63 Facts About Henry VII of England

Henry VII of England was the first monarch of the House of Tudor.

Henry VII of England was then raised by his uncle Jasper Tudor, a Lancastrian, and William Herbert, a supporter of the Yorkist branch of the House of Plantagenet.

Henry VII of England attained the throne when his forces, supported by France and Scotland, defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

Henry VII of England was the last king of England to win his throne on the field of battle, defending it two years later at the Battle of Stoke Field to decisively end the Wars of the Roses.

Henry VII of England strengthened his claim by marrying the Yorkist heiress, Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV.

Henry VII of England restored power and stability to the English monarchy following the civil war.

Henry VII of England is credited with many administrative, economic and diplomatic initiatives.

Henry VII of England paid very close attention to detail, and instead of spending lavishly he concentrated on raising new revenues.

Henry VII of England stabilised the government's finances by introducing several new taxes.

Henry VII of England was the only child of Lady Margaret Beaufort, who was 13 years old at the time, and Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond who, at 26, died three months before his birth.

Henry VII of England was probably baptised at St Mary's Church, Pembroke, though no documentation of the event exists.

Henry VII of England was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his third wife Katherine Swynford.

Nonetheless, by 1483 Henry VII of England was the senior male claimant heir to the House of Lancaster remaining after the deaths in battle, by murder or execution of Henry VII of England VI, his son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, and the other Beaufort line of descent through Lady Margaret's uncle, Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset.

Henry VII of England made some political capital out of his Welsh ancestry in attracting military support and safeguarding his army's passage through Wales on its way to the Battle of Bosworth.

Henry VII of England came from an old, established Anglesey family that claimed descent from Cadwaladr, in legend, the last ancient British king.

Henry VII of England took it, as well as the standard of St George, on his procession through London after the victory at Bosworth.

Henry VII of England died shortly afterwards in Carmarthen Castle.

Henry VII of England lived in the Herbert household until 1469, when Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, went over to the Lancastrians.

Henry VII of England spent most of the next 14 years under the protection of Francis II, Duke of Brittany.

Henry VII of England was thus handed over to English envoys and escorted to the Breton port of Saint-Malo.

At Rennes Cathedral on Christmas Day 1483, Henry VII of England pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV.

Henry VII of England was Edward's heir since the presumed death of her brothers, the Princes in the Tower, King Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.

Henry VII of England was welcomed by the French, who readily supplied him with troops and equipment for a second invasion.

Henry VII of England gained the support of the Woodvilles, in-laws of the late Edward IV, and sailed with a small French and Scottish force, landing at Mill Bay near Dale, Pembrokeshire.

Wales was historically a Lancastrian stronghold, and Henry VII of England owed the support he gathered to his Welsh birth and ancestry, being agnatically descended from Rhys ap Gruffydd.

Henry VII of England devised a plan to seize the throne by engaging Richard quickly because Richard had reinforcements in Nottingham and Leicester.

Henry VII of England spared Richard's nephew and designated heir, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and made the Yorkist heiress Margaret Plantagenet Countess of Salisbury suo jure.

Henry VII of England married Elizabeth of York with the hope of uniting the Yorkist and Lancastrian sides of the Plantagenet dynastic disputes, and he was largely successful.

Henry VII of England had Parliament repeal Titulus Regius, the statute that declared Edward IV's marriage invalid and his children illegitimate, thus legitimising his wife.

Henry VII of England secured his crown principally by dividing and undermining the power of the nobility, especially through the aggressive use of bonds and recognisances to secure loyalty.

Henry VII of England enacted laws against livery and maintenance, the great lords' practice of having large numbers of "retainers" who wore their lord's badge or uniform and formed a potential private army.

Henry VII of England began taking precautions against rebellion while still in Leicester after Bosworth Field.

The rebellion began in Ireland, where the historically Yorkist nobility, headed by the powerful Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, proclaimed Simnel king and provided troops for his invasion of England.

