English King Henry VII
Report assembled by D. A. Sharpe
English
King Henry VII was born January 28, 1457 at Pembroke Castle, Pembrokeshire, Wales.
He died April 21, 1509 at Richmond Palace, Surrey, England (age 52). His burial was May 11, 1509 at
Westminster Abbey, London.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VII_of_England
This
King Henry VII is the 18th cousin, 15 times removed to me. He was the first in the line of the
Kings of the House of Tudor. Henry
VII, who was son of Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort, was born January 28,
1457. Henry married Elizabeth of
York (Elizabeth Plantagenet) in1486, who bore him four children: Arthur, Henry, Margaret and Mary. Henry
died in 1509 after reigning 24 years. Their
son, Henry VIII was the brother-in-law of William Carey through Henry's second
of six wives, Anne Boleyn. William
is my 21st cousin, twelve times removed.
Henry
VII is the husband of 2nd cousin 6x removed of Edward Carlton,
the husband of Ellen Newton, the stepdaughter of my 6th great grand uncle.
Henry
descended from John of Gaunt, through the latter's illicit affair with
Catherine Swynford; although he was a Lancastrian, he
gained the throne through personal battle. The Lancastrian victory at the
Battle of Bosworth in 1485 left Richard III slain in the field, York ambitions
routed and Henry proclaimed king. From the onset of his reign, Henry was
determined to bring order to England after 85 years of civil war. His marriage
to Elizabeth of York combined both the Lancaster and York factions within the
Tudor line, eliminating further discord about succession. He faced two
insurrections during his reign, each centered around "pretenders" who
claimed a closer dynastic link to the Plantagenets
than Henry. Lambert Simnel posed as the Earl of
Warwick, but his army was defeated and he was eventually pardoned and forced to
work in the king's kitchen. Perkin Warbeck posed as Richard of York, Edward V's
younger brother (and co-prisoner in the Tower of London); Warbeck's support
came from the continent, and after repeated invasion attempts, Henry had him
imprisoned and executed.
Henry
greatly strengthened the monarchy by employing many political innovations to
outmaneuver the nobility. The household staff rose beyond mere servitude: Henry
eschewed public appearances, there fore, staff
members were the few persons Henry saw on a regular basis. He created the
Committee of the Privy Council, a forerunner of the modern cabinet) as an
executive advisory board; he established the Court of the Star Chamber to
increase royal involvement in civil and criminal cases; and as an alternative
to a revenue tax disbursement fromParliament, he
imposed forced loans and grants on the nobility.Henry's
mistrust of the nobility derived from his experiences in theWars
of the Roses - a majority remained dangerously neutral until the very end. His
skill at by-passing Parliament (and thus, the will of the nobility) played a
crucial role in his success at renovating government.
On
March 5, 1496, King Henry VII issued letters patent to John Cabot and his sons,
authorizing them to explore unknown lands. John Cabot (Italian:
Giovanni Caboto; c. 1450 Š c. 1500) was a Venetian navigator and explorer whose
1497 discovery of the coast of North
America under King
Henry's commission led the first European exploration of coastal
North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the
eleventh century. To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's
expedition, both the Canadian and British governments elected Cape
Bonavista, Newfoundland, as
representing Cabot's first landing site.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot
March
5, 1133 was the birthday of Henry VIIÕs ancestor, English Henry II.
Henry's
political acumen was also evident in his handling of foreign affairs. He played
Spain off of France by arranging the marriage of his
eldest son, Arthur, to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Arthur died within months and Henry secured a papal dispensation for Catherine
to marry Arthur's brother, the future Henry VIII ;
this single event had the widest-ranging effect of all Henry's actions: Henry
VIII's annulment from Catherine was the impetus for the separation of the
Church of England from the body of Roman Catholicism. The marriage of Henry's
daughter, Margaret, to James IV of Scotland would also have later
repercussions, as the marriage connected the royal families of both England and
Scotland, leading the Stuarts to the throne after the extinction of the Tudor
dynasty. Henry encouraged trade and commerce by subsidizing ship building and entering into lucrative trade agreements, thereby increasing
the wealth of both crown and nation.
Henry
failed to appeal to the general populace: he maintained a distance between king
and subject. He brought the nobility to heel out of necessity to transform the
medieval government that he inherited into an efficient tool for conducting
royal business. Law and trade replaced feudal obligation as the Middle Ages
began evolving into the modern world. Francis Bacon, in his history of Henry
VII, described the king as such: "He was of a high mind, and loved his own
will and his own way; as one that revered himself, and would reign indeed. Had
he been a private man he would have been termed proud: But in a wisePrince, it was but keeping of distance; which indeed he
did towards all; not admitting any near or full approach either to his power or
to his secrets. For he was governed by none."
Source: http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon40.html
Composed by:
Dwight Albert (D. A.) Sharpe
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