House of Tudor

House of Tudor
Information
Real Name:	House of Tudor
Kings:	Edward VI † Henry VIII †
Queens:	Catherine of Aragon † Anne Boleyn † Jane Seymour † Mary I † Elizabeth I ♔
Heads of Church:	Elizabeth I Edward VI † Henry VIII †
Nobles:	Joseph Tudor † More...
Location:	England
Affiliations:	Kingdom of England
First Mention:	Pilot

The House of Tudor is the Head of the English Church and the sole ruler of England and Ireland. They are the most influential family in England and have ruled for four generations.

List of Tudor Rulers

Kingdom of England and Ireland

• Henry VII of England (1485-1509)
• Henry VIII of England (1509-1547)
• Edward VI of England (1547-1553)
• Lady Jane Grey - Disputed (1553)
• Mary I of England (1553-1558)
• Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603)

In History

Ascent to the Throne The Tudors descended from King Edward III on Henry VII's mother's side from John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, one of the children of the 14th century English prince John of Gaunt, the third surviving son of Edward III. Beaufort's mother was Gaunt's long-term mistress Katherine Swynford. The descendants of an illegitimate child of English royalty would normally have no claim on the throne, although Gaunt and Swynford eventually married in 1396, when John Beaufort was 25. The church then retroactively declared the Beauforts legitimate by way of a papal bull the same year, confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1397. A subsequent proclamation by John of Gaunt's son by his earlier wife Blanche of Lancaster, King Henry IV, also recognized the Beauforts' legitimacy but declared the line ineligible for the throne. Nevertheless, the Beauforts remained closely allied with Gaunt's descendants from his first marriage, the House of Lancaster, during the civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses. However the descent from the Beauforts, did not necessarily render Henry Tudor (Henry VII) heir to the throne, nor did the fact that his father's mother, Catherine of Valois, had been a Queen of England (although, this did make Henry VII the son of King Henry VI's half-brother). The legitimate claim was that of Henry Tudor's wife, Elizabeth of York, as daughter to Edward IV, and descendant of the second son of Edward III, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and also his fourth son, Edmund, Duke of York. As she had no surviving brothers, Elizabeth had the strongest claim to the crown, but while she became queen consort, she did not rule as queen regnant; for the last attempt a female made at ruling in her own right had resulted in disaster when Henry II's mother, Empress Matilda, and Henry II's uncle, Stephen, King of England, fought bitterly for the throne in the 12th century. Henry VII Upon becoming king in 1485, Henry VII moved rapidly to secure his hold on the throne. On 18 January 1486 at Westminster, he honored a pledge made three years earlier and married Elizabeth of York (daughter of King Edward IV). The marriage unified the warring houses of Lancaster and York and gave the couple's children a strong claim to the throne. Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had several children, four of whom survived infancy: Arthur, Prince of Wales, Henry, Duke of York (the future Henry VIII), Margaret, who married James IV of Scotland, and Mary, who married Louis XII of France. Henry VII's foreign policy had an objective of dynastic security: witness the alliance forged with the marriage in 1503 of his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland and through the marriage of his eldest son. In 1501 Henry VII married his son Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, cementing an alliance with the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon at Ludlow Castle, the traditional seat of the Prince of Wales. However, four months after the marriage, Arthur died, leaving his younger brother Henry as heir apparent. Henry VII acquired a papal dispensationallowing Prince Henry to marry Arthur's widow; however, Henry VII delayed the marriage. Henry VII limited his involvement in European politics. He went to war only twice: once in 1489 during the Breton crisis and the invasion of Brittany, and in 1496–1497 in revenge for Scottish support of Perkin Warbeck and for the Scottish invasion of northern England. Henry VII made peace with France in 1492 and the war against Scotland was abandoned because of the Western Rebellion of 1497. Henry VII came to peace with James IV in 1502, paving the way for the marriage of his daughter Margaret. One of the main concerns of Henry VII during his reign was the re-accumulation of the funds in the royal treasury. England had never been one of the wealthier European countries, and after the War of the Roses this was even more true. Through his strict monetary strategy, he was able to leave a considerable amount of money in the Treasury for his son and successor, Henry VIII. Although it is debated whether Henry VII was a great king, he certainly was a successful one if only because he restored the nation's finances, strengthened the judicial system and successfully denied all other claimants to the throne, thus further securing it for his heir. Henry VIII Henry VIII succeeded to the throne on 22 April 1509. He married Catherine of Aragon on 11 June 1509 and they were crowned at Westminster Abbey on 24 June the same year. When Henry first came to the throne, he had very little interest in actually ruling. Rather, he preferred to indulge in luxuries and to partake in sports. He let others control the kingdom for the first two years of his reign, and then when he became more interested in military strategy, he took more interest in ruling his own realm. Catherine did not bear Henry the sons he was desperate for. She suffered multiple stillbirths until a daughter, Mary, was born in 1516. When it became clear to Henry that the Tudor line was at risk, he consulted his chief minister Cardinal Thomas Wolsey about the possibility of annulling his marriage to Catherine. Along with Henry's concern that he would not have an heir, he was growing weary of his aging wife and sought the Pope's consent for an annulment. However, the Holy See was reluctant to rescind the earlier papal dispensation and felt heavy pressure from Catherine's nephew, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in support of his aunt. Catherine contested the proceedings, and a protracted legal battle followed. Wolsey fell from favour in 1529 as a result of his failure to procure the annulment, and Henry appointed Thomas Cromwell in his place as chief minister in 1532. Henry became enamored with Anne Boleyn while she served as a lady-in-waiting in Catherine's household. In order to allow Henry to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn, the English parliament enacted laws breaking ties with Rome, and declaring the king Supreme Head of the Church of England, thus severing the ecclesiastical structure of England from the Catholic Church and the Pope. The newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, was then able to declare Henry's marriage to Catherine annulled. Catherine was removed from Court, and she spent the last three years of her life in various English houses under "protectorship", similar to house arrest. This allowed Henry to marry one of his courtiers: Anne Boleyn, the daughter of a minor diplomat Sir Thomas Boleyn. Anne had become pregnant by the end of 1532 and gave birth on 7 September 1533 to Elizabeth, named in honour of Henry's mother. Anne may have had later pregnancies which ended in miscarriage or stillbirth. In May 1536, Anne was arrested, along with six courtiers. Thomas Cromwell stepped in again, claiming that Anne had taken lovers during her marriage to Henry, and she was tried for high treason and incest; these charges were most likely fabricated, but she was found guilty and executed in May 1536. Protestant alliance[edit] Henry married again, for the third time, to Jane Seymour, the daughter of a Wiltshire knight, and with whom he had become enamored while she was still a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne. Jane became pregnant, and in 1537 produced a son, who became King Edward VI following Henry's death in 1547. Jane died of puerperal fever only a few days after the birth, leaving Henry devastated. In 1540, Henry married for the fourth time to the daughter of a Protestant German duke, Anne of Cleves, thus forming an alliance with the Protestant German states. Henry was reluctant to marry again, especially to a Protestant, but he was persuaded when the court painter Hans Holbein the Younger showed him a flattering portrait of her. She arrived in England in December 1539, and Henry rode to Rochester to meet her on 1 January 1540. However, the marriage failed, and Anne agreed to a peaceful annulment, assumed the title My Lady, the King's Sister, and received a massive divorce settlement. Although the marriage made sense in terms of foreign policy, Henry was still enraged and offended by the match. Henry chose to blame Cromwell for the failed marriage, and ordered him beheaded on 28 July 1540. The fifth marriage was to the Catholic Catherine Howard, the niece of Thomas Howard, the third Duke of Norfolk. Catherine was promoted by Norfolk in the hope that she would persuade Henry to restore the Catholic religion in England. Henry called her his "rose without a thorn", but the marriage ended in failure. Catherine, forced into a marriage to an unattractive, obese man over 30 years her senior, had never wanted to marry Henry, and conducted an affair with the King's favourite, Thomas Culpeper, while Henry and she were married. During her questioning, Catherine first denied everything but eventually she was broken down and told of her infidelity and her pre-nuptial relations with other men. Henry, first enraged, threatened to torture her to death but later became overcome with grief and self-pity. She was accused of treason and was executed on 13 February 1542, destroying the English Catholic holdouts' hopes of a national reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Her execution also marked the end of the Howard family's power within the court. By the time Henry conducted another Protestant marriage with his final wife Catherine Parr in 1543, the old Roman Catholic advisers, including the powerful third Duke of Norfolk, had lost all their power and influence. The duke himself was still a committed Catholic, and he was nearly persuaded to arrest Catherine for preaching Lutheran doctrines to Henry while she attended his ill health. However, she managed to reconcile with the King after vowing that she had only argued about religion with him to take his mind off the suffering caused by his ulcerous leg. Her peacemaking also helped reconcile Henry with his daughters Mary and Elizabeth and fostered a good relationship between her and the crown prince.

