English Monarchs: Henry VII

Reign: August 22nd 1485 - April 21st 1509

Born: January 28th 1457

Died: April 21st 1509

Father: Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond

Mother: Margaret Beaufort

Spouse: Elizabeth of York

Children:
Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales
Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots
Henry VIII of England
Elizabeth Tudor
Mary Tudor, Queen of France
Edmund Tudor, Duke of Somerset
Edward Tudor
Katherine Tudor

Royal House: Tudor

The rise of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond to the throne of England in 1485 represented a bold new beginning for England following decades of domestic strife and dynastic turmoil. The unassuming Welshman united the warring houses of York and Lancaster and founded the Tudor Dynasty, which ruled over the kingdom for almost 120 years. This period would see the emergence of the a truly English national identity, earth-shattering religious change both in England and all over Europe, England's first recognised female monarchs and a boom in both culture and trade. By the time the Tudor Dynasty died out in 1603, England had transformed from a semi-important backwater on the fringes of Europe into a wealthy and dynamic military and trading power.

But what of the first Tudor monarch? Henry VII may have been the one who made it all possible but he lacks the historical admiration enjoyed by his son Henry VIII and his granddaughter Elizabeth I. This is because Henry VII was a naturally cautious and austere man with much less of an outgoing personality than his descendants although he could have something of a fun side if the situation required it. Aware of the crippling expense of foreign wars, Henry pursued a policy of peace and was an effective diplomat, creating valuable strategic alliances and marrying his surviving children into the royal families of Europe. On the domestic side, Henry spent his 23-year reign establishing himself on the throne, creating an effective and stable administration, reforming the legal system and filling the royal coffers. Both famous and infamous for his fondness of money, by the time of his death he had amassed a personal fortune of around £1.25 million, the equivalent of around £650 million in today's money.

Tudor Beginnings

Although Henry Tudor is well-known for the fact that his claim to the throne of England was somewhat flimsy, there is no doubting that he had royal blood in his veins. He claimed descent from the English and French royal houses as well as from the ancient Celtic Welsh rulers and even the pre-Saxon rulers of Britain. Because of his illustrious Celtic ancestry, Henry was able to claim with some success that he was descended from the mythical British King Arthur.

On his father's side, Henry was the grandson of Owen Tudor, a Welsh squire who had served under Henry V and fought at the Battle of Agincourt. It was through Owen that the Tudors later claimed their descent from Rhys ap Gruffydd and the other great Welsh Princes. After Henry V's premature death, Owen entered into a secret (and possibly illegal) union with the dead King's widow, Catherine of Valois. The unlikely couple would go on to have several children including two sons, Edmund and Jasper. Catherine died giving birth to their last child in 1437 while Owen lived until 1461 when he was executed by the victorious Yorkists following the Battle of Mortimer's Cross.

Margaret Beaufort

Although he was of an enviable French, Welsh and Lancastrian pedigree on his father's side, Henry Tudor's actual claim to the throne of England was through his mother. The story of the Tudor Dynasty began in 1455 when the twelve-year-old Margaret Beaufort, a great-great-granddaughter of Edward III, was married to the 24-year-old Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond on the wishes of the groom's half-brother King Henry VI. Margaret's grandfather was one of the illegitimate children sired by Edward III's son John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster by his mistress Katherine Swynford. These children and their descendants took the surname Beaufort and, despite being later legitimised by Richard II, were specifically barred from inheriting the throne due to a Letters Patent issued by Richard's successor Henry IV.

The year of Margaret Beaufort's marriage to Edmund Tudor also marked the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. Edmund Tudor was an early casualty of the bloody dynastic struggle. Having taken up arms for his half-brother's Lancastrian cause, Edmund was captured by the Yorkists in 1456 and died after several months in captivity. At the time of her husband's death, Margaret was thirteen and heavily pregnant. She was taken into the care of her brother-in-law Jasper at Pembroke Castle in Wales where, in January 1457, she gave birth to the future Henry VII.

The Rocky Road to Bosworth

Henry's early years were dominated by the Wars of the Roses, with both sides of his family at the forefront of the Lancastrian struggle. His half-uncle Henry VI was supplanted by the Yorkist Edward IV in 1461 but the Lancastrian resistance, although beaten, remained intact under Jasper Tudor's leadership. Henry VI was briefly restored in 1470 but six months later Edward IV was back. The Yorkist victory at Tewkesbury in May 1471 all but destroyed the House of Lancaster. Henry VI's son-and-heir Prince Edward was killed in the fighting whilst the ex-King himself was later murdered in the Tower of London. With all the other male Beaufort descendants having died as well, the fourteen-year-old Henry Tudor suddenly found himself to be the senior surviving Lancastrian claimant to the throne, despite stil being legally barred from the succession.

Because of his newfound status as standard-bearer for the House of Lancaster, Henry's family had good reason to fear for his safety in Yorkist-ruled England. Shortly after the Lancastrian defeat at Tewkesbury, Henry and his uncle Jasper went into exile in Brittany, leaving Margaret behind in England. Henry looked set to see out his life abroad were it not for the circumstances that led to the self-destruction of the House of York and allowed for his return. Edward IV had his own brother George, Duke of Clarence executed for treason in 1478 whilst the King's own death five years later led to scandal and usurpation as his other brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester had Edward's sons declared illegitimate. Gloucester took the throne for himself and became Richard III.

Richard III

The murky circumstances surrounding Richard's usurpation of the throne and the disappearance of his young nephews in the Tower of London dealt critical damage to his popularity and created opponents who set out to look for an alternative. Besides Richard and his sickly son Edward of Middleham, the alternative male Yorkist claimant was Clarence's son Edward, Earl of Warwick but he had been barred from inheriting the throne on account of his father's treason. This left Henry Tudor, still exiled in Brittany, as the focal point for opposition to Richard's government. Henry attracted more support by promising to marry Edward IV's eldest daughter Elizabeth of York, a move which he hoped would give greater legitimacy to his own claim and finally end the conflict between York and Lancaster. The deal was arranged in secret between Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth's mother, the dowager Queen Elizabeth Woodville.

Henry's marriage arrangement did much to attract disaffected Yorkists to his banner but his first attempt to wrest the throne from Richard III ended in failure. Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham initiated a rebellion on Henry's behalf in the Autumn of 1483 but the revolt was easily crushed. Buckingham was beheaded whilst Henry, who had been prevented from reaching England by bad weather, was forced to leave Brittany as Richard attempted to bribe the Duke of Brittany into giving up his guest. In 1484 Henry moved to the court of the French King in Paris, where he gained more support and, crucially, military backing for a future attempt on Richard's throne.

Henry did not have to wait long for the opportunity to try again. By the Summer of 1485 Richard's already unstable position had been left critically weakened by the deaths in quick succession of his son Edward and his wife Anne. Seizing the opportunity, Henry and his French-backed invasion force landed at Milford Haven in southwest Wales that August. Henry at once marched eastwards towards England, gathering support both from his Welsh compatriots and from Richard's English opponents. Having done everything possible to legitimise his claim to the crown of England, Henry now believed that God would judge the righteousness of that claim on the field of battle. That battle came on August 22nd 1485 at Bosworth Field in Leicestershire, where Henry's swollen ranks confronted Richard III and his even larger army.

The Tudor Rose

The fighting was evenly balanced and Richard came very close to killing Henry at one point. The battle swung decisively in Henry's favour, however, when his stepfather Lord Thomas Stanley deserted Richard and sent his troops in to fight against the King. Richard III was cut down and killed in the fighting, handing victory to Henry and bringing the rule of the House of York to a violent and bloody end. Having recovered Richard's ornamental battle crown from a nearby hawthorn tree, Lord Stanley used it to proclaim his stepson as King Henry VII right there on the devastated battlefield. Henry's coronation took place at Westminster Abbey in October, followed by his promised marriage to Elizabeth of York in January 1486. The union was symbolised by the combination of the red and white roses to form the Tudor Rose, which became the symbol of the new royal dynasty and is still used as the floral emblem of England alongside the Scottish thistle, the Irish shamrock and the Welsh daffodil and leek.

Lambert Simnel

Henry VII may have hoped that his marriage to Elizabeth would have killed off the dispute between the houses of York and Lancaster but his efforts to unite the warring factions did not win over everyone initially. Most of the English nobility had stayed away from the Bosworth campaign, preferring to hedge their bets rather than risk backing the wrong side. Those that had turned up on Richard's behalf were the first to face the new King's wrath. In a rather cunning move, Henry backdated the start of his reign to the day before the Battle of Bosworth Field, therefore making anybody who had fought against him a traitor and liable to have their properties confiscated. It was only a small minority of ex-Yorkists that fell foul of this trick but it was enough to stir up considerable resentment against the new regime. It did not take long for trouble to start brewing.

