Lesson 1: Setting the Tudor Stage.
General introduction to the Tudors, England of this period, and resources we will use during the course.
Who were the Tudors?
In this part, students will gain a greater understanding of who were the Tudors and their right to the English crown.
No one debates the importance of the Tudors to English history, yet it should never be forgotten that the first Tudor King’s claim to the English crown was tenuous at the very best. Indeed, if ever a claim shifted upon foundations of sand it was that of Henry VII.
Henry was a descendent of John Beaufort, himself a by-blow (later made legitimate by an act of parliament) of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III. Henry Tudor was also the grandson of a French princess who became Henry V's Queen and mother of the tragic and believed saintly Henry VI.
Catherine of Valois, daughter of the mad Charles VI of France, had been widowed in her early twenties. But Owen Tudor, a handsome Welsh squire in her household - with duties in her wardrobe - caught her glance; Owen was very soon given other duties. In a relationship spanning something like ten years Catherine bore Owen Tudor five children.
Historians still debate whether or not they were truly married. As this was a Catholic age, and Catherine would have had her own household priest, my own feeling is that they were.
Catherine herself grew up in a family steeped with scandal, with a father suffering periods of 'madness', and a mother who wasn't too sure who fathered some of her children. With a background like that for her own past history, I doubt she would have wanted any uncertainty for her own children. As well - even in our own times - a woman is unlikely to bear a man five children without being in some kind of permanent relationship with him. In the fifteenth century, that generally meant marriage.
Catherine's grandson Henry was the posthumous son of the first of her children. Edmund Tudor had married Margaret Beaufort, a twelve-year bride who became a thirteen-year old mother. The marriage occured shortly after her husband’s death whilst he was held captive after fighting the Yorks, the royal cousins of the King wishing to push Henry VI off the throne.
Henry Tudor, Margaret's one and only baby, grew up in extremely uncertain times, in the midst of the bloodiest conflicts of the War of Roses - essentially sporadic, bloody faction fighting between the noble families of York and Lancaster, both of them believing they possessed better rights than the other to the ultimate prize: the English crown. These conflicts forced Henry VII to spend most of his first 28 years in exile to ensure his own survival.
Despite the uncertainty of these times, there appeared at least one thing Henry was very certain about. After the deaths of Henry VI and his teenage son, not forgetting the believed murders of the sons of Edward IV, Henry Tudor believed himself the scion of the Lancastrian family meant for Kingship. On an English summer's day, in 1485, at a place known to history as Bosworth Field – so named because it was situated near the town of Market Bosworth – the army of the twenty-eight-year-old Henry successfully battled against the stronger army of Richard III, resulting in Richard’s death; Henry then claimed the English crown as victor.
Henry VII consolidated his victory by marrying the person who really had greater right to the crown than him - Elizabeth of York, a twenty-year-old girl, niece to one, newly slain, York King, and daughter to another. Her father’s early death through illness – when his two sons were both only children – had opened the door wider to further savage struggles for the crown. And the birth of a new dynasty.
A fun test!
How much do you know about the War of the Roses? Take this test and find out!