Family Tree

In Reign

Henry VII

Elizabeth of York

Catherine of Aragon

Henry VIII

Anne Boleyn

Mary Tudor

Margaret Tudor

Mary I of England

Elizabeth I ♔

Frances Brandon

James V

Margaret Douglas

Lady Jane Grey

James Stuart

Francis II

Mary I of Scotland ♔

Henry Stuart

James VI and I

In History

King Henry Tudor VII

Elizabeth of York

Arthur Tudor

Catherine of Aragon

King Henry VIII

Anne Boleyn

Mary Tudor

Margaret Tudor

Mary Tudor

Elizabeth Tudor ♔

Frances Grey

King James Stuart

Lady Lennox

Lady Jane Grey

James Stuart

Mary Stuart ♔

Lord Darnley

Reign's and History's Characters

• Queen Elizabeth and History's Queen Elizabeth
• Mary Stuart and History's Mary, Queen of Scots
• Anne Boleyn and History's Anne Boleyn
• King Philip and History's King Philip

Related Pages

House of Tudor
King:		Queen:	Elizabeth I of England
Heir:	James VI and I of Scotland and England	Lands:	Kingdom of England and Ireland
Title(s):	King of England · King of England · Queen of England · Queen of Ireland · Lord of Ireland · Prince of Wales · Supreme Head of the Church of England ·
Predecessors:	Henry VII of England · Henry VIII of England
Deceased Members:	Mary I of England · Edward VI of England · Lady Jane Grey
Household:	·