The first revolt, led by Lord Lovell, broke out in April 1486 but came to nought. The next one was far more significant and had its beginnings in Oxford where a local priest named Richard Symonds was planning to exploit the still circulating rumours surrounding the vanished Princes in the Tower. Symonds had noticed that one of his school pupils, a boy named Lambert Simnel, shared a resemblance to the likely-murdered Princes. He had initially planned to pass the ten-year-old Simnel off as one of the Princes but had a change of heart after hearing further rumours, this time concerning the last direct male Yorkist claimant that was still breathing, Edward, Earl of Warwick. The young Warwick had been imprisoned in the Tower of London on Henry's orders but the uncertainty surrounding his fate was enough to make Lambert Simnel a believable doppelganger.

Symonds took his young charge to Ireland, a hotbed of Yorkist sympathy, and was able to persuade the Irish Parliament that Simnel was indeed the Earl of Warwick. On May 24th 1487 Simnel was crowned King of England in Dublin, an act to which Henry naturally responded by having the real Warwick paraded through the streets of London to prove that he was both alive and in royal hands. Despite Henry's best efforts to expose the imposter, Simnel's cause continued to attract supporters, the most important of which being Richard III's nephew and designated successor John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. Lincoln had been present at the Irish coronation and quickly became the driving force behind the Simnel revolt.

With Simnel as his figurehead, Lincoln led a ragtag band of around 2000 Irishmen on an invasion of England in June 1487 but was decisively beaten by Henry VII's army at the Battle of Stoke. Lincoln was killed in the fighting whilst Simnel and Richard Symonds were arrested. Symonds would spend the rest of his life in jail for his trouble but Henry was more lenient towards Simnel, who had throughout been nothing more than a puppet in the hands of others. The boy who would be King was put to work as a servant in the palace kitchens and eventually rose up through the ranks of the royal household to become falconer, responsible for looking after the King's prized hunting birds.

Perkin Warbeck and the Cornish Rebellion

Perkin Warbeck

Another imposter in the guise of a ghost from the past appeared in 1491. This time it was a handsome Flemish youth named Perkin Warbeck. Unlike Lambert Simnel, Warbeck was totally in control of his own actions and was able to gain international backing for his bogus claim. In 1491 Warbeck went to Ireland and began to look for support by claiming to be a number of Yorkists, including the Earl of Warwick and an illegitimate son of Richard III. The identity he eventually settled upon was that of Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York and the younger of the two Princes in the Tower. Warbeck found the support he needed in the form of Edward IV's sister Margaret, the dowager Duchess of Burgundy. In November 1492 Margaret recognised Warbeck as being her nephew Richard, giving him the legitimacy he required to gain support for his claim in Europe.

Warbeck found himself some powerful backers, such as Charles VIII of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Maximilian's support was crucial in persuading Warbeck to proclaim himself rightful King and launch an invasion of England. Warbeck returned to Ireland in 1494 to make preparations for his invasion but his plans were constantly scuppered by Henry, who was just as unfooled by this charade as he was by Simnel. Unable to stay a step ahead of Henry's skillful diplomatic maneuvering, Warbeck headed north and took solace in the company of another of his new friends, Scotland's James IV. James was more willing to provide military support and even allowed Warbeck to marry his cousin, Lady Catherine Gordon.

The promised Scottish invasion if England in support of Warbeck came in September 1496 but it amounted to little more than a few petty border skirmishes. Nonetheless Henry needed an army to deal with the Scots and duly made a request to Parliament for money. The money was granted but in June 1497 a revolt suddenly erupted in Cornwall. The Cornish rebels, angry about having to pay taxes to fund a war hundreds of miles away, marched eastwards unopposed to London and camped outside the city at Blackheath. It was only then that Henry was able to muster enough troops and disperse the rebels by force.

With his invasions of England coming up short, James IV soon began to lose interest in Warbeck and the pretender found himself on his own. In September he landed in Cornwall in the hope of capitalising on the resentment there. He raised a small force and besieged Exeter but failed to take the city. Warbeck then headed for London but no more support was forthcoming and he soon found himself arrested. Just as he had done with Simnel, Henry treated Warbeck with leniency, locking him up in the Tower alongside the still-incarcerated Earl of Warwick.

The fact that Warbeck and Warwick were confined in close proximity to one-another was probably a deliberate ploy by Henry to encourage the prisoners to plot against him and thus incriminate themselves in treason. If this was indeed the case then they fell right into the trap. Warbeck and Warwick struck up a friendship and made plans to escape from the Tower. Their escape attempt failed and Henry now had the evidence he needed to have them executed. Perkin Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn on November 25rd 1499 whilst Warwick was beheaded at the Tower five days later. Warbeck's execution marked the end of any major challenges to Henry VII's authority whilst Warwick's brought about the final extinction of the direct male Plantagenet line.

Foreign Policy

Although he had proven himself at Bosworth to be an able soldier, Henry VII was not a military man at heart. He certainly had no interest in recovering the English territories in France that had been won and lost by his Lancastrian predecessors. The one thing that Henry loved above all else was money and he aspired to fill the coffers of the crown. Throwing cash away on expensive foreign wars was not the way to go about achieving financial stability, therefore Henry instigated a peace-orientated foreign policy.

The first country that Henry had to deal with was the old enemy, France. Charles VIII's support for Perkin Warbeck in 1492 had concerned Henry and prompted him to take action by bluffing the French into a peaceful settlement on his terms. A token invasion force invaded Brittany that year but, just as Henry had hoped, the French too preoccupied with the Italian wars and were in no mood to fight the English. In November 1492 the Peace of Etaples was signed. Under the terms of the peace Henry acknowledged French control over Brittany whilst the French dropped their support for Warbeck and agreed to pay a war indemnity of 742,000 crowns, payable at 50,000 crowns per annum. In a single stroke Henry had made peace with France, isolated Warbeck from his means of support and increased his income by more than half.

Arthur, Prince of Wales

In his next foreign policy venture, Henry would try his hand at political matchmaking, preparing the ground the royal marriage that would go on to have profound consequences for England. Henry was one of the first European monarchs to recognise the potential of Spain, which had recently been unified under the rule of the married monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. In the late 1480s Henry was keen to cement an alliance with Spain in order to gain international recognition for his new regime. The Spanish were also interested in such an alliance as it would mean the possibility of English aid in any future conflict with their neighbours in France.

Henry's trump card in the negotiations with Spain was his eldest son Prince Arthur. The Prince of Wales, born in 1486, was his father's pride and joy and, as his name suggests, was the very symbol of Henry's desire to create a new Anglo-Celtic Arthurian dynasty. In 1489 the alliance with Spain was formalised by the Treaty of Medina del Campo. It was agreed that Arthur would marry Ferdinand and Isabella's youngest daughter, Catherine of Aragon. Henry was obliged to provide military assistance to Spain when required but he was assuaged somewhat by Catherine's hefty dowry of 200,000 crowns. After twelve years of both sides niggling over the terms of the treaty and waiting for the young couple to come of age, the marriage eventually took place amid spectacular celebrations at the old St Paul's Cathedral in London on November 14th 1501.

Henry's third great diplomatic venture involved England's other old enemy, the Scots. Henry wanted not only to bring an end to the intermittent wars that happened on and off between Scotland and England but also to find some way of breaking Scotland's Auld Alliance with the French. His attempted solution was the Treaty of Perpetual Peace, the first peace treaty between the two countries for nearly two centuries, which he concluded with James IV in 1502. The following year James married Henry's daughter Margaret. Although this marriage ultimately failed to tear Scotland away from the Auld Alliance, it remains significant in the context of English history as it was the Scottish descendants of this union that succeeded the Tudors to the throne of England exactly a century later, uniting Britain under a single ruler for the first time.

The Spanish Question

As the 15th Century gave way to the 16th, Henry VII was sitting pretty. The pretenders and rival claimants were gone, the French were lining his pockets with cash tributes and England was on the verge of achieving peace with the Scots. The Spanish alliance was also looking increasingly like a political masterstroke as Spain's fortunes continued to grow in the years between Medina del Campo and the marriage of Arthur and Catherine. In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella earned the fawning admiration of Christian Europe when they conquered the Islamic kingdom of Granada, finally completing the Christian "Reconquista" of Muslim Spain which had been ongoing for centuries. That same year also marked the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus, whose expedition, originally intended to find a westerly route to India, had been funded by the Spanish monarchs.

But then, in the Spring of 1502, Henry's reign was suddenly thrown into chaos by an outbreak of disease at Ludlow Castle, Prince Arthur's seat where he resided in his capacity as Prince of Wales. On April 2nd Henry's beloved son-and-heir died, leaving the Spanish alliance in jeopardy. Catherine of Aragon survived the outbreak to find herself a widow at just sixteen. Once it became clear that Catherine was not pregnant with Arthur's child, a devastated Henry VII recognised his only other surviving son Prince Henry, Duke of York as heir to the throne. Henry received another tragic personal blow in February 1503 when Queen Elizabeth died on her 37th birthday, a few days after giving birth to a daughter, Katherine, who also died.

Catherine of Aragon as a young widow.

