The House of Tudor was an English royal house of Welsh origin,^[1] descended in the male line from the Tudors of Penmynydd. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including their ancestral Wales and the Lordship of Ireland (later the Kingdom of Ireland) from 1485 until 1603, with five monarchs in that period. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, descended through his mother from a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster. The Tudor family rose to power in the wake of the Wars of the Roses, which left the House of Lancaster, to which the Tudors were aligned, extinct.

Henry Tudor was able to establish himself as a candidate not only for traditional Lancastrian supporters, but also for the discontented supporters of their rival House of York, and he rose to the throne by the right of conquest. His victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field was reinforced by his marriage to Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, symbolically uniting the former warring factions under a new dynasty. The Tudors extended their power beyond modern England, achieving the full union of England and the Principality of Wales in 1542 (Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542), and successfully asserting English authority over the Kingdom of Ireland. They also maintained the nominal English claim to the Kingdom of France; although none of them made substance of it, Henry VIII fought wars with France trying to reclaim that title. After him, his daughter Mary I lost control of all territory in France permanently with the fall of Calais in 1558.

In total, five Tudor monarchs ruled their domains for just over a century. Henry VIII was the only son of Henry VII to live to the age of maturity. Issues around the royal succession (including marriage and the succession rights of women) became major political themes during the Tudor era. The House of Stuart, descended from Henry VII's daughter Margaret, came to power in 1603 when Elizabeth I died and the Tudor line failed.

For analysis of politics, diplomacy and social history, see Tudor period.

Ascent to the throne

The Tudors descended on Henry VII's mother's side from John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, one of the illegitimate children of the 14th century English prince John of Gaunt (the third surviving son of Edward III) by Gaunt's long-term mistress Katherine Swynford. The descendants of an illegitimate child of English royalty would normally have no claim on the throne, but the situation became complicated when Gaunt and Swynford eventually married in 1396, when John Beaufort was 25. The church 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 legitimate son, Henry IV, also recognised the Beauforts' legitimacy but declared them ineligible ever to inherit the throne. Nevertheless, the Beauforts remained closely allied with Gaunt's legitimate descendants from his first marriage, the House of Lancaster.

On 1 November 1455, John Beaufort's granddaughter, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, married Henry VI's maternal half-brother Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond. It was his father, Owen Tudor (Welsh: Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur ap Goronwy ap Tudur ap Goronwy ap Ednyfed Fychan), who abandoned the Welsh patronymic naming practice and adopted a fixed surname. When he did, he did not choose, as was generally the custom, his father's name, Maredudd, but chose that of his grandfather, Tudur ap Goronwy, instead. This name is sometimes given as Tewdwr, the Welsh form of Theodore, but Modern Welsh Tudur, Old Welsh Tutir is originally not a variant but a different and completely unrelated name, etymologically identical with Gaulish Toutorix,^[2] from Proto-Celtic *toutā "people, tribe" and *rīxs "king" (compare Modern Welsh tud "territory" and rhi "king"^[3] respectively), corresponding to Germanic Theodoric.

Owen Tudor was one of the bodyguards for the queen dowager Catherine of Valois, whose husband, Henry V, had died in 1422. Evidence suggests that the two were secretly married in 1429. The two sons born of the marriage, Edmund and Jasper, were among the most loyal supporters of the House of Lancaster in its struggle against the House of York. Henry VI ennobled his half-brothers: Edmund became Earl of Richmond on 15 December 1449 ^[4] and was married to Lady Margaret Beaufort, the great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, the progenitor of the house of Lancaster; Jasper became the first Earl of Pembroke on 23 November 1452.^[4] Edmund died on 3 November 1456. On 28 January 1457, his widow Margaret, who had just attained her fourteenth birthday, gave birth to a son, Henry Tudor, at her brother-in-law's Pembroke Castle.

Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII, spent his childhood at Raglan Castle, the home of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, a leading Yorkist. Following the murder of Henry VI and death of his son, Edward, in 1471, Henry became the person upon whom the Lancastrian cause rested. Concerned for his young nephew's life, Jasper Tudor took Henry to Brittany for safety. Lady Margaret remained in England and remarried, living quietly while advancing the Lancastrian (and her son's) cause. Capitalizing on the growing unpopularity of Richard III (King of England from 1483), she was able to forge an alliance with discontented Yorkists in support of her son. Two years after Richard III was crowned, Henry and Jasper sailed from the mouth of the Seine to the Milford Haven Waterway and defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field (22 August 1485).^[3] Upon this victory, Henry Tudor proclaimed himself King Henry VII.

Family tree of the principal members of the house of Tudor
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Henry VII

Upon becoming king, Henry's first concern was to secure his hold on the throne. On 18 January 1486 at Westminster, he honoured a pledge made three years earlier and married Elizabeth of York.^[5] They were third cousins, as both were great-great-grandchildren of John of Gaunt. The marriage unified the warring houses of Lancaster and York and gave his children a strong claim to the throne. The unification of the two houses through this marriage is symbolized by the heraldic emblem of the Tudor rose, a combination of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster.

Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had several children, four of whom survived infancy: Arthur, Prince of Wales; Henry, Duke of York; Margaret, who married James IV of Scotland; and Mary, who married Louis XII of France. One of the objectives of Henry VII's foreign policy was dynastic security, which is portrayed through the alliance forged with the marriage of his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland and through the marriage of his eldest son. 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, and the two spent their honeymoon at Ludlow Castle, the traditional seat of the Prince of Wales.^[6] However, four months after the marriage, Arthur died, leaving his younger brother Henry as heir apparent. Henry VII acquired a papal dispensation allowing 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 their 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.^[6]

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.^[7]

Henry VIII

The new King Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon on 11 June 1509; they were crowned at Westminster Abbey on 24 June the same year. Catherine was Henry's older brother's wife, making the path for their marriage a rocky one from the start. A papal dispensation had to be granted for Henry to be able to marry Catherine, and the negotiations took some time. Despite the fact that Henry's father died before he was married to Catherine, he was determined to marry her anyway and make sure that everyone knew he intended on being his own master.

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 throne.^[8] In his younger years, Henry was described as a man of gentle friendliness, gentle in debate, and who acted as more of a companion than a king. He was generous in his gifts and affection and was said to be easy to get along with. The Henry that many people picture when they hear his name is the Henry of his later years, when he became obese, volatile, and was known for his great cruelty.^[9]

Catherine did not bear Henry the sons he was desperate for; her first child, a daughter, was stillborn, and her second child, a son named Henry, Duke of Cornwall, died 52 days after birth. A further set of stillborn children were conceived, 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, it was also obvious to his court that he was becoming tired of his aging wife, who was six years older than he. Wolsey visited Rome, where he hoped to get the Pope's consent for an annulment. However, the church 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 as a result of his failure to procure the annulment, and Henry appointed Thomas Cromwell in his place.

Despite his failure to produce the results that Henry wanted, Wolsey actively pursued the annulment — divorce was synonymous with annulment at that time. However, he never planned that Henry would marry Anne Boleyn, with whom the king had become enamoured while she was lady-in-waiting in Queen Catherine's household. It is unclear how far Wolsey was actually responsible for the Reformation, but it is very clear that Henry's desire to marry Anne Boleyn precipitated the schism with the Church. Henry's concern about having an heir to secure his family line and increase his security while alive would have prompted him to ask for a divorce sooner or later, whether Anne had precipitated it or not. Only Wolsey's sudden death at Leicester^[10] on his journey to the Tower of London saved him from the public humiliation and inevitable execution he would have suffered upon his arrival at the Tower.^[11]

Break with Rome

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 (from Elizabeth I the monarch is known as the Supreme Governor 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.^[12] 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.^[13] 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, witchcraft and incest; these charges were most likely fabricated, but she was found guilty, and executed in May 1536.

Protestant alliance

Henry married again, for the third time, to Jane Seymour, the daughter of a Wiltshire knight, and with whom he had become enamoured 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. Cromwell continued to gain the king's favour when he designed and pushed through the Laws in Wales Acts, uniting England and Wales.

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. Although the historian Gilbert Burnet claimed that Henry called her a Flanders Mare, there is no evidence that he said this; in truth, court ambassadors negotiating the marriage praised her beauty. Whatever the circumstances were, 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, which included Richmond Palace, Hever Castle, and numerous other estates across the country. 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.^[14] Henry kept his word and took care of Anne in his last years alive; however, after his death Anne suffered from extreme financial hardship because Edward VI's councillors refused to give her any funds and confiscated the homes she had been given. She pleaded to her brother to let her return home, but he only sent a few agents who tried to assist in helping her situation and refused to let her return home. Anne died on 16 July 1557 in Chelsea Manor.^[15]

The fifth marriage was to the Catholic Catherine Howard, the niece of Thomas Howard, the third Duke of Norfolk, who 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. Henry's fancy with Catherine started before the end of his marriage with Anne when she was still a member of Anne's court. Catherine was young and vivacious, but Henry's age made him less inclined to use Catherine in the bedroom; rather, he preferred to admire her, which Catherine soon grew tired of. 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.^[16]

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.

Meanwhile, Edward was brought up as a strict and devout Protestant by numerous tutors, including Bishop Richard Cox, John Belmain, and Sir John Cheke. The lady in charge of his upbringing was Blanche Herbert, Lady Troy, whose ancestors had residual Lollard connections.^[17] Her elegy includes the lines: ...To King Edward she was a true – (And) wise lady of dignity, – In charge of his fosterage (she was pre-eminent)....^[18]

Edward VI: Protestant zeal

Henry died on 28 January 1547. His will had reinstated his daughters by his annulled marriages to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn to the line of succession. Edward, his nine-year-old son by Jane Seymour, succeeded as Edward VI of England. Unfortunately, the young King's kingdom was usually in turmoil between nobles who were trying to strengthen their own positions in the kingdom by using the Regency in their favour.^[19]

Duke of Somerset's England

Although Henry had specified a group of men to act as regents during Edward's minority, Edward Seymour, Edward's uncle, quickly seized complete control and created himself Duke of Somerset on 15 February 1547. His domination of the Privy Council, the king's most senior body of advisers, was unchallenged. Somerset aimed to unite England and Scotland by marrying Edward to the young Mary, Queen of Scots, and aimed to forcibly impose the English Reformation on the Church of Scotland. Somerset led a large and well equipped army to Scotland, where he and the Scottish regent James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran, commanded their armies at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh on 10 September 1547. The English won the battle, and after this Queen Mary of Scotland was smuggled to France, where she was betrothed to the Dauphin, the future King Francis II of France. Despite Somerset's disappointment that no Scottish marriage would take place, his victory at Pinkie Cleugh made his position appear unassailable.^[20]

