The Tudor Family

English kings and queens (r. 1485-1603)

• Henry VII
• Born: January 28, 1457
• Birthplace: Pembroke Castle, Pembrokeshire, Wales
• Died: April 21, 1509
• Place of death: Richmond, Surrey, England

• Henry VIII
• Born: June 28, 1491
• Birthplace: Greenwich, near London, England
• Died: January 28, 1547
• Place of death: London, England

• Queen Elizabeth I of England
• Born: September 7, 1533
• Birthplace: Greenwich, England
• Died: March 24, 1603
• Place of death: Richmond, Surrey, England

The Tudor monarchs dominated the politics of their time, moving England into the modern era.

Early Lives

The accomplishments of the Tudor (TEWD-ur) Family must be measured against the challenges occurring during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance era. The disaster of the Black Death, the decline of the Roman Catholic Church and the breakdown of Christian unity resulting from the Protestant Reformation, the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, the development of the printing press, and the voyages of discovery to Asia and the Western Hemisphere were factors that weakened the medieval fabric of earlier centuries.

England suffered during the 1400’s. The forced abdication of Richard II in 1399 placed the throne under a cloud. Henry V arguably hurt rather than helped his kingdom with his military victories over the French, which resulted in the unification of the French and English thrones. England was overextended on the Continent. When Henry V died in 1422, his son, Henry VI, was only a year old; when he came of age, moreover, he showed that he had inherited the mental instability of his French grandfather, Charles VI. After England’s defeat and withdrawal from France in 1453, various factions in England turned on each other in the so-called Wars of the Roses, and with a weak king, anarchy and violence was the result, particularly at the upper levels of society. By the 1470’s, stability seemed to have returned under the leadership of Edward IV, but during the reign of Richard III , the Crown was under siege again, ending only at the Battle of Bosworth. The victor and new king, the first of the Tudor dynasty, was Henry VII .

The Tudors were impoverished Welsh nobility. Owen ap Meredith ap Tudor, a minor member of Henry V’s court, married Henry’s widow, Catherine of France, after the king’s death. Through this marriage, the children of Owen Tudor were by blood tied to the rule of the unstable Henry VI, their half brother. During the Wars of the Roses, the Tudors sided with the Crown. Owen Tudor was captured and beheaded in 1461. Owen’s son, Edmund, earl of Richmond, died in 1456; Edmund’s only son, Henry, was born three months later, in January, 1457. After the deaths of Henry VI and his heir in 1471, Henry Tudor became the Red Rose faction’s candidate for the throne; he was supported by the opponents of Edward IV and the White Rose faction, which endorsed the House of York. Henry Tudor was an opportunistic survivor; with French assistance, he landed a small army in south Wales in August, 1485, and three weeks later defeated Richard III at Bosworth.

Lives’ Work

Victory did not guarantee survival. During the rest of Henry VII’s reign, there were various claimants to the throne, but the stratagems and plots against him failed. Consolidating his rule was paramount, and he married Elizabeth of York, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, in an attempt of reconcile the Yorkists. In often controversial ways, Henry VII increased the financial resources of the crown, and he left a surplus in the royal treasury when he died, an unusual accomplishment in those times. His concern for money gave him the reputation of a miser, governed by avarice only, but he spent money generously on his court, believing that royal pomp not only was his due but also reinforced his royal authority.

Concerned with the survival of his dynasty, Henry often focused his diplomacy on matrimonial matters. After the death of his queen, he offered himself as a groom to prospective royal candidates from the Continent. In addition, his eldest son, Arthur, was married to Catherine of Aragon, a princess from one of the most powerful royal families in Europe. Arthur died shortly after the marriage, but with Catherine already in England, Henry VII arranged that Catherine marry his remaining son, Henry. When the king died in 1509, the survival of the dynasty seemed ensured. Henry VII was not loved by many, but he was respected.