Following Arthur's death, Henry VII was eager both to maintain the Spanish alliance and to avoid having to return Catherine's dowry money. He decided that the best way to accomplish both aims was for Catherine to remarry, this time to Prince Henry, who was five years younger than her. A special dispensation from Pope Julius II was required for the younger Henry to marry his dead brother's widow as doing so was against the teachings of the Bible. Despite the fuss which had been made over whether or not Catherine was pregnant after Arthur's death, the English managed to convince Rome that their marriage had not been consummated, meaning that the union had not been made valid in the eyes of God and that Catherine was free to marry Prince Henry. It would not be the last time that the issue of Catherine's marriage to Arthur came up for discussion. After fourteen months of widowhood, Catherine was officially betrothed to her former brother-in-law.

Although Henry VII had got his Papal dispensation, his son was not yet old enough to marry and circumstances soon conspired which gave the King second thoughts about the Spanish alliance. In November 1504 Queen Isabella died and Catherine's mentally-unstable older sister Joanna ascended to the throne of Castile along with her husband, the Habsburg Philip of Burgundy. This turn of events shifted the balance of power in Europe as it brought Spain and her overseas possessions under the effective control of the House of Habsburg, which already ruled Austria, Burgundy and the Holy Roman Empire amongst other places. Catherine suddenly became a less enticing prospect as a daughter-in-law and Henry, still in a dispute with King Ferdinand over the dowry, went cold on the idea of an alliance with Habsburg Spain. Catherine was left in a state of limbo and remained so for the rest of Henry's reign. It was only after his death that her second marriage took place.

Last Years

Having been left heartbroken by the deaths of his son and his wife, Henry VII's later reign was marked by his increasing reclusiveness, failing health and an even more intensive economic policy. With little else to motivate him other than the desire to accumulate as much money as possible, Henry effectively withdrew into his own private world and spent the rest of his life dedicated to the finances of the kingdom, seeing few people other than his two must trusted advisers, Sir Richard Empson and Sir Edmund Dudley. Empson and Dudley soon became the most unpopular men in the land for their roles in Henry's increasingly rigorous and barely legal money-making efforts.

Henry VII with Empson and Dudley

Under the stewardship of his advisers and overseen by the King himself, the crown's methods of raising income became ruthlessly effective. He was soon raising so much money that he did not even need to summon Parliament. By the end of his reign the royal income from customs duties had risen by a quarter whilst revenues from crown lands had risen tenfold. As part of his legal reforms, Henry greatly extended the range of offences punishable by fines, ensuring that those fines ended up in his own pockets. He also reasserted the ancient feudal rights of the crown, inflicting heavy fines on anyone who breached their feudal obligations. The nobility were understandably resentful of Henry's money-grabbing at their expense as well as the fact that they were being kept out of the King's inner-circle in favour of mere servants like Empson and Dudley. Henry countered this ill-feeling by creating the King's Council, which kept the nobility in check.

Increasingly weakened by rheumatoid arthritis and gout in his later years, Henry VII died of tuberculosis at Richmond Palace on April 21st 1509, having left a wealthy and stable kingdom for his son Henry VIII. Before his death, the old King left some of his dubiously-earned money so that 10,000 masses might be said to ease the passage of his immortal soul into the afterlife. He was laid to rest alongside Elizabeth of York in the newly-built Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey. The body of his mother Margaret Beaufort, the woman who did so much to help him onto the throne, joined them there after she died just two months later.

English Monarchs: Richard III

Reign: June 26th 1483 - August 22nd 1485

Born: November 2nd 1452

Died: August 22nd 1485

Father: Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York

Mother: Cecily Neville

Spouse: Anne Neville

Children:
Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales

Royal House: York

Thanks to the efforts of William Shakespeare and other Tudor historians and authors, Richard III has the reputation of perhaps being the greatest villain in English history. Effective ruler though he was, Richard was lumbered from the very beginning by the circumstances surrounding the deposition of Edward V and the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. As such he would go on to be portrayed somewhat unfairly as a cruel hunch-backed tyrant who murdered his nephews and mercilessly removed anybody who dared to get in the way of his lust for power.

During his two-year reign Richard's opposition would be brutally suppressed and increasingly drawn to the cause of the final claimant to the throne from the House of Lancaster, Henry Tudor. In 1485 Tudor would invade England and kill Richard on the field of battle, bringing not only an end to the rule of the House of York but also and end to the Medieval period in England. Richard's death would subsequently be used to mark the end of the old world and the beginning of a glorious new age under the Tudors.

Early Years

Richard was born in 1452, the youngest son of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville. Shakespeare describes his birth in Henry VI Part 3 as being accompanied by such ominous omens as howling dogs, shrieking owls and chattering magpies singing in dismal discord. The same passage even claims that Richard was born with a full set of teeth "To signify thou camest to bite the world". Richard's supposed deformities, however, such as his famous hunchback, withered arm and limp, were most likely later inventions of the inevitably biased Tudor chronicler and statesman Sir Thomas More, who would pen a shamelessly twisted biography, The History of King Richard III, during the reign of Henry VIII. It was More's account that went on to form the basis of Shakespeare's characterisation of the long-dead King in Richard III.

When Richard's father and brother Edmund were killed by the Lancastrians at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, he and his two remaining elder brothers, Edward and George were taken in by the leading Yorkist Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Whilst Warwick fought on to depose Henry VI and place Edward on the throne, the young Richard was brought up at Middleham Castle in the Yorkshire Dales, the Neville family's northern seat. When his brother became King Edward IV in 1461, Richard was created Duke of Gloucester.

The ruins of Middleham Castle

Unlike his unreliable brother George, Duke of Clarence, Gloucester proved to be a loyal ally to Edward. When Warwick defected and restored Henry VI in 1470 and Clarence flirted with the idea of joining the Lancastrian opposition, Gloucester joined Edward in exile. The two returned the following year and crushed the Lancastrians for good with victories at Barnet and Tewkesbury. Warwick and the Lancastrian heir Prince Edward of Westminster were killed while Clarence was reconciled with his brothers. The records show that Gloucester was present in the Tower of London on the night that Henry VI was murdered, leading inevitably to suggestions that he was the one responsible for the feeble-minded former King's death.

After Edward IV's return to the throne, Gloucester did very well out of the redistribution of the former Neville estates, acquiring many of Warwick's old offices. By the end of 1471 Richard had been made Constable and Lord High Admiral of England, chief justice of the Welsh Marches, Great Chamberlain of England and chief steward of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1472 he married Warwick's daughter and Edward of Westminster's widow, Anne Neville and a son, Edward, was born at Middleham the following year. The marriage brought half the Neville estates, including Middleham Castle, under Gloucester's control and gave him a secure power base in the north of England, which he effectively governed on his brother's behalf. He would later be known as "Lord of the North".

For the rest of Edward IV's reign Gloucester remained loyal and the two went on campaign in France in 1475 only to be bought off. This was the only time the two had a disagreement, as Gloucester viewed the peace treaty with the French as dishonourable despite the vast amounts of money that Edward had managed to procure from the French. Gloucester stuck by the King as their brother Clarence, "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence" as Shakespeare called him, slipped back into his old dissenting ways. Gloucester supported Edward's difficult decision to execute Clarence in 1478. With Clarence gone and his children barred from the succession on account of their father's treason, Gloucester was now next-in-line to the throne behind Edward and his children.

The early 1480s for Gloucester were marked by in increase in his control over the north. During that period he led several English campaigns against James III of Scotland, capturing the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1482 and marching all the way to Edinburgh. By the time Edward IV died in April 1483 Gloucester was among the most highly regarded administrators and generals in the land. The only people who stood between him and overall control were the twelve-year-old Edward V and the family of the new King's mother, the unpopular Woodvilles.

Usurping the Throne

Richard, Duke of Gloucester was in his northern heartlands when he was informed not only of Edward IV's death but also of the fact that his brother's will had appointed him to serve as Protector during Edward V's minority. Gloucester immediately headed south in the hope of gaining control of the new King as the latter made his way to London from Ludlow, where he had been residing in his capacity at Prince of Wales. The two routes converged at Stony Stratford, where Gloucester intercepted Edward's travelling party and escorting him to the Tower of London. The young King would later be joined there by his other surviving brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. Neither would leave the royal palace-fortress alive.

Exactly whether Gloucester's actions in 1483 were a panicked reaction to events or the execution of a carefully-calculated and thought-out plan is not clear. He might have been Protector but the presence of the Woodvilles, who had been elevated to such importance under Edward IV, was a serious threat to him. Had the Woodvilles gained control of young Edward first, Gloucester would almost certainly have lost his authority and possibly even his head. With Edward's capture at Stony Stratford, Gloucester's authority as Protector was assured and he immediately had the leading Woodvilles executed on charges of treason for threatening to undermine his position as the King's designated regent.

What was really going on soon became clear as Gloucester and his supporters began broadcasting the opinion that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had been illegal due to the former having already pre-arranged a marriage contract with another woman. The evidence supporting this story was sketchy to say the least but Parliament, perhaps influenced by the need for a strong leader with full authority, was willing to believe it. On June 25th Parliament passed the Titulus Regius which formally deposed Edward V on the grounds of illegitimacy and declared his parents' marriage to be invalid, disinheriting his brother and sisters too. Gloucester, now the senior heir to Edward IV, was proclaimed King Richard III the following day and the coronation took place in July.

