A Timeline of Britain
In the fifth part of our history series, Henry VII’s victory at Bosworth brings in the Tudor dynasty, famous for their tumultuous personal lives and political intrigues, and the social and cultural
glitter of Renaissance Britain WORDS NEIL JONES
H
enry Tudor’s victory over King Richard III at
the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 ushered in a dazzling new dynasty that would produce two of the most talked-about monarchs in British
history, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Not only that, but with the defeat of the Plantagenets and rise of the Tudors, the door closed on the Middle Ages, leading us towards the glories of the Renaissance. Henry VII (1485-1509) was a shrewd operator, and
completed his battlefi eld triumph at Boswell by marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, thereby uniting the warring Houses of York and Lancaster. England began to heal its wounds as the new king restored law and order, and relations with Scotland and Wales grew more harmonious, too. In the wider world, Henry promoted trade and exploration, and authorised John Cabot’s 1497 voyage of discovery, during which Cabot stumbled upon Newfoundland. Yet Henry remained a usurper king who was
constantly looking over his shoulder, ready to defend his tenuous claim to the Crown. The most notable uprisings involved the pretenders to the throne Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck. Henry bolstered his sense of royal lineage by naming
his fi rstborn son Arthur, after the legendary king of the Britons from whom he claimed descent. And he judiciously negotiated his young heir’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1499 to forge an alliance with Spain. Unfortunately, the lad died of the “sweating sickness” three years later aged just 15. And the course of history suddenly changed. Arthur’s brother, Henry, had originally been groomed
for the Church rather than the Crown – an irony that would only be appreciated later in his colourful life. However, he took to his royal inheritance like a duck to
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PHOTO: ALAMY/WIKIPEDIA
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