Edward VI was taught that he had to lead religious reform. In 1549, the Crown ordered the publication of the Book of Common Prayer, containing the forms of worship for daily and Sunday church services. The controversial new book was not welcomed by either reformers or Catholic conservatives; it was especially condemned in Devon and Cornwall, where traditional Catholic loyalty was at its strongest. In Cornwall at the time, many of the people could only speak the Cornish language, so the uniform English Bibles and church services were not understood by many. This caused the Prayer Book Rebellion, in which groups of Cornish non-conformists gathered round the mayor. The rebellion worried Somerset, now Lord Protector, and he sent an army to impose a military solution to the rebellion. The rebellion hardened the Crown against Catholics. Fear of Catholicism focused on Edward's elder sister, Mary, who was a pious and devout Catholic. Although called before the Privy Council several times to renounce her faith and stop hearing the Catholic Mass, she refused. Edward had a good relationship with his sister Elizabeth, who was a Protestant, albeit a moderate one, but this was strained when Elizabeth was accused of having an affair with the Duke of Somerset's brother, Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, the husband of Henry's last wife Catherine Parr. Elizabeth was interviewed by one of Edward's advisers, and she was eventually found not to be guilty, despite forced confessions from her servants Catherine Ashley and Thomas Parry. Thomas Seymour was arrested and beheaded on 20 March 1549.

Problematic succession

Lord Protector Somerset was also losing favour. After forcibly removing Edward VI to Windsor Castle, with the intention of keeping him hostage, Somerset was removed from power by members of the council, led by his chief rival, John Dudley, the first Earl of Warwick, who created himself Duke of Northumberland shortly after his rise. Northumberland effectively became Lord Protector, but he did not use this title, learning from the mistakes his predecessor made. Northumberland was furiously ambitious, and aimed to secure Protestant uniformity while making himself rich with land and money in the process. He ordered churches to be stripped of all traditional Catholic symbolism, resulting in the simplicity often seen in Church of England churches today. A revision of the Book of Common Prayer was published in 1552. When Edward VI became ill in 1553, his advisers looked to the possible imminent accession of the Catholic Lady Mary, and feared that she would overturn all the reforms made during Edward's reign. Perhaps surprisingly, it was the dying Edward himself who feared a return to Catholicism, and wrote a new will repudiating the 1544 will of Henry VIII. This gave the throne to his cousin Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary Tudor, who, after the death of Louis XII of France in 1515 had married Henry VIII's favourite Charles Brandon, the first Duke of Suffolk. Lady Jane's mother was Lady Frances Brandon, the daughter of Suffolk and Princess Mary. Northumberland married Jane to his youngest son Guildford Dudley, allowing himself to get the most out of a necessary Protestant succession. Most of Edward's council signed the Devise for the Succession, and when Edward VI died on 6 July 1553 from his battle with tuberculosis, Lady Jane was proclaimed queen. However, the popular support for the rightful successor Mary – even though she was Catholic – overruled Northumberland's plans, and Jane, who had never wanted to accept the crown, was deposed after just nine days. Mary's supporters joined her in a triumphal procession to London, accompanied by her younger sister Elizabeth.

With the death of Edward VI, the direct male line of the House of Tudor went extinct.

Mary I: A troubled queen's reign

Mary soon announced her intention to marry the Spanish prince Philip, son of her mother's nephew Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. The prospect of a marriage alliance with Spain proved unpopular with the English people, who were worried that Spain would use England as a satellite, involving England in wars without the popular support of the people. Popular discontent grew; a Protestant courtier, Thomas Wyatt the younger, led a rebellion against Mary aiming to depose and replace her with her half-sister Elizabeth. The plot was discovered, and Wyatt's supporters were hunted down and killed. Wyatt himself was tortured, in the hope that he would give evidence that Elizabeth was involved so that Mary could have her executed for treason. Wyatt never implicated Elizabeth, and he was beheaded. Elizabeth spent her time between different prisons, including the Tower of London.

Mary married Philip at Winchester Cathedral, on 25 July 1554. Philip found her unattractive, and only spent a minimal amount of time with her. Despite Mary believing she was pregnant numerous times during her five-year reign, she never reproduced. Devastated that she rarely saw her husband, and anxious that she was not bearing an heir to Catholic England, Mary became bitter. In her determination to restore England to the Catholic faith and to secure her throne from Protestant threats, she had 200-300 Protestants burnt at the stake in the Marian Persecutions between 1555 and 1558. Protestants came to hate her as "Bloody Mary." Charles Dickens stated that "as bloody Queen Mary this woman has become famous, and as Bloody Queen Mary she will ever be remembered with horror and detestation"^[21]