Difficult Reign

Richard III was certainly capable of being King but he was dogged from the beginning by rumours regarding the fate of Edward V and his brother. The boys were still supposedly in the Tower but had disappeared shortly after Richard became King. The suspicion that Richard had ordered the murder of the Princes did great damage to his popularity. The Great Chronicle of London commented:

"Had he... suffered the little children to have prospered according to his allegiance and fealty, he would have been honourably lauded over all, whereas now his fame has darkened."

Most historians' suspicion regarding the fate of the Princes in the Tower is aimed squarely at Richard because of the timing of their disappearance and the fact that, as long as they lived, they remained a threat. The Princes may have been declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament but the legislation could just as easily be revoked should one or both of them be freed by or become a figurehead for Richard's opponents. It was most likely towards the end of Summer 1483 that Richard ordered their deaths whilst he was away from London on a tour of the provinces.

Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham

The first rebellion against Richard came in September 1483. Spurred on by the belief that Richard had killed the Princes in the Tower, his former ally Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham allied himself with the Lancastrian exile Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond and launched an uprising in the south of England. Buckingham hoped to depose Richard and place Henry Tudor on the throne but things immediately went wrong. Storms sent Henry's invasion fleet scampering back to Brittany whilst Buckingham's troops dispersed and fled at the mere sight of Richard's army. Buckingham was executed in Salisbury on November 2nd 1483.

Following the defeat of Buckingham's rebellion, Richard began negotiations with Brittany in the hope of getting his hands on Henry Tudor but the Lancastrian claimant stayed one step ahead of the King, fleeing to the French court in Paris. The discontent in England was growing and Richard was forced to take drastic measures to avoid any potential defections. He even took the son of  Henry's stepfather Lord Thomas Stanley hostage in order to ensure the Stanley family's loyalty.

Richard was also beset with personal tragedies that left him even further weakened. In April 1484 his sickly son Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales died. Queen Anne was too weak from consumption to bear another child and she died less than a year after Edward. It was rumoured that Richard had poisoned his wife so that he could marry his niece, Elizabeth of York and father a new heir to the throne. There is no conclusive evidence of such an arrangement, however, and if the union was indeed planned, it may only have been in order to prevent her from marrying Henry Tudor (as Buckingham had arranged). Richard did make an offer of marriage to the Portuguese Princess Joan but she turned him down, preferring instead to devote her life to religious pursuits.

With little prospect of providing an heir, Richard eventually named his brother Clarence's son Edward, Earl of Warwick as his heir. He would later change his mind and nominate another nephew, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, as his successor. Across the Channel in France, however, Henry Tudor was gathering support for a second invasion attempt. On August 7th 1485 he landed at Milford Haven in his native Wales with a small army of supporters and French-supplied mercenaries. The ragtag band headed off through the heartlands of Wales and into England, gathering more support as they went. By the time Richard caught up with Henry near the town of Market Bosworth in Leicestershire, the invading force had swelled to 5000 strong.

A Glorious Death

English history hung in the balance as Richard III and Henry Tudor faced each other at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22nd 1485. Richard, astride his favourite horse White Surrey, had strength in numbers but his advantage was compromised by the decision of Lord Stanley and his brother, Sir William Stanley to keep their troops out of the battle's early stages. As the fighting raged, Richard spotted Henry at the rear of his army and charged in personally for the kill, cutting down Henry's own standard-bearer and coming within feet of Henry himself. Richard was determined to settle the matter one-on-one.

Richard III charges towards Henry Tudor at Bosworth.

But then the tide of the battle suddenly changed. The Stanleys and the Earl of Northumberland, who had been observing the carnage from afar, suddenly deserted the King and committed their forces to the battle on Henry Tudor's side. Henry's army now had the decisive advantage but Richard, now unhorsed right in the middle of the fighting, refused to flee and fought valiantly to the end. He was eventually killed by an unknown Welsh halberd who ran the King through with his pike. As the body of the last Yorkist and last Plantagenet King of England was stripped and mutilated by his victorious enemies, Richard's battle crown was discovered hanging from a hawthorn tree. Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry VII on the battlefield by Lord Stanley, a moment which has since come to mark the end of Medieval England.

Richard III was the second of only two English monarchs to be killed in battle (the first being Harold Godwinson). Following the defeat at Bosworth his naked corpse was placed over the back of a horse and paraded through the streets of Leicester. He was eventually buried at Greyfriars Abbey in Leicester but half a century later, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the mortal remains of England's most notorious King were reportedly disinterred and thrown into the River Soar.

English Monarchs: Edward V

Reign: April 9th 1483 - June 26th 1483

Born: November 2nd 1470

Died: around August 1483

Father: Edward IV of England

Mother: Elizabeth Woodville

Royal House: York

With his top class education and regal bearing, Edward V could well have made a great King were it not for his father's premature death, one which allowed his uncle to take advantage of his youth and seize the throne from under him. Because of the events of 1483, Edward has gone down in history not as a ruler of England but as one of the ill-fated "Princes in the Tower". The uncertain fate of Edward and his younger brother forms the basis of one of the greatest whodunits in English history, one which continues to raise debate about who was responsible for their mysterious disappearance.

From Troubled Beginnings to Model Prince

When Edward was born in November 1470, times were bad for the House of York. The Lancastrians under Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick had regained the ascendancy in the Wars of the Roses, overthrowing Edward IV and restoring Henry VI. Prince Edward was born in the precincts of Westminster Abbey where his mother, Elizabeth Woodville was in sanctuary, protected from the vengeful Lancastrians. By the time Edward was six months old, however, the tables had turned again. In 1471 his father returned from exile and overthrew Henry VI for the last time, bringing England back under Yorkist rule.

Shortly after his return to the throne, Edward IV created his infant son Prince of Wales. Two years later the boy was dispatched to Ludlow Castle in the Welsh Marches where he would (nominally) perform his duties as President of the Council of Wales and the Marches. He was raised there by his mother's brother Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers. His father ensured that Lord Rivers brought him up in a precise and virtuous manner involving a comprehensive education and much sporting activity. The Prince was also brought up to be polite, courteous and morally upstanding, contrasting with his father's vices for women, gluttony and crassness. It was even arranged 1480 for Edward to marry the Duke of Brittany's daughter Anna, a marriage that would take place when both children reached maturity.

Edward's upbringing was indeed cosy and well-planned but circumstances were already beginning to conspire against the young King-in-waiting. Edward's father was immensely popular with his subjects but his mother and her family were not. The Woodvilles had done very well out of the royal marriage and formed a powerful noble faction around Edward IV. Other nobles resented the great influence they wielded and were concerned about what might happen after Edward IV's death. Nobody was concerned more than the King's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester who feared that his position and even his life could be in danger if the Woodvilles gained overall control of the Kingdom through his young nephew.

Events of 1483

The situation remained calm until Edward IV died unexpectedly in April 1483, when Prince Edward was just twelve years old. Following the terms of the dead King's will, Gloucester was appointed to serve as Protector of the realm during Edward V's minority but Elizabeth Woodville, suspicious of Gloucester's motives, pushed to have her son crowned as soon as possible. The new King, accompanied by Lord Rivers, began the long journey from Ludlow down towards London.

Elizabeth was right to be suspicious of Gloucester, who was determined to assert his authority before the Woodvilles could gain control of Edward. As Elizabeth made plans for Edward's coronation, she received the news that the King's travelling party had been intercepted by Gloucester in Northamptonshire near Stony Stratford. The King was now under the Protector's complete control as the pair continued on to London. Once there, Gloucester had Edward placed in the royal apartments at the Tower of London and postponed the coronation.

Gloucester then accused Lord Rivers and the other Woodvilles of treason and of plotting to usurp his role as Protector. Rivers and the King's half-brother Richard Grey were subsequently executed whilst Elizabeth once again headed into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, taking her younger son Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York with her. The sanctuary could not protect her this time, however, as Gloucester soon appeared and strong-armed the dowager Queen into giving up Richard. Soon Richard was lodged in the Tower alongside his brother, and Gloucester was ready to launch his bid for power.

In June 1483 Gloucester and his supporters went into action. The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Robert Stillington went public with his belief that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid, citing a pre-existing marriage contract that the former King had made with one Lady Eleanor Butler. There was no evidence whatsoever to support this claim but Edward IV's notorious reputation as a womaniser counted against his son and people believed the story. The London preacher and theologian Ralph Shaa gave a public sermon at St Paul's Cross, stating his belief that Edward V and his brother were illegitimate.

On June 26th the English Parliament accepted Gloucester's "evidence" and declared Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth invalid on the grounds of a prior betrothal, thus barring their children from the succession. Edward V was declared illegitimate and formally deposed from the throne by the Act of Parliament Titulus Regius. He had been King for just 78 days and had never been crowned. As the last surviving brother of Edward IV (the children of the middle brother George, Duke of Clarence had already been excluded from the succession on account of their father's treason), Gloucester's claim was recognised and he was crowned King Richard III on July 6th 1483.

