Tudor period

The Tudor Period in England refers to an era lasting from 1485 to 1603 when the Tudors, a Welsh-English family, ruled Whales and England. The Tudor Period began when Henry Tudor assumed the throne after defeating the Yorkish king Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Henry’s succession as king ended the War of the Roses, a series of civil wars between the houses of Lancaster and York for control of England. Lasting 118 years, the Tudor Period began with the first monarch, King Henry VII (r.1457–1509). After his death, King Henry VII was succeeded by his son King Henry VIII (r.1509–1547), who was succeeded by his three children: Edward VI (r.1547–1553), Mary I (r.1553–1558), and Elizabeth I (r.1558–1603). Of the Tudor monarchs, the best-known are King Henry VIII and Elizabeth I; Henry for creating a new state religion and Elizabeth for ushering in England’s Golden Age.

Background

Henry Tudor was the son of Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, and Margaret Beaufort. Henry’s father died three months before his birth, and his family lineage gave him a tenuous claim to the throne. Before his grandmother, Catherine of France, married his grandfather, Owen Tudor, she was the widow of King Henry V. Henry was also a descendant of an illigimate child of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. Gaunt’s children with Catherine Swynford were born before he married her, causing King Henry IV to exclude the Beauforts from sovereignty. However, the situation changed with the deaths of Henry VI’s son and with Henry VI himself. The two remaining Beaufort males had also died. These deaths made Henry Tudor the sole surviving male in the house of Lancaster with any claim to the throne.

King Henry VII (1457–1509)

Unlike most kings, Henry was not aware of his destiny as a child and therefore did not receive the training in statemanshp and warefare that was typical of kings-to-be. Once he assumed the throne, Henry knew that his kingship would be challenged. And as king, he faced a host of problems, the most serious of which was a nearly bankrupt treasury. However, through taxation, fines, and careful spending, he managed to accumulate wealth for the country, restoring its faith in the monarchy.

Henry hoped to unite the houses of Lancaster and York by marrying Elizabeth of York, but the move proved unsuccessful. Henry faced so many Yorkish conspirators that people doubted he would survive. The change in the ruling house from York to Lancaster angered many who felt that one of Richard III’s descendants should have been crowned. Others simply wanted revenge for Richard’s death on the battlefield. Henry outwitted several impostors who claimed to be nobles in an attempt to get close to the king.

The earl of Suffolk, Edmund de la Pole, was a serious threat to Henry. Suffolk had been a potential heir on the Yorkist side. Although he claimed to be loyal to the king, Henry suspected Suffolk of treason. After the death of Henry’s two sons in 1500 and 1502 and his wife in 1503, people doubted that Henry would have an heir to the throne and hoped that the house of York would once again take control. In 1506, a few years before his death, Henry imprisoned the earl of Suffolk in the Tower of London. Henry had promised Philip of Burgundy, admiral of the Netherlands, that if he handed over the earl, he would imprison him instead of killing him. After Henry’s death in 1509, Henry VIII, his only surviving son, succeeded him, becoming king at the age of seventeen and immediately ordering the execution of the earl of Suffolk.

King Henry VIII (1491–1547)

Henry VIII knew since childhood that he would ascend to the throne. The second son of King Henry VII, Henry became heir when his older brother Arthur died in 1502.

Tall, athletic, and charismatic, King Henry VIII was a powerful presence and revered by his people. He threw lavish parties, cutting into the financial reserves his father had so carefully accumulated.

Soon after he took the throne, Henry VIII married Arthur’s widow, Catherine of Aragon. Henry and Catherine were married for fifteen years, a time during which Henry fought three wars with France. With Catherine, Henry fathered three sons and three daughters; however, all but one daughter, Mary, died during infancy.

Determined to produce a male heir, by the 1520s, Henry sought to annul his marriage to Catherine because he thought she was too old to have more children. He wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, a young woman from his court. A devout Roman Catholic, Henry asked Pope Clement VII to grant him the annulment, but the pope refused.

Angered, Henry broke away from Rome, a move that spurred the English Reformation, which separated the Church of England from papal control. With help from his minister, Thomas Cromwell, Henry began the Dissolution of the Monestaries, a process by which he disbanded the monestaries and confiscated their wealth, significantly adding to his own fortune. However, because of Henry’s flamboyance and extravagant spending, he lived on the brink of financial devestation.

Breaking from Rome was dangerous, however, and England was in danger of being invaded by Catholic Europe. To keep his country safe, Henry used some of the money he had taken from the monestaries to build coastal forts armed with canons.

In 1533, Henry married Anne Boleyn, who gave birth to their daughter Elizabeth. Later, when Henry was injured during a jousting tournament in 1536, Anne gave birth prematurely to a stillborn son. This infuriated Henry, who had already lost interest in his young wife and had begun having affairs. Henry charged Anne with adultery with various men and even incest with her own brother. She was tried by a court of Henry’s peers, found guilty, and beheaded.

During the same year, Henry married Jane Seymour. Jane gave birth to a long-awaited male heir, Edward, but died two weeks after childbirth.

Henry’s fourth marriage was politically motivated. He married Anne of Cleves to foster an alliance with her brother, a duke in Germany. Their union was short-lived, however; Henry claimed that Anne was unattractive and had their marriage annulled after six months.

His next bride was Catherine Howard, a teenager from an aristocratic family and a cousin of Anne Boleyn. Catherine was working in the household of Anne of Cleves when she was spotted by the forty-nine-year-old king. However, after two years of marriage, Henry charged her with adultery, claiming that she had been having an affair with her distant cousin, Thomas Culpeper. Unlike Anne, however, Catherine was guilty of the crime for which she was killed.