Mary's dream of a new, Catholic Hapsburg line was finished, and her popularity further declined when she lost the last English area on French soil, Calais, to Francis, Duke of Guise, on 7 January 1558. Mary's reign, however, introduced a new coining system that would be used until the 18th century, and her marriage to Philip II created new trade routes for England. Mary's government took a number of steps towards reversing the inflation, budgetary deficits, poverty, and trade crisis of her kingdom. She explored the commercial potential of Russian, African, and Baltic markets, revised the customs system, worked to counter the currency debasements of her predecessors, amalgamated several revenue courts, and strengthened the governing authority of the middling and larger towns.^[22] Mary also welcomed the first Russian ambassador to England, creating relations between England and Russia for the first time. Had she lived a little longer, Catholicism, which she worked so hard to restore into the realm might have taken deeper roots than it did. However, her actions in pursuit of this goal arguably spurred on the Protestant cause, through the many martyrs she made. Mary died on 17 November 1558 at the relatively young age of 42.^[23]

Elizabeth I: Age of intrigues and plots

Elizabeth I, who was staying at Hatfield House at the time of her accession, rode to London to the cheers of both the ruling class and the common people.

When Elizabeth came to the throne, there was much apprehension among members of the council appointed by Mary, due to the fact that many of them (as noted by the Spanish ambassador) had participated in several plots against Elizabeth, such as her imprisonment in the Tower, trying to force her to marry a foreign prince and thereby sending her out of the realm, and even pushing for her death.^[24] In response to their fear, she chose as her chief minister Sir William Cecil, a Protestant, and former secretary to Lord Protector the Duke of Somerset and then to the Duke of Northumberland. Under Mary, he had been spared, and often visited Elizabeth, ostensibly to review her accounts and expenditure. He was the cousin and friend of Blanche Parry, the closest person to Elizabeth for 56 years.^[25] Elizabeth also appointed her personal favourite, the son of the Duke of Northumberland Lord Robert Dudley, her Master of the Horse, giving him constant personal access to the queen.

Early years

Elizabeth had a long, turbulent path to the throne. She had a number of problems during her childhood, one of the main ones being after the execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn. When Anne was beheaded, Henry declared Elizabeth an illegitimate child and she would, therefore, not be able to inherit the throne. After the death of her father, she was raised by his widow, Catherine Parr and her husband Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley. A scandal arose with her and the Lord Admiral to which she stood trial. During the examinations, she answered truthfully and boldly and all charges were dropped. She was an excellent student, well-schooled in Latin, French, Italian, and somewhat in Greek, and was a talented writer.^[26][27] She was supposedly a very skilled musician as well, in both singing and playing the lute. After the rebellion of Thomas Wyatt the younger, Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London. No proof could be found that Elizabeth was involved and she was released and retired to the countryside until the death of her sister, Mary I of England.^[28]

Imposing the Church of England

Elizabeth was a moderate Protestant; she was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, who played a key role in the English Reformation in the 1520s. She had been brought up by Blanche Herbert Lady Troy. At her coronation in January 1559, many of the bishops – Catholic, appointed by Mary, who had expelled many of the Protestant clergymen when she became queen in 1553 – refused to perform the service in English. Eventually, the relatively minor Bishop of Carlisle, Owen Oglethorpe, performed the ceremony; but when Oglethorpe attempted to perform traditional Catholic parts of the Coronation, Elizabeth got up and left. Following the Coronation, two important Acts were passed through parliament: the Act of Uniformity and the Act of Supremacy, establishing the Protestant Church of England and creating Elizabeth Supreme Governor of the Church of England (Supreme Head, the title used by her father and brother, was seen as inappropriate for a woman ruler). These acts, known collectively as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, made it compulsory to attend church services every Sunday; and imposed an oath on clergymen and statesmen to recognise the Church of England, the independence of the Church of England from the Catholic Church, and the authority of Elizabeth as Supreme Governor. Elizabeth made it clear that if they refused the oath the first time, they would have a second opportunity, after which, if the oath was not sworn, the offenders would be deprived of their offices and estates.

Pressure to marry

Even though Elizabeth was only twenty-five when she came to the throne, she was absolutely sure of her God-given place to be the queen and of her responsibilities as the 'handmaiden of the Lord'. She never let anyone challenge her authority as queen, even though many people, who felt she was weak and should be married, tried to do so.^[24] The popularity of Elizabeth was extremely high, but her Privy Council, her Parliament and her subjects thought that the unmarried queen should take a husband; it was generally accepted that, once a queen regnant was married, the husband would relieve the woman of the burdens of head of state. Also, without an heir, the Tudor line would end; the risk of civil war between rival claimants was a possibility if Elizabeth died childless. Numerous suitors from nearly all European nations sent ambassadors to English court to put forward their suit. Risk of death came dangerously close in 1564 when Elizabeth caught smallpox; when she was most at risk, she named Robert Dudley as Lord Protector in the event of her death. After her recovery, she appointed Dudley to the Privy Council and created him Earl of Leicester, in the hope that he would marry Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary rejected him, and instead married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a descendant of Henry VII, giving Mary a stronger claim to the English throne. Although many Catholics were loyal to Elizabeth, many also believed that, because Elizabeth was declared illegitimate after her parents' marriage was annulled, Mary was the strongest legitimate claimant. Despite this, Elizabeth would not name Mary her heir; as she had experienced during the reign of her predecessor Mary I, the opposition could flock around the heir if they were disheartened with Elizabeth's rule.