The Fate of the Princes

The deposed Edward V and his brother remained in the Tower following their uncle's legally-sanctioned usurpation but they were gradually seen less and less. By the end of Summer 1483 they had seemingly disappeared altogether and it did not take long for people to blame Richard III, the one man who had the most reason at that time to get rid of them. The timing of the Princes' disappearance would put the time of their death somewhere between July and October, right when Richard was establishing his rule.

19th Century painting of the Princes in the Tower.

Richard III is not the only candidate to have emerged as a potential culprit behind the murder of the Princes in the Tower, however. Others who have been named as suspects include Richard's servant Sir James Tyrrell and his one-time ally Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. It has even been suggested that the Princes lived on for over two more years and were eventually murdered by Richard's successor, Henry Tudor. The possibility that Henry was the one responsible is rather unlikely, however, as Richard III made no effort to prove that the Princes were still alive after they vanished. Had they still been alive, Richard would almost certainly have produced them in public in order to counter the rumours that he had killed them. Tyrrell would later confess, albeit under torture for his role in treason against Henry Tudor, that he had killed the Princes. In his play Richard III, William Shakespeare depicted Tyrrell (acting on Richard's orders) as the murderer, basing his interpretation upon Thomas More's version of events in which the two Princes were smothered to death in their sleep.

Almost two centuries after the incident, in 1674, workmen performing building work at the Tower of London discovered a chest buried beneath a staircase. It was found to contain the incomplete skeletons of two children wrapped in rags of velvet. The monarch at the time, Charles II took for granted that they were the remains of Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, ordering that they be reinterred in Westminster Abbey where they remain at rest today. A later examination of the bones in 1933 could not determine for definite if they did or did not belong to the Princes. It was not even possible then to determine their gender. It was, however, concluded that the two skeletons where of approximately the right age and that one was slightly older than the other.

English Monarchs: Edward IV

First Reign: March 4th 1461 - October 30th 1470

Second Reign: April 11th 1471 - April 9th 1483

Born: April 28th 1442

Died: April 9th 1483

Father: Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York (disputed)

Mother: Cecily Neville

Spouse: Elizabeth Woodville

Children (legitimate):
Elizabeth of York, Queen Consort of England
Mary of York
Cecily of York, Viscountess Welles
Edward V of England
Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York
George Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford
Anne of York, Countess of Surrey
Catherine of York, Countess of Devon
Bridget of York

Royal House: York

Edward IV would never have got near the throne were it not for the tragic shortcomings of his predecessor Henry VI and the claim to the throne put forward so effectively by his father Richard, Duke of York. Edward inherited Richard's struggle and brought it to a successful conclusion, dethroning the House of Lancaster and bringing the House of York to power. A brief Lancastrian resurgence would send him into temporary exile but he would return, destroying his opponents for good and seeing out the rest of his reign in hard-earned peace.

Not only a talented general and popular King, Edward IV was also a great patron of the arts and a shrewd businessman, encouraging foreign trade and making the crown profitable by reducing the costs of administration. He was notorious, however, for his way with women and his controversial choice of wife. That choice would come back to haunt the House of York after Edward's premature death, setting in motion the chain of events that brought about the end of Yorkist rule in England.

Son of York?

Edward was born in April 1442 in Rouen as his parents were based there during his father's Normandy campaign towards the end of the Hundred Years War. While there is considerable evidence to suggest that Richard of York may not have been Edward's biological father, York never contested his paternity and the issue would not come to light for some years. Most mentions of it during Edward's lifetime were dismissed as boat-rocking tittle-tattle spread around by his opponents in their efforts to discredit him.

According to contemporary chroniclers of a Yorkist persuasion. Edward grew up into a strapping and handsome youth noted for his impressive stature (his height of 6ft 4in makes him the tallest English, Scottish or British monarch to have ever reigned), great geniality and ability to put people at ease. Later historians, especially those writing in the Tudor period, would play up the more negative aspects of his character. The Croyland chronicler described Edward as "a gross man... addicted to conviviality, vanity, drunkenness, extravagance and passion". William Shakespeare, who could always be relied upon for anti-Yorkist propaganda, pictured him "lolling on a lewd love bed... dallying with a brace of courtesans".

Seizing the Throne

Edward, now Earl of March, rose to prominence after the onset of the Wars of the Roses in 1455. Alongside the Nevilles, the Earl of Salisbury and his son, the Earl of Warwick, Edward was a key supporter and commander in his father's struggle to assert himself upon the Lancastrian clique that surrounded the increasingly inept and mentally-unstable Henry VI. York took custody of Henry in 1459 after the Battle of Northampton and put his claim to the throne before Parliament. York was recognised as the heir at the expense of Henry's son, Edward of Westminster. 

The designation of York as successor led to a fightback by the Lancastrians and the Yorkists were defeated at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460. York was killed and his head displayed, wearing a paper crown, on the walls of his namesake city. Despite this enormous setback, the Yorkist cause endured under Warwick, who took the seventeen-year-old Edward under his wing. Edward was proving himself to be a capable military leader, leading a Yorkist army to victory at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross before he and Warwick entered London in triumph in February 1461. The following month Warwick "the Kingmaker", with the support of the London populace, proclaimed his young charge King Edward IV.

The Battle of Towton

On March 29th 1461 Edward crushed the main Lancastrian army at the Battle of Towton in Yorkshire, regarded by many as the bloodiest battle in English history. The victory at Towton eliminated any serious Lancastrian resistance for the time being and Edward returned to London to assume the throne. Henry VI was imprisoned in the Tower of London whilst his wife and son fled first to Scotland, then to France.

First Reign and the Rise of the Woodvilles

For the first three years of so after taking the crown, Edward seemed perfectly happy to rule the kingdom through Warwick, the man to whom he owed his newfound position. It was not until 1464 that Edward, now aged 22, began showing signs of independence. That year he secretly married Elizabeth Woodville the widowed daughter of a former Lancastrian sympathiser. When she first met the King, Elizabeth had to defend herself at knifepoint from his immediate sexual advances, a defence to which Edward responded by offering her marriage. The illicit union to an obviously unsuitable wife was kept quiet for a while but it eventually became public and Elizabeth was begrudgingly acknowledged as Queen.

Elizabeth Woodville

The Woodville marriage went against the wishes of Warwick, who would have preferred Edward to enter into a more suitable dynastic match with a French princess. What concerned him more, however, was the increasing favour that the King was showing towards his new wife's extended family. The Woodvilles soon began forming their own court faction around Edward that threatened Warwick's own authority. The King would later defy Warwick again by instigating his own foreign policy, entering into an alliance with Burgundy (offering his sister Margaret for marriage to Duke Charles the Bold) rather than with Warwick's preferred choice, France. By the late 1460s, the relationship between the King and his once-loyal supporter was at breaking point.

Finally in 1469, Warwick turned against Edward and, along with the King's rebellious younger brother George, Duke of Clarence, raised an army which defeated Edward's at Edgecote Hill. Edward was captured but his own supporters among the nobility immediately launched a counter-rebellion. Warwick and Clarence were forced to release the King and the former fled to France, where he promptly began conspiring with Henry VI's wife, Margaret of Anjou.

Exile and Restoration

Warwick and Clarence, with French backing, returned to England in September 1470 with the aim of overthrowing Edward and restoring Henry VI to the throne. Edward might have been able to see off the threat but the defection of Warwick's brother John Neville, Marquess of Montagu to the Lancastrian cause left the King powerless to resist. Edward and his youngest brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester fled the country to take up refuge at the court of their Burgundian allies. A heavily pregnant Queen Elizabeth took to the safe sanctuary of Westminster Abbey where, that November, she gave birth to a son, Edward.

In October 1470 Henry VI was freed from the Tower of London and duly restored to the throne. Henry, his mental health having almost completely collapsed, was no more than a puppet in the hands of Clarence and Warwick. Despite this, the restored Lancastrian regime might have endured were it not for Warwick's unrelenting zeal and desperation to achieve his longed-for alliance with France. Edward's brother-in-law and new host, the Duke of Burgundy was initially unwilling to get involved in the dispute but the declaration of war by Warwick and Louis XI of France against Burgundy forced his hand. The Duke soon granted Edward the ships and soldiers that the latter needed to reclaim his lost throne.

In March 1471 Edward IV returned to England claiming, just as Henry Bolingbroke had done in 1399, that he had only come back to regain his dukedom. The public came out in support of Edward and within a month he had been officially restored to the throne. The Lancastrians reacted but Edward immediately put his skills as a soldier and general to good use. Despite being outnumbered by three to one, Edward's army defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Barnet, killing both Warwick and his brother Montagu. The final showdown came in May at the Battle of Tewkesbury where the three sons of York: Edward, Gloucester and the reconciled Clarence, faced off against the army of Margaret of Anjou and her son Edward of Westminster, the Lancastrian Prince of Wales.

