marriage. He explored potential matches with Joanna of Naples, Joanna of Castile and Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Savoy. In 1505, he even sent ambassadors to Naples to investigate the physical suitability of Joanna of Naples. Nothing came of the negotiations.
Henry VII belongs to the small group of British monarchs for whom historians have found no evidence of a mistress. He also never remarried after Elizabeth’s death. With Arthur dead, this left the young Henry as the only surviving male heir of the Tudor dynasty.
Henry’s final years
During Henry’s lifetime, many members of the nobility criticised him for concentrating royal power in London. Later historians also criticised his methods of enforcing taxation. Francis Bacon, writing in the seventeenth century, was particularly severe in his judgement of the King’s financial policies.
Yet Henry’s surviving records reveal another side of his character. He kept remarkably detailed accounts of his personal finances, sometimes recording expenditure down to the smallest amounts. Many of these records survive in the British National Archives, alongside household accounts, correspondence and records concerning Elizabeth.
These documents suggest that Henry was more generous towards his family than his public reputation would imply. His letters to relatives often have an affectionate tone, particularly those written to his mother, Margaret Beaufort. The accounts also show that he spent considerable sums on his wife and children, not merely on their necessities.
After Elizabeth’s death, Henry became increasingly isolated. His health deteriorated, and he eventually withdrew from public life. When he became seriously ill, he allowed only his mother, Margaret Beaufort, to remain near him.
Margaret herself died only two months before Henry. The loss added to the King’s declining health and personal isolation. His daughter Margaret Tudor, meanwhile, had married James IV of Scotland and was required to leave England. Henry escorted her to the border, knowing that he would never see her again.
Margaret later wrote to her father about her homesickness. Henry could do little except mourn the separation and uphold the peace that his daughter’s marriage had created with Scotland.
Henry VII died of tuberculosis at Richmond Palace on 21 April 1509, aged fifty-two. He was buried beside Elizabeth of York in the chapel he had commissioned at Westminster Abbey. His son, Henry VIII, succeeded him and became one of the most consequential monarchs in English history.
Appearance and character
Contemporary and later descriptions portray Henry as intelligent, dignified and capable of inspiring confidence. His biographer, Professor Stanley Chrimes, credited him with a high degree of personal magnetism and a growing reputation for shrewd decisiveness even before he became king.
Henry could also appear reserved and cautious. His health was often poor, particularly during the later years of his reign, and his appearance may have reflected this. His public character was austere, but surviving correspondence and household records reveal a more affectionate private side.
Comparison with contemporaries
Historians have often compared Henry VII with his continental contemporaries, particularly Louis XI of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon. All three monarchs sought to strengthen royal authority after periods of political instability and to place greater control of government in the hands of the Crown.
By the seventeenth century, historians increasingly presented Henry as a king who had learned from the methods of other European rulers. In 1622, Francis Bacon published his History of the Reign of King Henry VII, an influential account of the King’s government, character and political methods.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, historians developed the idea of the “New Monarchy”, which placed Henry alongside other European rulers who strengthened central government during the transition from the medieval to the early modern period.
Later scholarship has questioned how closely Henry should be compared with rulers such as Louis XI and Ferdinand of Aragon. Historians have instead examined Henry’s reign within the particular political, economic and social conditions of England after the Wars of the Roses. His reign marked a period of increasing royal control, stronger financial administration and greater centralisation, while the structure of government itself remained largely medieval.
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