In the later years of his reign, Henry had grown obese, become moody, and was tormented by the leg injury he had suffered during the jousting tournament years earlier. His final marriage in 1543 was to Catherine Parr, a widow, who repaired his fractured relationshps with daughters Mary and Elizabeth, both of whom he had declared illegitimate, and restored them to the line of succession. Henry died in 1547 at the age of fifty-five.

Edward VI (1557–1553)

As King Henry VIII’s only legitimate son, Edward VI became a monarch when he was only nine years old. Because of his father’s break with Rome, Edward was educated by Protestant tutors and became Protestant himself.

Before his death, Henry VIII had assembled a regency government comprised of sixteen men to assist his son. However, Edward’s uncle on his mother’s side, Edward Seymour, took over the regency and gave himself the title of his nephew’s “protector.” Seymour forbid Edward to have contact with his half-sisters. However, in 1549, Seymour was overthrown by John Dudley, earl of Warwick, who became the duke of Northumberland and Edward’s new protector.

When Edward first showed signs of tuberculosis, he bequeathed the crown to Northumberland’s teenage daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, who was also Henry VII’s great-granddaughter. However, after Edward’s death in 1553, a public outcry occurred when Lady Jane Grey became queen. She reigned for only nine days before she was overthrown by Mary I, the legitimate heir.

Mary I (1516–1558)

Mary Tudor was the fifth child of Henry VIII and Catherine Aragon and their only child to survive past infancy. After her half-brother Edward’s death, Mary became England’s first female monarch. A devout Catholic, as soon as she assumed the throne, she began reversing the religious changes that had been made by her father and brother and had Northumberland executed. Mary quickly moved from religious reformer to persecuter, however. She began burning Protestants at the stake—nearly three hundred in all—earning her the nickname “Bloody Mary.” Many more Protestants died in prison and about eight hundred fled to Germany or Switzerland.

In 1554 Mary created a scandal when she announced that she would soon marry Prince Philip of Spain, the son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The union was unpopular among her people, who worried that a Spanish king might attempt to take over England. However, Charles V left Mary in complete control of England as long as no heirs were produced from the union.

Mary’s marriage to Philip was tumultuous. Twice she went into seclusion after claiming to be pregnant, but no child was ever born. Philip soon began spending most of his time away from her in Europe. Mary died in 1558 when she was forty-two most likely from ovarian or uterine cancer.

Elizabeth I (1533–1603)

Elizabeth was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII who, when Elizabeth was two years old, had her mother beheaded. In 1558, at the age of twenty-five, Elizabeth became queen of England after her half-sister Mary Tutor’s death. Elizabeth proved to be a beloved leader who ruled her country proudly and peacefully for forty-four years.

Mary left Elizabeth with many problems after her death. Chief among them was a war with France that was draining England’s finances. Because Mary had executed three hundred Protestants, the rift between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics was huge and situation was volatile. Unlike her father and Mary, Elizabeth was Protestant, which led to her excommunication by the pope.

Elizabeth quickly tackled both problems. During the first session of Parliament in 1559, Elizabeth re-established the Church of England and oversaw the passage of an act to create a common prayer book. She pointed out the similarities between the religions to her people and encouraged them to co-exist peacefully. Then working with her key advisor, William Cecil, Elizabeth ended England’s war with France.

Her ideas were not always met with favor, however. Elizabeth supported the Protestant rebellion against Spain in the Netherlands in 1585, which caused Spain to turn against England. Due in part because of favorable weather, the English army managed to defeat the famous Spanish Armada in 1588.

During Elizabeth’s reign, her cousin Mary Queen of Scots claimed to be the rightful heir to the thrown. Mary was the daughter of King James V of Scotland and had united her country with France in 1558 when she married the future King Francis II.

After linking Mary to several assassination attempts, Elizabeth imprisoned her cousin for nearly twenty years before having her executed in 1587.

Because the arts and the economy flourished under Elizabeth I’s reign, the time is often referred to as the England’s Golden Age or the Elizabethan Era. People of the time enjoyed playing music, dancing, and watching plays written by William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.

Many artists painted portraits of their beloved queen, showing off her beautiful clothing and jewelry. Elizabeth wore makeup that made her appear extremely pale, a popular look at the time.

Elizabeth died in 1603. Historians believe that her makeup, which contained white lead and vinegar, may have contributed to her death.

Elizabeth had no children, so her death marked the end of the Tudor Period. The son of Mary Queen of Scots succeeded her on the throne.

Bibliography

Ackroyd, Peter. Tudors: The History of England From Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2014.

de Lisle, Leanda. Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England’s Most Notorious Family. Public Affairs, 2015.

“Edward VI (1537–1553).” History, BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic‗figures/edward‗vi‗king.shtml. Accessed 30 Sept. 2019.

Meares, Hadley. “The Wildly Different Childhoods of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.” History, 10 Dec. 2018, www.history.com/news/elizabeth-mary-queen-of-scots-imprisonment-death. Accessed 30 Sept. 2019.

“Queen Elizabeth I.” Biography, 4 Sept. 2019, www.biography.com/royalty/queen-elizabeth-i

Rex, Richard. The Tudors. Amberley Publishing, 2014.

Trueman, C.N. “The Reformation.” The History Learning Site, 20 Sept. 2019, www.historylearningsite.co.uk/tudor-england/the-reformation/.Accessed 30 Sept. 2019.

“Tudors: An Introduction to Tudor England (1485–1601).” English Heritage, www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/tudors/. Accessed 30 Sept. 2019.