The result was a final decisive victory for the House of York. Edward of Westminster lay dead on the battlefield and Margaret was in Edward's custody, where she would remain until 1475 when her cousin, Louis XI paid her ransom. The pathetic Henry VI was returned to the Tower, fully believing that his life remained safe in Edward's hands. Edward did not see it that way for, with the far more capable Edward of Westminster now dead, there was no longer any reason to keep Henry alive. The former King was murdered in the Tower on May 21st although the official proclamation of his death announced that natural causes were responsible.

Edward IV's realm was now secure and the main line of the House of Lancaster was extinct. The only remaining Lancastrian with anything like a claim to the throne was the fourteen-year-old Henry Tudor who, now in danger of his life, was soon packed off to exile in Brittany by his concerned relatives.

Second Reign

Edward's second stint on the throne of England lacked the drama of the first but it was certainly a more stable and prosperous time for England. Capitalising on his sky-high popularity, Edward obtained Parliament's backing for an armed expedition to France in 1475. This venture achieved little but the King was more than happy to be bought of by the French for a payment of 75,000 gold crowns up-front and further annual payments of 50,000. These payments, combined with his reforms of royal administration and finance, boosted the royal coffers and brought the crown into solvency for the first time in a long time, allowing Edward to lower taxes and increase his popularity even further. Additional income also came in from customs duties and from Edward's mercantile interests (he was a prolific investor in the various City of London corporations), allowing him to spend more on his lavish court and his large book collection.

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence

There was only one fly-in-the-ointment for Edward. A story circulating at the time tells us that the King was warned by a soothsayer that he would be succeeded by someone whose name began with the letter G. Edward took this to mean his flighty brother George, Duke of Clarence. Although Clarence had been forgiven for his earlier roles in rebellions against Edward and had done reasonably well out of the reappropriation of the former Neville estates, he remained ambitious and unreliable, secretly desiring the throne for himself. Clarence was soon going about stirring up old rumours that he hoped would cast doubt upon the right to rule of Edward and his sons. The long-dormant issue of Edward's own legitimacy cropped up, as did the legality of his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville which, if found to be invalid, would disinherit the King's children and put Clarence back at the front of the succession queue.

In 1477 Edward finally lost patience with his brother and had him put on trial for treason and plotting against the King. Clarence was privately executed the following year, the traditional story being that be was drowned in a butt of malmsey wine. For the next five years Edward's rule remained peaceful and unchallenged although the man himself grew increasingly overweight and inactive due to his love of food and drink. During these later years his slovenly lifestyle slowly caught up with him as his once-robust health began to falter.

During Easter 1483 Edward IV suddenly fell ill with a fever after a fishing trip on the River Thames. On April 9th he died, just short of his 41st birthday. His son succeeded him as Edward V but the new King was only twelve years old and needed a regent. The man that Edward's will appointed as Protector was his ever-loyal youngest brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Gloucester duly took up the post but, as it turned out, the man whose name began with G had plans of his own for both his young nephew and for the kingdom.

English Monarchs: Henry VI

First Reign: August 31st 1422 - March 4th 1461

Second Reign: October 30th 1470 - April 11th 1471

Born: December 6th 1421

Died: May 21st 1471

Father: Henry V, King of England

Mother: Catherine of Valois

Spouse: Margaret of Anjou

Children:
Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales

Royal House: Lancaster

Burial: St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle

Henry VI is the youngest English monarch ever, ascending to the throne at the age of just nine months. He would go on to be one of the least effective, losing the hard-won French conquests of his father and obliviously presiding over England's collapse into the bloody dynastic struggle which would later become known as the Wars of the Roses. After years of weak rule under the influence of unpopular advisers, his personal rule was fatally undermined by bouts of mental illness and the political machinations of the men who surrounded him at court. He would eventually be deposed, then restored, then deposed again and finally murdered at the hands of his enemies. His death brought an end to the direct legitimate line of the House of Lancaster and ushered in more than a decade of dominance by its dynastic rivals, the Yorkists.

Poor ruler though Henry was, he was not a bad person. Indeed, as far as personalities go, Henry VI was perhaps the nicest of England's monarchs. A lover of learning and devoutly religious, later historians of a pro-Lancastrian stance would wax lyrical about Henry's kindness and benevolence, personality traits which undoubtedly made him impressionable, overly trusting and easy to manipulate. The simple fact was that he was simply the wrong sort of King for his time. At the precise moment when the English needed a strong ruler and a good leader of men, they got someone who had no interest in war and who was both unable and unwilling to assert his authority. The situation was always bound to end in disaster.

The Cradle King and the Maid of Orléans

Before Henry V died in August 1422, he ensured as best he could that England and her conquered territories in France would hold together under the long minority of his son. After the great warrior had breathed his last, the tried and tested machinery of English government rolled into action to ensure the continued smooth running of the kingdom. As dictated in the dead King's will, regencies were established under the supervision of Henry V's two surviving brothers. The eldest brother John, Duke of Bedford was named as overall regent but he chose to occupy himself with the ongoing war in France and the administration of the conquered territories there. The job of overseeing England therefore went to the other brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. 

Less than two months after the baby Henry VI became King of England, his French grandfather Charles VI died. Under the terms of the 1420 Treaty of Troyes, which has father had wrested from the French, Henry became King of France as well. For the first few years of Henry's minority the dominant English position in France was maintained although opposition continued in the form of those who still saw the Dauphin Charles, the disinherited son of Charles VI, as the rightful ruler of France. Rather than going for the knockout blow against the Dauphin, Bedford opted instead to consolidate the English gains in France so that sufficient income from those lands could be raised and used to resume the fighting at some later date. As Bedford continued to put off any further offensive campaigns, the chances of an overall English victory in France began to slip away. Their prospects were not helped by the deterioration of their alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, who became increasingly alienated by English military interference in Flanders during the 1420s. 

The political and geographical situation in France during the 1420s.

By 1429 the regency in England was working so well under Gloucester and Henry's half-uncle, Bishop Henry Beaufort that the time was judged right for the seven-year-old King to be crowned. The boy was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on November 6th. There was, however, another reason for bringing forward the coronation. Four months earlier, the English were shocked to discover that the French had broken the Treaty of Troyes by crowning the Dauphin as King Charles VII at Rheims. At Charles' side during his coronation was a teenage peasant girl named Joan of Arc, who claimed to be on a divine mission from God to rid France of its English overlords and restore the rightful King. Joan's role in breaking the English siege of Orléans earlier that year had inspired the downtrodden French, who instantly took the girl to their hearts, and ushered in a new period of French ascendancy in the conflict.

With the situation threatening to slip out of their control, Henry's ministers resolved to get the boy crowned in France as quickly as possible whilst the English position there, momentarily bolstered by the capture and execution of Joan of Arc in 1431, was still strong. Rheims, the traditional site of French coronations, was no longer a safe location for the English so instead Henry was crowned King of France at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on December 16th 1431. Henry only stayed in Paris for less than a month before his guardians took him back to England, however, and from that point on, the English cause in France was effectively lost.

Defeat in France

Henry VI was declared of age in 1437 but he lacked the willingness to participate fully in the affairs of government and still relied on his close circle of relatives. During the 1440s it was William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk who emerged as the most powerful figure in England, masterminding Humphrey of Gloucester's downfall in 1447 after convincing Henry that the Duke was planning an uprising. Suffolk was also the man behind Henry's marriage to the French princess Margaret of Anjou, a union which made it all too clear which direction English foreign policy was taking.

The Duke of Bedford had died in 1435 and the military situation in France was becoming critical for the English who were losing land all along the Loire valley. Despite this, Henry continued to show no interest whatsoever in war, preferring instead to indulge in educational or religious ventures such as the foundation of Eton College (1440) and King's College, Cambridge (1441). In 1440 the opportunity to campaign in Normandy came up but Henry was too busy overseeing the building work at Eton. In his place he sent one of his most popular commanders, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. Along with Gloucester, York was one of the leading figures of the pro-war faction at court. These nobles wanted to continue the conflict in France as they had been doing so well out of it in terms of land and wealth.

Beginning with his marriage to Margaret in 1445, Henry, along with Suffolk, pursued an active peace policy with the French and thought nothing of handing back huge chunks of land in order to achieve it. Henry returned Maine and Anjou to Charles VII in exchange for peace and Margaret's hand in marriage. The pro-war party were incensed but the King and Suffolk responded, as already mentioned, by charging Gloucester with treason in 1447. Henry's uncle would later die in prison.