Numerous threats to the Tudor line occurred during Elizabeth's reign. In 1569, a group of Earls led by Charles Neville, the sixth Earl of Westmorland, and Thomas Percy, the seventh Earl of Northumberland attempted to depose Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1571, the Protestant-turned-Catholic Thomas Howard, the fourth Duke of Norfolk, had plans to marry Mary, Queen of Scots, and then replace Elizabeth with Mary. The plot, masterminded by Roberto di Ridolfi, was discovered and Norfolk was beheaded. The next major uprising was in 1601, when Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex, attempted to raise the city of London against Elizabeth's government. The city of London proved unwilling to rebel; Essex and most of his co-rebels were executed. Threats also came from abroad. In 1570, Pope Pius V issued a Papal bull, Regnans in Excelsis, excommunicating Elizabeth, and releasing her subjects from their allegiance to her. Elizabeth came under pressure from Parliament to execute Mary, Queen of Scots, to prevent any further attempts to replace her; though faced with several official requests, she vacillated over the decision to execute an anointed queen. Finally, she was persuaded of Mary's (treasonous) complicity in the plotting against her, and she signed the death warrant in 1586. Mary was executed at Fotheringay Castle on 8 February 1587, to the outrage of Catholic Europe.

There are many reasons debated as to why Elizabeth never married. It was rumoured that she was in love with Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and that on one of her summer progresses she had birthed his illegitimate child. This rumour was just one of many that swirled around the two's long-standing friendship. However, more important to focus on were the disasters that many women, such as Lady Jane Grey, suffered due to being married into the royal family. Her sister Mary's marriage to Philip brought great contempt to the country, for many of her subjects despised Spain and Philip and feared that he would try to take complete control. Recalling her father's disdain for Anne of Cleves, Elizabeth also refused to enter into a foreign match with a man that she had never seen before, so that also eliminated a large number of suitors.^[29]

Last hopes of a Tudor heir

Despite the uncertainty of Elizabeth's – and therefore the Tudors' – hold on England, she never married. The closest she came to marriage was between 1579 and 1581, when she was courted by Francis, Duke of Anjou, the son of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici. Despite Elizabeth's government constantly begging her to marry in the early years of her reign, it was now persuading Elizabeth not to marry the French prince, for his mother, Catherine de' Medici, was suspected of ordering the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of tens of thousands of French Protestant Huguenots in 1572. Elizabeth bowed to public feeling against the marriage, learning from the mistake her sister made when she married Philip II of Spain, and sent the Duke of Anjou away. Elizabeth knew that the continuation of the Tudor line was now impossible; she was forty-eight in 1581, and too old to bear children.

By far the most dangerous threat to the Tudor line during Elizabeth's reign was the Spanish Armada of 1588, launched by Elizabeth's old suitor Philip II of Spain and commanded by Alonso de Guzmán El Bueno, the seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia. The Spanish invasion fleet outnumbered the English fleet's 22 galleons and 108 armed merchant ships. The Spanish lost, however, as a result of bad weather on the English Channel, poor planning and logistics, and the skills of Sir Francis Drake and Charles Howard, the second Baron Howard of Effingham (later first Earl of Nottingham).

While Elizabeth declined physically with age, her running of the country continued to benefit her people. In response to famine across England due to bad harvests in the 1590s, Elizabeth introduced the poor law, allowing peasants who were too ill to work a certain amount of money from the state. All the money Elizabeth had borrowed from Parliament in 12 of the 13 parliamentary sessions was paid back; by the time of her death, Elizabeth not only had no debts, but was in credit. Elizabeth died childless at Richmond Palace on 24 March 1603. Although she had no heir, she left behind a legacy and monarchy worth noting. She had pursued her goals of being well endowed with every aspect of ruling her kingdom, and of knowing everything necessary to be an effective monarch. She took part in law, economics, politics and governmental issues both domestic and abroad. Realms that had once been strictly forbidden to the female gender had now been ruled by one. She pushed the barriers of tradition by never marrying nor giving into womanly duties.

Elizabeth never named a successor. However, her chief minister Sir Robert Cecil had corresponded with the Protestant King James VI of Scotland, great-grandson of Margaret Tudor, and James's succession to the English throne was unopposed. There has been discretion over the selected heir. It has been argued that Elizabeth would have selected James because she felt guilty about what happened to his mother, her cousin. Whether this is true is unknown for certain, for Elizabeth did her best to never show emotion nor give in to claims. Elizabeth was strong and hard-headed and kept her primary goal in sight: providing the best for her people and proving those wrong who doubted her while maintaining a straight composure.

The House of Tudor survives through the female line, first with the House of Stuart, which occupied the English throne for most of the following century, and then the House of Hanover, via James' granddaughter Sophia. Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Henry VII.

Before and after comparisons

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Public interference regarding the Roses dynasties was always a threat until the 17th century Stuart/Bourbon re-alignment occasioned by a series of events such as the execution of Lady Jane Grey, despite her brother in law, Leicester's reputation in Holland, the Rising of the North (in which the old Percy-Neville feud and even anti-Scottish sentiment was discarded on account of religion; Northern England shared the same Avignonese bias as the Scottish court, on par with Valois France and Castile, which became the backbone of the Counter-Reformation, with Protestants being solidly anti-Avignonese) and death of Elizabeth I of England without children.