Henry VIII epitomized the Renaissance prince. Young, athletic, charismatic, he was well read, not least in religious matters. His marriage to Catherine was consummated, and in 1516, she gave birth to their only child, Mary. Henry attempted to establish his fame, and English power, through military actions, but in the rivalries between the Valois monarchs of France and the Habsburgs of Spain, Henry VIII was unable to achieve parity with his continental rivals. Instead, his dynastic concerns and the accompanying religious issues made him the larger-than-life figure he desired to be.

Catherine of Aragon was several years older than Henry, so Henry found solace with younger, more attractive women. Compounding his lack of sexual interest in Catherine was the inability of the two to produce a male heir to the throne, necessary in a society that assumed male superiority, in part because of the military valor associated with monarchy. By the end of the 1520’s, Henry had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn and wished to be legally rid of Catherine in order to remarry. In the Catholic Church, marriage was a sacrament. Marriages, particularly among royalty, could be dissolved, but only through the Church’s auspices. Pope Clement VII was probably willing to annul the marriage, but he and Rome were under the control of Charles V, ruler of Spain and the Germanies, and Catherine’s nephew. Yet Henry found another alternative.

In 1517, Martin Luther had set off the spark that led to the Protestant Reformation and the division of Christendom. With Thomas Cromwell as chancellor, the English Parliament, claiming that there was no higher authority than national sovereignty, passed legislation ending Henry’s marriage to Catherine. Henry immediately married Anne, who soon gave birth but to a daughter, Elizabeth. Although Henry was well into middle age, his romantic eye continued to wander, and he contrived to have Anne executed. Henry then married again, this time to Jane Seymour, who did her royal “duty” by presenting Henry a son, Edward, but who died soon after giving birth. Three more royal marriages followed: Anne of Cleves , whom Henry divorced, Catherine Howard, who was executed for adultery, and Catherine Parr, who survived his death.

More important than Henry’s matrimonial failures was the impact he had on government and religion. Using Parliament, Henry and Cromwell engineered a revolution in increasing the powers of Parliament as the fount of law. Because of his divorce, Henry inadvertently became the founder of the Protestant Church of England , or the Anglican Church. His own religious beliefs have been described as being essentially Catholic but without veneration of the Papacy, although he veered at times in a Protestant direction.

With Henry VIII’s death in 1547, Protestantism quickly triumphed in England, at least temporarily. The new king, Edward VI , Henry’s youngest child but sole son, was only nine years of age; however, he was precocious. Surrounded by royal uncles, Edward was a convinced Protestant. He could hardly have been anything else, in that his own legitimacy depended on the legality of Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Edward’s reign was brief, however, and he died at the age of fifteen in 1553. During those years, however, the Anglican Church established deep roots, particularly under the leadership of Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury.

Edward’s oldest half sister, Mary, ascended the throne. Ignored by her father and believing that she had the obligation to restore her mother’s reputation and religion, Mary was a staunch Catholic. Not alone in the violent sixteenth century, she was willing to use force to achieve her religious aims, which were to bring England back to Catholicism. Her reign was a disaster. Her religious persecutions gained her the nickname “Bloody Mary,” and, in an era of rising national consciousness, her marriage to Philip II of Spain was equally controversial. The mourners were few when she died in 1558.

Elizabeth, the second of Henry VIII’s three children, was twenty-five when she became queen, and she exhibited the survival qualities of the earlier Tudors. Historians have debated her motives, some claiming that her actions were determined by her psychological experiences under her father and her sister, and some arguing that it was her intellect that guided her decisions. She moved cautiously, and given that she was Anne Boleyn’s daughter, had little alternative but to keep England Protestant. She stated that she was not interested in looking into her subjects’ souls, but she did demand outward adherence to the Anglican faith. Well-educated, she had her father’s charisma, and she used both her mind and her charm to good effect, steering a middle way between the Catholic monarchs on the Continent and the radical Protestants the Puritans in England.