The death of John Talbot at the Battle of Castillon

Despite the peace treaty with France, the English continued to lose ground at an alarming rate. In the early 1450s the French retook the last major English held regions, Normandy and Aquitaine, and the crushing English defeat at the battle of Castillon in 1453 finally marked the end of the Hundred Years War. Henry had lost everything that his father had won and his last possession on the continent was the port of Calais, which would remain in English hands for another century. The blame for the final humiliations fell squarely on Suffolk who, despite Henry's best efforts to save his life, was caught and murdered as he fled into exile. His role as Henry's chief adviser was then taken up by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

Mental Breakdown and the Rise of York

Discontent at home caused by the failures in France led to a popular uprising in the southeast of England 1450, led by Jack Cade, a supporter of Richard of York. Henry did nothing about the revolt and allowed it to run its course for over two months until Cade's death. Instead of learning from the experience, the King astonished everyone by appointing Somerset who, as a former commander in France, was even more directly responsible for England's military setbacks than Suffolk had been. York pushed for Somerset's removal but the latter survived with the support of the Queen and York found himself isolated.

In August 1453, barely a month after the end of the war with France, things took a sudden turn for the unexpected. Henry suffered a complete mental collapse, showing the first signs of a mystery affliction that he most likely inherited from his feeble-minded French grandfather Charles VI. The King lost all memory and sense of awareness, spending months at a time sitting silently in a melancholic trance, totally oblivious to everything and everyone around him. When Queen Margaret presented Henry with their newborn son, Edward of Westminster, the King acknowledged his heir with barely a flicker of his eyelids. When he finally snapped out of it after eighteen months, he had no idea where the Prince came from.

The noblemen of England choose which rose to back.

During this first period of incapacity, York was brought back in from the cold and served as Henry's regent and Protector of England. Mistrust remained, however, as those close the King grew increasingly suspicious of York's motives. York was of the blood royal and had a strong claim to the throne, descended from Edward III on both his father's side and his mother's side. Unfortunately for him, the birth of Prince Edward scuppered any initial hopes he may have harboured of taking the throne. Henry's recovery in late 1454 handed the advantage back to Margaret and Somerset who banished York from court once again. York was now determined to impose his will on the regime by force so he headed north to raise an army, beginning what would the 19th Century writer Sir Walter Scott would later dub the Wars of the Roses. This name was coined in reference to the floral emblems used by the competing factions: the red rose for the House of Lancaster and the white rose for the House of York.

Early Conflict and Downfall

The early hostilities went well for York and his supporters. The first battle was a small confrontation at St Albans in May 1455, during which several prominent Lancastrian leaders, including Somerset and the Earl of Northumberland, were killed. After the battle the Yorkists found Henry sitting abandoned in his tent, having suffered another mental breakdown. York became Protector again only to be removed when the King recovered in February 1456.

Despite efforts to keep the peace following the initial engagements, the struggle at court continued with both factions unable to keep any advantage they gained over the other. The real turning point came in 1459 at the Battle of Northampton, where the Lancastrians were beaten by York's ally Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Once again the unresponsive Henry was found abandoned and the Yorkists took him back to London in their custody. Once there, Richard of York went before Parliament and, to everybody's utter astonishment, formally lodged his claim to the throne.

York based is claim on the fact that he was descended on his mother's side from Edward III's second son Lionel of Antwerp (he was descended on his father's side from Edmund of Langley, the fourth son). This made his claim stronger than that of the House of Lancaster, which was descended from Edward's third son, John of Gaunt and had usurped the throne from Richard II at the expense of Lionel's heirs back in 1399. Even York's biggest supporters, such as Warwick and the Earl of Salisbury (Warwick's father), were shocked at the claim for it had never been their intention to go so far as to have Henry VI removed from the throne. Nonetheless York was able to persuade Parliament to reach a favourable compromise. Henry would remain King but York was recognised as his successor.

York's triumph was to be short-lived, however, as he had failed to count on the cast-iron will of Queen Margaret, who refused to allow he son Edward to be denied of his birthright. The Lancastrians rallied and, at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460, defeated the Yorkists. York was killed in the battle, and his second son Edmund and the Earl of Salisbury were executed the following day. Two months later, following the Second Battle of St Albans, the Lancastrians recovered control of the King.

The tide soon turned once again, however, as the Yorkist cause recovered quickly under York's eldest son Edward, Earl of March and the Earl of Warwick. In March 1461, Edward had himself proclaimed King Edward IV and inflicted a decisive and crushing defeat on the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton. As Queen Margaret and the Prince of Wales fled to Scotland, Edward headed for London, captured Henry and took the throne. For the next decade there would be two Kings in England: Edward IV at Westminster and the deposed Henry VI locked away in the confines of the Tower of London.

Restoration and Final Overthrow

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick

Edward IV ruled without major incident until 1470 when he had a falling-out with Warwick. The former Yorkist stalwart defected to the Lancastrian cause and, along with Edward's brother George, Duke of Clarence, headed to France and began conspiring with Queen Margaret to restore her husband to the throne. Warwick arranged for the marriage of his daughter Anne to the Lancastrian Prince of Wales, Edward of Westminster before leading an armed expedition to England. Lacking the support he needed to resist his former ally, Edward IV had no choice but to flee into exile in Burgundy. In October 1470 Henry VI, by this stage almost totally incapacitated by mental illness, was freed from the Tower and restored to the throne, although the real power rested in the hands of Warwick and Clarence.

Henry's second reign lasted less than six months. Warwick made the mistake of declaring war on Burgundy, which responded by sending Edward IV back to England with military support. Warwick "the Kingmaker" was killed at the Battle of Barnet in April 1471 and the Lancastrians were comprehensively defeated for the last time at the Battle of Tewkesbury in May. Following the battle the remaining Lancastrian leaders were either murdered or beheaded. Edward IV returned to the throne and Henry returned to the Tower.

With the death of the much-feared Edward of Westminster in battle at Tewkesbury, there was no longer any reason for the Yorkists to keep Henry alive. On the night of May 21st 1471, the last Lancastrian King of England was murdered with a heavy blow to the back of the head, most likely inflicted as he knelt at prayer. The records show that among those present in the Tower of London at the time was King Edward's eighteen-year-old brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester. It would not be the last time that Richard was implicated in a royal whodunit within the walls of the grim fortress.

English Monarchs: Henry V

Other Names: Henry of Monmouth, Prince Hal

Reign: March 20th 1413 - August 31st 1422

Born: September 16th 1386

Died: August 31st 1422

Father: Henry IV of England

Mother: Mary de Bohun

Spouse: Catherine of Valois

Children:
Henry VI, King of England

Royal House: Lancaster

Burial: Westminster Abbey, London

The reign of Henry V marks something of a turning point in English royal history. Despite the passing of nearly four centuries since the Norman Conquest, it was not until the coming of the venerated soldier King that English monarchs began to identify themselves as being culturally English rather than French. Henry V's long-overdue adoption of English as the official language of the ruling class, along with his great achievements as King, contributed significantly to the emergence of a truly English national identity that encompassed everyone from the King right down to the lowliest peasant.

What everyone remembers Henry V for, however, is his great victories in battle and lightning conquests in France. His reign was the shortest since the Conquest but in that short time, just nine years, he united the whole of England behind him, cast off the tarnished legacy of his father and achieved the goal that had eluded even Edward III, securing the throne of France for himself. It was only his untimely death that robbed him of the chance to rule France, paving the way for his infant son to throw it all away and pitch the English people headlong into the bloody strife of dynastic conflict.

The Usurper's Heir

"Prince Hal" was thirteen years old when his father Henry Bolingbroke deposed Richard II and became King Henry IV, becoming Prince of Wales and Duke of Lancaster soon afterwards. In the two Henry IV plays, William Shakespeare would later depict the Prince's youth as one of rebelliousness, irresponsibility and idle pastimes, characteristics which he immediately shook off once becoming King. Despite these alleged shortcomings he was not entirely without merit in his early life. He was deeply religious, attending Mass every day as a child, well-cultured and educated from an early age and, as already mentioned, became the first senior English royal to read and write fluently in English.

Even if he was something of a scapegrace to the extent that Shakespeare portrayed, Prince Hal often made himself useful and soon began showing the skills in warfare and leadership that would make him a legend in the eyes of English patriots for generations to come. In 1403 he took command of his father's war effort against the uprising of the Welsh upstart Owain Glyndwr and his English noble backers. That same year the two Henrys fought alongside each other at the Battle of Shrewsbury, inflicting a decisive defeat upon Glyndwr and two other Henrys, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and his son Henry Hotspur. During the battle Prince Hal was struck in the face by an arrow and could easily have died right then and there. Thanks to the quick and precise work of the royal physician and the remarkable antiseptic qualities of honey, however, the Prince was extremely fortunate to have walked away with just a scar.

The war against the various rebellions took up much of Prince Hal's time until around 1408 when Henry IV's declining health allowed him to take on a more active political role. Relations between the heir and his father stretched to breaking point as the two led opposing factions at court, with Henry IV and the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Arundel on one side and Prince Hal and his uncles, Henry and Thomas Beaufort, on the other. The Prince and the Beauforts assumed effective control of the kingdom in 1410 when they secured Archbishop Arundel's removal from the office of Lord Chancellor, only to be ousted from court a year later when the ailing King's health recovered.

In March 1413 Henry IV finally died with his son at his bedside. Relations between the two remained tense to the last as the Prince took the crown from his father's bedside and tried it on for size before the old King was even dead. Prince Hal was now King Henry V and he would not allow his time on the throne to be undermined by the same issues and divisions that had dogged his father.