The Tudors made no substantial changes in their foreign policy from either Lancaster or York, whether the alliance was with Aragon or Cleves, the chief foreign enemies continuing as the Auld Alliance, but the Tudors resurrected old ecclesiastic arguments once pursued by Henry II of England and his son John of England. Yorkists were tied so much to the old order that Catholic rebellions (such as the Pilgrimage of Grace) and aspirations (exemplified by William Allen) were seen as continuing in their reactionary footsteps, when in opposition to the Tudors' reformation policies, although the Tudors were not uniformly Protestant according to Continental definition—instead were true to their Lancastrian Beaufort allegiance, in the appointment of Reginald Pole.

The essential difference between the Tudors and their predecessors, is the nationalization and integration of John Wycliffe's ideas to the Church of England, holding onto the alignment of Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia, in which Anne's Hussite brethren were in alliance to her husband's Wycliffite countrymen against the Avignon Papacy. The Tudors otherwise rejected or suppressed other religious notions, whether for the Pope's award of Fidei Defensor or to prevent them from being in the hands of the common laity, who might be swayed by cells of foreign Protestants, with whom they had conversation as Marian exiles, pursuing a strategy of containment which the Lancastrians had done (after being vilified by Wat Tyler), even though the phenomenon of "Lollard knights" (like John Oldcastle) had become almost a national sensation all on its own.

In essence, the Tudors followed a composite of Lancastrian (the court party) and Yorkist (the church party) policies. Henry VIII tried to extend his father's balancing act between the dynasties for opportunistic interventionism in the Italian Wars, which had unfortunate consequences for his own marriages and the Papal States; the King furthermore tried to use similar tactics for the "via media" concept of Anglicanism. A further parallelism was effected by turning Ireland into a kingdom and sharing the same episcopal establishment as England, whilst enlarging England by the annexation of Wales. The progress to Northern/Roses government would thenceforth pass across the border into Scotland, in 1603, due not only to the civil warring, but also because the Tudors' own line was fragile and insecure, trying to reconcile the mortal enemies who had weakened England to the point of having to bow to new pressures, rather than dictate diplomacy on English terms.

Rebellions against the Tudors

The following English rebellions took place against the House of Tudor:

• Yorkist risings against Henry VII (1486–1487)^[30]
  • The first was the Rebellion of the Stafford brothers and Viscount Lovell of 1486, which collapsed without fighting.^[31]
  • In 1487, Yorkists led by John, Earl of Lincoln rebelled in support of Lambert Simnel, a boy who was claimed to be the Earl of Warwick,^[32] son of Edward IV's brother Clarence (who had last been seen as a prisoner in the Tower). The rebellion began in Ireland, where the traditionally Yorkist nobility, headed by the powerful Gerald, Earl of Kildare, proclaimed Simnel King and provided troops for his invasion of England. The rebellion was defeated and Lincoln killed at the Battle of Stoke.^[33]
  • Yorkshire Rebellion (1489)^[30] — Rioting led by Sir John Egremont was suppressed by Thomas, Earl of Surrey but not before Henry, Earl of Northumberland was killed collecting taxes for the War in Brittany.^[30]
  • Cornish Rebellion (1497)^[30]
  • Second Cornish Uprising of 1497 — Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Richard, the younger of the "Princes in the Tower", landed in Cornwall with a few thousand troops, but was soon captured and executed.^[34]
• Rebellions against Henry VIII
  • The Amicable Grant Rebellion (1525)^[30]
  • The Pilgrimage of Grace (1536)^[30]
• Rebellions against Edward VI's "protectors"
  • The Western Rebellion or Prayer Book Rebellion (1549)^[35]
  • Kett's Rebellion (1549)^[35]
• Rebellions against Mary I
  • Wyatt's Rebellion (1554)^[35]
• Rebellions against Elizabeth I
  • The Rebellion of the Northern Earls (1569)^[35]
  • The Essex Rebellion (1601)^[35]

Tudor monarchs of England and Ireland

The six Tudor monarchs were:

Portrait	Name	Birth	Accession date	Marriages	Death	Claim
	Henry VII	28 January 1457 Pembroke Castle	22 August 1485 (crowned at Westminster Abbey on 30 October 1485)	Elizabeth of York	21 April 1509 Richmond Palace aged 52	Descent from Edward III of England through his mother Lady Margaret Beaufort.
	Henry VIII (first King of Ireland)[α]	28 June 1491 Greenwich Palace	21 April 1509 (crowned at Westminster Abbey on 24 June 1509)	(1) Catherine of Aragon (2) Anne Boleyn (3) Jane Seymour (4) Anne of Cleves (5) Catherine Howard (6) Catherine Parr	28 January 1547 Palace of Whitehall aged 55	Son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York
	Edward VI[α]	12 October 1537 Hampton Court Palace	28 January 1547 (crowned at Westminster Abbey on 20 February 1547)	—	6 July 1553 Greenwich Palace aged 15	Son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour
	Jane[α] (disputed)	1537 Bradgate Park	10 July 1553 (never crowned)	Lord Guildford Dudley	12 February 1554 executed at the Tower of London aged 16–17	Great granddaughter of Henry VII; granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister, Mary Brandon (née Tudor), Duchess of Suffolk; first-cousin once removed of Edward VI
	Mary I[α]	18 February 1516 Palace of Placentia	19 July 1553 (crowned at Westminster Abbey on 1 October 1553)	Philip II of Spain	17 November 1558 St James's Palace aged 42	Daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon; known as "Bloody Mary" for burning Protestants during her reign.
	Elizabeth I[α]	7 September 1533 Greenwich Palace	17 November 1558 (crowned at Westminster Abbey on 15 January 1559)	—	24 March 1603 Richmond Palace aged 69	Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; known as "The Virgin Queen" or "Gloriana" during her reign.