Henry VII of England showed remarkable clemency to the surviving rebels: he pardoned Kildare and the other Irish nobles, and he made the boy, Simnel, a servant in the royal kitchen where he was in charge of roasting meats on a spit.

Henry VII of England led attempted invasions of Ireland in 1491 and England in 1495, and persuaded James IV of Scotland to invade England in 1496.

Unlike his predecessors, Henry VII came to the throne without personal experience in estate management or financial administration.

Henry VII introduced stability to the financial administration of England by keeping the same financial advisors throughout his reign.

Henry VII improved tax collection in the realm by introducing ruthlessly efficient mechanisms of taxation.

Henry VII of England was supported in this effort by his chancellor, Archbishop John Morton, whose "Morton's Fork" was a catch-22 method of ensuring that nobles paid increased taxes: those nobles who spent little must have saved much, and thus could afford the increased taxes; in contrast, those nobles who spent much obviously had the means to pay the increased taxes.

Henry VII of England increased wealth by acquiring land through the act of resumption of 1486 which had been delayed as he focused on defence of the Church, his person and his realm.

Henry VII established the pound avoirdupois as a standard of weight; it later became part of the Imperial and customary systems of units.

In 1506 he resumed the construction of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, started under Henry VII of England VI, guaranteeing finances which would continue even after his death.

Henry VII of England started a new policy to recover Guyenne and other lost Plantagenet claims in France.

Henry VII of England decided to keep Brittany out of French hands, signed an alliance with Spain to that end, and sent 6,000 troops to France.

Henry VII of England had been under the financial and physical protection of the French throne or its vassals for most of his life before becoming king.

Henry VII was one of the first European monarchs to recognise the importance of the newly united Spanish kingdom; he concluded the Treaty of Medina del Campo, by which his son Arthur, Prince of Wales, was married to Catherine of Aragon.

Henry VII of England concluded the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with Scotland, which betrothed his daughter Margaret Tudor to King James IV of Scotland.

Later on, Henry VII of England had exchanged letters with Pope Julius II in 1507, in which he encouraged him to establish peace among Christian realms, and to organise an expedition against the Turks of the Ottoman Empire.

Henry VII was much enriched by trading alum, which was used in the wool and cloth trades as a chemical fixative for dyeing fabrics.

In 1494, Henry VII of England embargoed trade with the Burgundian Netherlands in retaliation for Margaret of Burgundy's support for Perkin Warbeck.

In 1506, Henry VII of England extorted the Treaty of Windsor from Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy.

Henry VII of England was content to allow the nobles their regional influence if they were loyal to him.

Henry VII of England passed laws against "livery" and "maintenance".

Henry VII used justices of the peace on a large, nationwide scale.

Henry VII of England's concern for the Queen is evidence that the marriage was a happy one, as is his reaction to Queen Elizabeth's death the following year, when he shut himself away for several days, refusing to speak to anyone.

Henry VII was shattered by the loss of Elizabeth, and her death affected him severely.

Accordingly, he arranged a papal dispensation from Pope Julius II for Prince Henry VII of England to marry his brother's widow Catherine, a relationship that would have otherwise precluded marriage in the Church.

Henry VII of England made half-hearted plans to remarry and beget more heirs, but these never came to anything.

Henry VII of England entertained thoughts of remarriage to renew the alliance with Spain; Joanna, Dowager Queen of Naples, Queen Joanna of Castile, and Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Savoy were all considered.

Henry VII falls among the minority of British monarchs that never had any known mistresses and, for the times, it is unusual that he did not remarry.

Margaret Tudor wrote letters to her father declaring her homesickness, but Henry VII of England could do nothing but mourn the loss of his family and honour the terms of the peace treaty he had agreed to with the King of Scotland.

Henry VII of England was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII, who would initiate the Protestant Reformation in England.

Amiable and high-spirited, Henry VII of England was friendly if dignified in manner, and it was clear that he was extremely intelligent.