A United Realm

The main problem that Henry IV had whilst he was King was the simple fact that he had usurped the throne at a time when he had no right to it. His reign was overshadowed by memories of the usurpation as well as the suspicion that he had ordered the death of Richard II, who was being held in his captivity. There was also the matter of Edmund Mortimer, the young Marcher Lord who had a stronger claim to the throne than Henry IV. A lot of the rebelling against Henry by English nobles like the Percy family of Northumberland was carried out on the behalf of Mortimer's claim. Henry himself was also plagued by self-doubt and went to the grave knowing deep down that he had no real right to rule.

Henry V was determined to have no such issues. He harboured no reservations whatsoever about his right to occupy the throne and, having had no role of significance in the usurpation, was not tainted by the ghosts of 1399. Indeed he put the most significant of those ghosts to rest once and for all as one of the first acts of his reign was to have the body of Richard II removed from its resting place at Kings Langley and reinterred with full royal honours amongst the other Kings at Westminster Abbey, in the ornate tomb that Richard had commissioned for himself. Henry also took in Edmund Mortimer and treated Richard's former heir like one of his own family, turning a potential threat into a trusting supporter.

Richard, Earl of Cambridge

Even before the death of his father, Henry V was seen as the great white hope for the Lancastrian monarchy by the majority of the nobility, who were glad to have to such a dynamic and able ruler following the troubled years of Richard II and Henry IV. It says much for Henry's popularity amongst the English elite that there was only one major conspiracy against him during his reign. In 1415 Henry's cousin Richard of Conisburgh, Earl of Cambridge and Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham plotted to assassinate the King as he prepared for his French campaign at Southampton, replacing him with Edmund Mortimer. Fortunately for King Henry, his efforts to win the trust of Mortimer paid off and the former claimant informed him of the plan. The Southampton Plot was revealed and its participants executed.

The key to a united English nation in Henry's eyes, however, would be the resumption of the Hundred Years War with France, which was still technically ongoing but had not seen much action since Richard II's reign. Henry deduced that the English war monarchy, established by Edward I and perfected under Edward III, could not function effectively in times of peace as demonstrated during the previous decades, when domestic discontent inevitably led to challenges against royal power. If the nobles were to fight the French, Henry concluded, it would stop them fighting each other or their King.

Returning to France

Having firmly set his heart on returning his country to greatness, Henry formally restated the English claim to the French lands originally bequeathed to Edward III by the 1360 Treaty of Brétigny as well to the old territories of his Angevin ancestors such as Normandy and Anjou. He also reaffirmed his own claim to the French throne which went back to his great-great-grandmother Isabella and her father, King Philip IV of France. This claim was rejected by the French, who did not recognise the right of succession through the female line. It soon became clear that Henry was going to have to impose his will on France by force.

Whilst Henry prepared for war his ambassadors tried to apply more diplomatic pressure but his outrageous demands continued to be met with contempt from the French, who did not fear the young upstart monarch. While Henry was staying at the mighty Lancastrian stronghold of Kenilworth Castle he received a gift of tennis balls from the Dauphin (heir to the French throne), along with the suggestion that he might get more entertainment value out of them than out of any of the French territories he had asked for. Henry was incensed by this gesture and sent the French emissary back with the ominous message that he would one day use those balls to play tennis in Frenchmen's courtyards.

The French leadership may have felt confident enough but the reality was that the political situation in France at the time descending into a state of almost civil war. The King, Charles VI was suffering a mental collapse and the factions of John, Duke of Burgundy and Charles, Duke of Orléans were locked in a struggle to fill the emerging power vacuum. This provided the ideal situation for Henry to exploit and, in the early Summer of 1415, began preparations for a campaign in France that would prove to be the making of him. He was able to obtain the funds he needed from a sympathetic Parliament and inspire confidence in his men, persuading many top nobles and knights to make the trip alongside him.

Henry V set sail for France with an army of 12,000 men in August 1415 but his campaign immediately ran into trouble. His first target, the Norman port of Harfleur, held out for much longer than expected and an outbreak of dysentery, the scourge of the Medieval armies of Europe, ground down the English army. Harfleur eventually fell but by then Henry had neither the time (the campaigning season was coming to a close) nor the manpower to push on deeper into France. To save face and prove that he could still make an impression on the French, Henry decided to return to England via the overland route, marching north to English-held Calais. Before they could get there, however, they found the road blocked in Picardy by the main French army, some 30,000 strong. Henry was down to no more than 8000, all of whom were tired, hungry and diseased.

15th Century minature depicting the Battle of Agincourt.

What happened next is the stuff of legend and the name of Agincourt has echoed down the ages. On October 25th 1415, Saint Crispin's Day, Henry led his weary troops to a near total victory against overwhelming odds. The huge French army, over-confident and lacking in overall leadership, fell victim to the muddy field and the rain of English arrows whilst Henry proved himself to be an inspiring presence amongst his men. The Battle of Agincourt claimed the lives of over 10,000 Frenchmen while only some 200 English were killed. Despite the unexpected success, the English victory was somewhat tarnished by Henry's decision to execute the thousands of French prisoners that they had taken, lest they rise up and overwhelm the exhausted English troops.

By the end of the day, the cream of the French nobility either lay dead on the field, killed either in the fighting or by the hands of Henry's reluctant death squads. Only the most fortunate and the most valuable prisoners, like the Duke of Orléans, were spared and subsequently taken into English captivity. Despite not being able to follow up on his great victory, Henry returned to England in triumph, satisfied that he had made the right impression on his French foes. The crowds at his homecoming procession from Dover to London hailed him as King of England and of France but Henry was not yet King of France and he knew it. Two years later, the King was ready to go back and finish what he'd started.

The Conquest of France

Once his brother John, Duke of Bedford had secured English naval supremacy in the Channel and driven off a French attempt to retake Harfleur, Henry V and his army returned to France in 1417, beginning a period of almost unparalleled conquest. The English tore through Lower Normandy, capturing Caen in 1417. Falaise followed shortly afterwards as the townspeople chose to surrender rather than risk the massive walls of William the Conqueror's castle, which were being undermined by English sappers, collapsing on top of them. The bloodiest siege of all was that of Rouen, which fell in early 1419. The fall of Rouen brought the Duchy of Normandy under the King of England's control for the first time in over 200 years but, like the slaughter of the prisoners after Agincourt, it came with a cost to Henry's reputation.

Marriage of Henry V and Catherine of Valois

The Duke of Burgundy was murdered by the Dauphin's followers in August 1419, forcing the Burgundian faction into an alliance with the English who were now menacing Paris. Henry and Philip, the new Duke of Burgundy, used their combined pressure to bring the feeble-minded Charles VI to the negotiating table. Six months later, on May 21st 1420, the Treaty of Troyes was signed, effectively formalising the English takeover of France. Under the terms of the treaty the King of France kept his crown but the Dauphin Charles was declared illegitimate and Henry was recognised as the true heir and regent of France. The deal was formalised by the marriage between Henry and Charles VI's daughter Catherine, which took place in Troyes on June 2nd. The war itself was not yet over, however, and resistance continued in regions outside the English or Burgundian areas of occupation. In November 1420 Henry returned to England with his new wife, leaving his brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence in charge of military operations.

Final Campaigns and Death

In 1421 the English forces occupying northern France began to experience difficulties as the French, now allied with the Scots, continued to fight on. In March the army of the Scottish Earl of Buchan defeated a larger English force at the Battle of the Baugé. The Duke of Clarence was killed and Henry was forced to return and take personal command of the war effort, arriving in June 1421. With the King back in the thick of the action English fortunes began to pick up again. From July to August he besieged and captured Dreux, thus relieving the Burgundians at Chartres. In October the English laid siege to the town of Meaux, which fell on May 2nd 1422. Back in England, whilst the siege of Meaux was ongoing, Queen Catherine gave birth to Henry's son, the future Henry VI, at Windsor Castle on December 6th 1421.

For some unknown reason, Henry had been dead set against the idea of his heir being born at Windsor because he believed such an event would lead to some kind of profound calamity. When he received the news of his son's birth and that it had indeed happened at Windsor, the King is said to have replied with this ominously prophetic statement:

"I, Henry, born at Monmouth, Shall small time reign and much get: But Henry of Windsor shall long reign and lose all. But as God wills; so be it."

Henry V would never see his son, nor would he get to achieve his lifetime ambition of occupying the throne of France. At some point during the siege of Meaux Henry contracted dysentery and soon became seriously ill. On August 31st 1422, King Henry V died aged only 35 at the Château de Vincennes outside Paris, having made the necessary arrangements to leave his baby son and his kingdoms in the care of his two surviving brothers. On October 21st Charles VI died, having outlived Henry by less than two months. This turn of events was a fitting end for the deeply religious Henry who, like Moses, had come within sight of his kingdom only for death to deny him entry. For both England and France, however, the end of the war was still a long way off and much more blood was still to be spilt.