Armorial

Before the succession

Earlier arms of the Tudors as Welsh noble house.	Coat of arms of Edmund Tudor, first Earl of Richmond. As he was the son of a princess of France and a minor Welsh Squire, the grant of these arms to him by his half-brother Henry VI recognizes his status as part of the Lancastrian Royal Family.	Coat of Arms of Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford, and Earl of Pembroke, brother of Edmund Tudor

Coat of arms as sovereigns

Coat of Arms of Henry VII of England (1485-1509) & Henry VIII of England (1509-1547) in the first part of his reign	Coat of Arms of Henry VIII (1509-1547) in the later part of his reign & Edward VI (1547–1553)	Coat of Arms of Mary I (1554-1558) impaled with those of her husband, Philip II of Spain	Coat of Arms Elizabeth I (1558-1603) with her personal motto: "Semper eadem" or "always the same"

As Prince of Wales, Arthur, Henry, and Edward all bore these arms,

Coat of Arms of the Tudor Princes of Wales (1489-1547)

Tudor Badges

The Welsh Dragon supporter honored the Tudor's Welsh origins. The most popular symbol of the house of Tudor was the Tudor rose (see top of page). When Henry Tudor took the crown of England from Richard III in battle, he brought about the end of the Wars of the Roses between the House of Lancaster (whose badge was a red rose) and the House of York (whose badge was a white rose). He married Elizabeth of York to bring all factions together. On his marriage, Henry adopted the Tudor Rose badge conjoining the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster. It symbolized the Tudor's right to rule as well the uniting of the kingdom after the Wars of the Roses. It was used by every British Monarch since Henry VII as a Royal Badge.

Royal Roses Badge of England showing the red rose of Lancaster, the white rose of York, and the combined Tudor rose.	Tudor Rose Royal Badge of England combining the Red Rose of Lancaster and White Rose of York.	Tudor Rose Uncrowned	Tudor dragon badge symbolizing the Tudor's Welsh heritage and the Welsh union with England.	Tudor Portcullis Badge taken from their Beaufort ancestors	Crowned Fleur de lys (Tudor Crown) showing the claim to crown of France.	Crowned Harp of Ireland (Tudor Crown) showing the Tudors as Kings of Ireland. The harp was later quartered into the royal arms.

Tudor Monograms

The Tudors also used monograms to denote themselves:

Royal Monogram of King Henry VIII of England.	Royal Monogram of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Lineage and the Tudor name

Patrimonial Lineage

As noted above Tewdur or Tudor is derived from the words tud "territory" and rhi "king". Owen Tudor took it as a surname on being knighted. It is doubtful whether the Tudor kings used the name on the throne. Kings and princes were not seen as needing a name, and a " 'Tudor' name for the royal family was hardly known in the sixteenth century. The royal surname was never used in official publications, and hardly in ‘histories’ of various sorts before 1584. ... Monarchs were not anxious to publicize their descent in the paternal line from a Welsh adventurer, stressing instead continuity with the historic English and French royal families. Their subjects did not think of them as ‘Tudors’, or of themselves as ‘Tudor people’".^[36] Princes and Princesses would have been known as "of England". The medieval practice of colloquially calling princes after their place birth (e.g. Henry of Bolingbroke for Henry IV or Henry of Monmouth for Henry V) was not followed. Henry VII was likely known as "Henry of Richmond" before his taking of the throne.

v t e The Tudors of Penmynydd
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Ednyfed Fychan d. 1246                                                       Goronwy ab Ednyfed d. 1268                                                       Tudur Hen (also known as Tudur ap Goronwy) d. 1311                                     Tomos ap Llewelyn d.1343             Goronwy ap Tudur Hen d. 1331                                                     Elen ferch Tomos (mother of Owain Glyndŵr)       Marged ferch Tomos       Tudur ap Goronwy d. 1367                                                                                                             Goronwy ap Tudur d. 1382   Edynfed ap Tudur d. 1382     Maredudd ap Tudur d.1406   Rhys ap Tudur d. 1409   Gwilym ap Tudur d. 1413                                                       Owen Tudor (Owain Tudur)                                                                           Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond d. 1456   Jasper Tudor d.1495                                                       Henry VII of England d. 1509
Notes:

Royal Lineage (Simplified)

The Tudors claim to the throne was the strongest one at the end of the Wars of the Roses, as it combined the Lancastrian claim in their descent from the Beauforts and the Royal Yorkist claim by the marriage of Henry VII to the heiress of Edward IV.

