King of England (1457-1509, king from 1485). Born in Pembroke Castle, the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, and of Margaret Beaufort, great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt. Under the Yorkist regime, Henry Tudor was always in a dangerous position; his father was the son of Catherine of Valois, queen of Henry V, and her Welsh clerk Owen Tudor, and this Lancastrian allegiance was strengthened by the Beaufort marriage. Henry was deprived of his father's land and under Edward IV was an exile in Brittany. In 1483 he supported the unsuccessful revolt of Henry of Buckingham, and after the duke's death he became the leading opponent and threat to King Richard III.

At Rennes, on Christmas day 1483, Henry Tudor made claim to the throne and announced his intended marriage to Elizabeth of York. When he landed at Milford Haven on August 1st 1485, Henry was reinforced by Welsh contingents, but the crucial assistance came from the Stanleys who did not finally decide to desert Richard III until the battle at Bosworth had begun. Richard was killed on the

field, and, fittingly enough, it was Lord Stanley who picked up his crown and placed it on Henry's head. The geature was no doubt welcome, but Henry, prudently and unscrupulously, declared that his reign had begun on the day before the battle. His enemies could thus be treated as traitors. Similarly Parliament merely recognised that Henry was king, and his marriage to Elizabeth of York was delayed until 1486 lest anyone should believe that Henry owed his throne to the union.

In this task of securing the throne and establishing a dynasty, Henry VII had advantages over the earlier royal revolutionaries, Henry IV and Edward IV. Henry VII was the beneficiary of the Wars of the Roses: the great pratrimonies of Lancaster and York were both in royal control, and to these Henry added the Tudor inheritance as well as the estates of attained Yorkists. In 1485, an Act of Resumption enabled the crown to re-establish control of royal property which had been alienated since the death of Henry VI. Other sources of revene were exploited with equal skill: the royal accounts were showing a surplus by 1497 and by the end of the reign the king's annual ordinary income of £142,000 represented an increase of £90,000 on income available at his accession. Money was thus the sensible foundation on which Henry constructed the new monarchy. Wealth freed him from political anxiety and an embarassing reliance on Parliament. But the conventional picture of Henry VII as a royal miser is mistaken. He certainly spent sumptuously on his court, the marriages of his children, diplomacy, and prestigious buildings such as Henry VII's chapel at Westminster and King's College chapel at Cambridge which was finished under the terms of the king's will.

Through his diplomacy in making marriage alliances, Henry VII gained European recognition for his family. In 1489, his baby son Arthur was betrothed to Catherine of Aragon, and they were married in 1501; when Arthur died the following year, Catherine was almost immediately betrothed to his brother, Henry.

Henry VII's achievement lacked drama and his character has appeared inscrutable. He was, as Francis Bacon said, 'a wonder for wise men' but he was hardly a popular hero. Henry has been rightly praised for his cool and discreet handling of the challenges from the two Yorkist imposters Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck. Simnel was given a job in the royal household after his Yorkist masters had been defeated at Stoke in 1487. Warbeck was executed in 1499, after an attempted escape from the Tower of London which was used to implicate Edward of Warwick (son of George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV). Warwick, innocent but helpless, was the major representative of the house of York and it was hardly surprising that Henry should decide he was too dangerous to keep alive. By 1500 Henry had eliminated all effective rival claimants and could feel that his dynasty was secure.

Within Britain, Henry was concerned to impose order and peace. He was only partly successful in breaking Irish disorder, but the marriage of James IV of Scotland to Henry's daughter Margaret in 1502, although equally incapable of bringing permanent peace to the border, was to have the ultimate consequence of uniting the crowns of England and Scotland.

In everything he did Henry demonstated a keen and searching intelligence. Thin-lipped, withdrawn, and cautious, he has always appeared the embodiment of Renascence stagecraft. There is little reason to alter this view now.