To the north ruled Mary, Queen of Scots , distantly related to Elizabeth. Scotland was riven by religious concerns, with Mary representing the Catholic interest and John Knox the Protestant cause. Mary fled Scotland for England, where she was placed under close confinement. The eternal schemer, Mary hoped to eliminate Elizabeth, become queen of England, and restore Catholicism; nevertheless, it was with considerable reluctance that Elizabeth ordered Mary executed in 1587. With Mary’s death, Philip II of Spain launched a great naval armada against England. When it failed in 1588, the English surmised that God must truly be a Protestant.

Elizabeth never married, perhaps associating marriage with death and possibly unwilling to share her position with a male who might, because of the times, become the dominant figure; as a result, she was referred to as the “virgin queen.” With her death in 1603, the Tudor Dynasty came to an end; ironically, it was James, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who became the next English monarch.

Significance

The Tudors are the most famous dynasty in English history, both for their accomplishments and for their powerful personalities. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were larger-than-life figures. “Bloody Mary,” because of her religion and marriage, became one of the chief villains in English history. Even the young Edward VI was memorable, perhaps because of his youthful death. The monarch who left the least mark on subsequent historical imagination was Henry VII, arguably the most able of the Tudors.

This was an important era in English history, and the Tudors were at the center. Henry VII restored the position of the monarchy, ending the endemic ruling-class violence. Henry VIII, intentionally or not, strengthened Parliament and established the Anglican Church. Even Edward and Mary affected the politics and religion of the time. Furthermore, Elizabeth hailed as “Gloriana” and “Good Queen Bess” also successfully ruled England for a long time, ending in the Age of Shakespeare and the English Renaissance.

The Tudor accomplishments can be contrasted with those of the monarchs who preceded them and those of the dynasty that followed. Between 1399 and 1485, the throne was frequently in dispute. The Stuart Dynasty of the seventeenth century was also a story of royal failure. The Tudors have been defined as despotic rulers, but “Tudor despotism” incorporated Parliament into the decision- and law-making process, even if only as a secondary factor. By making use of Parliament to advance their own aims, moreover, the Tudors so strengthened Parliament that within a century of their passing, England had become a constitutional monarchy, with Parliament more powerful than the monarchs.

Bibliography

Chimes, S. B. Henry VII. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. Scholarly but readable, this is an excellent biography of perhaps the most important but least known Tudor.

Elton, G. R. England Under the Tudors. 3d ed. New York: Routledge, 1991. An excellent survey of Tudor England by a premier historian. Especially good on Henry VIII’s revolution in government.

Erickson, Carolly. Bloody Mary. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978. A sympathetic and entertaining account of Mary. Erickson is a popular biographer of many historical characters.

Loades, David. The Tudor Court. 3d ed. Oxford, England: Davenant, 2003. Comprehensive account of the courts of the Tudor monarchs. Discusses both the external trappings and the internal politics of the court, and the often labyrinthine nature of the relationship between appearance and political reality. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Rex, Richard. The Tudors. Stroud, Gloucestershire, England: Tempus, 2003. A study of the relationship between the public persona and the private life of each of the Tudors. Emphasizes the common characteristics of the monarchs, especially their mixture of charisma with the threat of violent action. Includes photographic plates, illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Ridley, Jasper. A Brief History of the Tudor Age. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002. Brief but comprehensive survey of English culture under the Tudors. The focus on both London and rural England is especially useful, given the tendency of other sources to look primarily at the royal court. Includes photographic plates, illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Scarisbrick, J. J. Henry VIII. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. The best biography of Henry VIII, both critical and sympathetic to England’s most famous king.

Slavin, Arthur Joseph. The Precarious Balance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. Energetically written, this volume is challenging and insightful, with the additional value that includes a discussion of both the pre- and post-Tudor centuries.

Smith, Lacey Baldwin. Elizabeth Tudor: Portrait of a Queen. Boston: Little, Brown, 1975. Written by a distinguished authority of the Tudor era, this is a brief, exciting, and readable biography.