Royal Lineage (Simplified)

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)     Edward III 1327–1377                                                                                                                                   Edward, the Black Prince   Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence           John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster                             Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York                                                                         Richard II 1377–1399   Philippa, 5th Countess of Ulster         Henry IV 1399–1413   John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset                                                                                                                   Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, 6th Earl of Ulster         Henry V 1413–1422   Catherine of France   Owen Tudor   John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset (1404-1444)     Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge                                                                                                                               Anne de Mortimer               Henry VI 1422–1461, 1470–1471   Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond   Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby         Richard, 3rd Duke of York                                                                                                                                             Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales                     Edward IV of England   George, 1st Duke of Clarence   Richard III of England                                                                                   Isabella I of Castile   Ferdinand II of Aragon                       Henry VII of England   Elizabeth of York   Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury   Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales                                                                                                                                                 Joanna of Castile   Maria of Aragon   Catherine of Aragon       Henry VIII of England   Arthur, Prince of Wales   Margaret Tudor   Mary Tudor   Reginald Pole                                                                                 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor   Isabella of Portugal                                       James V of Scotland   Lady Frances Brandon                                                                                       Philip II of Spain           Mary I of England   Elizabeth I of England   Edward VI of England   Mary, Queen of Scots   Lady Jane Grey                                                                                                                     James VI of Scotland and I of England

In popular culture

Numerous feature films are based on Tudor history.^[37][38] Queen Elizabeth has been in special favorite for filmmakers for generations. According to Elizabeth A. Ford and Deborah C. Mitchell, images of Elizabeth I move:

fast-forward across film history, unforgettable, iconic images: the stately bearing; the red wigs; the high forehead; the long, aristocratic nose; the alabaster makeup; the pearl-drop earrings; the stiff, ornate ruffs; the fingers dripping with jewels; and the gowns, with yards and yards of white satin, purple velvet, gold, and silver ornamented and sparkling with rubies, diamonds, and more pearls. Even a schoolchild would be hard-pressed to mistake her for any other monarch.^[39]

• A Man for All Seasons a play by Robert Bolt produced for radio, television and stage.
  • A Man for All Seasons (1966 film)
  • A Man for All Seasons (1988 film)
• Anne of the Thousand Days. a 1969 British costume drama.
• Elizabeth I (miniseries), 2005 television drama.
• Elizabeth (film), 1998 film.
  • Elizabeth: The Golden Age, 2007 sequel.
• The Other Boleyn Girl (2001) is a historical novel by Philippa Gregory, based on Mary Boleyn, the sister of Queen Anne Boleyn.
  • The Other Boleyn Girl (2003 film)
  • The Other Boleyn Girl (2008 film)
• Sandra Worth chronicles the origins of Tudor rule in her novel, The King's Daughter: A Novel of the First Tudor Queen (Penguin Group, December 2008). Elizabeth of York is the narrator.
• The Tudors is a British/Irish/Canadian produced historical fiction television series loosely based upon the reign of Henry VIII.
• The Virgin Queen is a BBC and Power co-production, four-part miniseries based upon the life of Queen Elizabeth I, starring Anne-Marie Duff.
• Horrible Histories Terrible Tudors.^[40]
• The White Princess (miniseries) is a eight episode series produced by Starz based on the novel by Philippa Gregory, which centers on the early reign of Henry VII and his Queen Elizabeth of York after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth, and the beginning of the Tudor period.

See also

• England and Wales
• Elizabethan era
• Mid-Tudor Crisis
• Richmond Castle
• Tudor architecture
• Tudor conquest of Ireland
• Tudor navy
• Tudor Revival architecture

Notes

References

• Chrimes, Stanley B. (1999) [1972], Henry VII, New Haven: Yale University Press, second ed., ISBN 0-520-02266-1 
• Guy, John (ed). The Tudor Monarchy. St Martin’s Press, 1997.
• Jones, Michael K. and Malcolm G. Underwood, "Beaufort, Margaret , countess of Richmond and Derby (1443–1509)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 27 August 2007.
• O'Day, Rosemary (2012), The Routledge Companion to the Tudor Age, Routledge, pp. 27–28, ISBN 978-1-136-96253-0 
• Thomas, R. S. "Tudor, Edmund, first earl of Richmond (c.1430–1456)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 27 August 2007.
• Turton, Godfrey. The Dragon’s Breed: The Story of the Tudors from Earliest Times to 1603. Peter Davies, 1970.
• The Wars of the Roses : peace and conflict in fifteenth-century England
• This realm of England, 1399 to 1688 OCLC 24849088
• Williams, Neville (1973), The Life and Times of Henry VII, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, p. 62, ISBN 0-297-76517-5 

Further reading

External links

• House of Tudor World History Database
• History lectures, essays and lectures by John Guy^{[permanent dead link]}
• Tudor treasures from The National Archives
• Tudor Place
• Tudor History
• The Tudors at the Royal Family website
• Tudor History
• "The Tudor delusion": an article in The Times Literary Supplement by Clifford S. L. Davies, arguing that we are wrong even to talk about "the Tudors", 11 June 2008.
• The Family Tree of the Tudors and the Stuarts in Pictures

Royal house House of Tudor
Preceded by House of York	Royal house of the Kingdom of England 1485–1603	Succeeded by House of Stuart