The British Monarchy Miscellany
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Queen:
Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482), daughter of Rene’, Duke of Anjou, and niece of Charles VII, King of France.
Death:
21 May 1471, in the Tower of London.
Key Facts:
The youngest ever king of England, Henry ascended
the throne at the age of 9 months after the sudden death of his father Henry V. Meek by nature, indecisive and 90
easily led by others, he grew up ill-suited to be king in the medieval age.
A regency council governed the kingdom successfully during his minority, but when Henry assumed power at his majority he began to make poor choices. These
included a controversial marriage to French princess Margaret of Anjou, and poor leadership in the Hundred Years War which resulted in the loss of all the territories the English had won in France under his father.
In 1453, following the loss of the last English lands in France, he lost his sanity and sank into a catatonic state for 18 months when he was unable to recognise people or surroundings. After his recovery in 1454 he never completely regained his sanity, so royal leadership began to be exercised by his wife Margaret instead.
Henry’s lack of leadership, inability to keep
magnates under control and subsequent madness led
directly to the Wars of the Roses between his own
dynasty, the Lancastrians, and those opposed to them, the Yorkists, led by Richard Duke of York who had himself a claim to the throne and who challenged Henry’s fitness to be king.
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After the Wars of the Roses erupted in 1455 he only acted as a figurehead for the Lancastrians as his sanity began to slip away permanently. His wife Margaret
assumed leadership of their faction to protect the rights of their young son, the Prince of Wales. Following five years of battles, Henry was deposed in 1461 by Richard Duke of York’s son, Edward, who became king in his place as Edward IV. Henry was then imprisoned in the Tower of London.
He was briefly restored to the throne as a
Lancastrian figurehead king for seven months between 1470-1471, after Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the most powerful noble in the realm, rebelled against
Edward IV and forced him to flee abroad. After Edward IV
came back to England and regained the throne by battle in 1471 Henry was deposed once again and was
murdered shortly afterwards in the Tower of London in April 1471.
A deeply pious man, his greatest legacies were the
religious and educational buildings he founded at Eton College, Windsor; All Souls’ College, Oxford; and King’s College, Cambridge with its magnificent chapel. After his death a short-lived cult developed at his tomb and he was briefly considered for sainthood, but without
success.
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Peculiar Fact:
Once at Christmas, when he was a teenager, one of
Henry’s lords arranged for a group of young women to dance before him showing bare breasts. Presented with this sight, Henry covered his eyes with a mixture of anger and shame and left the room saying “Fie, fie, for shame!
Forsooth, you are to blame!”
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Edward IV
Reign:
4 March 1461 – 3 October 1470;
11 April 1471 – 9 April 1483
Birth:
28 April 1442, in Rouen, France. First son of Richard, Duke of York, and of Cecily Neville.
Queen:
Elizabeth Woodville (c.1437-1492), daughter of Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers, and of Jacquetta of Luxembourg.
Death:
9 April 1483, in the Palace of Westminster, London.
Key Facts:
The leader of the Yorkist faction during the Wars of the Roses from 1460, Edward became king in 1461 after defeating Henry VI’s Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton, the largest, bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil.
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An imposing yet affable figure, as a military commander he was never defeated on the field of battle.
As king he created resentment among nobles and
allies by secretly marrying, in 1464, Elizabeth Woodville, a Lancastrian widow who was considered unsuitable as a royal bride. The marriage, and the preferential treatment Edward showed to her relatives, led to a rebellion by Edward’s allies in 1469 led by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the most powerful noble in the realm.
He was deposed from the throne for a 7 month-
period in 1470-1471 after Richard Neville forced him to go into exile. During this time Neville arranged for the Lancastrian King Henry VI to be reinstated to the throne.
After gathering forces abroad, Edward came back to
England in March 1471 and regained the throne by
defeating Neville at the Battle of Barnet, and later by crushing the Lancastrians once and for all at the Battle of Tewkesbury in May 1471.
After his restoration he spent the last 12 years of his reign re-establishing peace and order in the kingdom following the upheavals of the Wars of the Roses. He created prosperity through trade and commerce, and
greatly enriched the royal estates by confiscating
Lancastrian properties. He became a great patron of the 95
arts and of writers, and is widely considered England’s first Renaissance prince.
Although he made the House of York secure by
eliminating all its Lancastrian enemies except one (Henry Tudor), his sudden death in 1483 at the age of 41 ignited a power struggle between the Yorkists themselves that would eventually lead to the self-destruction of their dynasty, and to the rise of the House of Tudor.
Peculiar Fact:
Edward was the tallest king in English history. When his tomb was opened in 1789 his skeleton was measured at roughly 6’4”. He was also one of the fairest-looking, with one chronicle describing him as ‘a person of most elegant appearance and remarkable beyond all others for the attractions of his person.’
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Edward V
Reign:
9 April – 26 June 1483
Birth:
2 November 1470, in the precincts of Westminster
Abbey, London. First son of King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth Woodville. Born during the short period in 1470-1471 when his father was deposed from the throne.
Queen:
None
Death:
Presumed to be sometime between August and October
1483, in the Tower of London.
Key Facts:
The shortest-reigning monarch in English history
since 1066, Edward became king at the age of 12 after the sudden death of his father. He was deposed two and 97
a half months later by his uncle, Richard Duke of
Gloucester (later Richard III) who had been appointed as his protector, and who claimed Edward was not a rightful king because he had been born illegitimate.
He disappeared in mysterious circumstances shortly
after his deposition together with his younger brother and heir, Prince Richard, whilst the two were being kept prisoners in the Tower of London. The two, commonly called the Princes in The Tower, are generally presumed to have been murdered under the orders, or with the complicity, of their uncle Richard III.
Peculiar Fact:
Despite his short life, Edward was made Prince of Wales at the age of 8 months and Knight of the Garter at 5-years-old. At the age of 10 he was married to Anne, heiress of the Duchy of Brittany in France, who was 4-years-old at the time. The marriage was to be legally consummated later once they both became of age.
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Richard III
Reign:
26 June 1483 – 22 August 1485
Birth:
2 October 1452, at Fotheringhay Castle,
Northamptonshire. Fourth son of Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville.
Queen:
Anne Neville (1456-1485), daughter of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
Death:
22 August 1485, at Bosworth Field, Leicestershire.
Key Facts:
Richard was a loyal brother to King Edward IV who
during his reign entrusted him with many tasks and
missions including administration of the entire North of England. He also fought valiantly on the Yorkist side at 99
the Battle of Barnet and Battle of Tewkesbury during the Wars of the Roses.
Declared Lord Protector during the short reign of his nephew Edward V, he seized power claiming that he was trying to prevent a coup by the family of the Queen Dowager Elizabeth Woodville. After confining Edward V
to the Tower of London, Richard usurped his crown by convincing Parliament to depose the young king for being illegitimate (he claimed his brother Edward had married another woman before he married Elizabeth Woodville), and having Parliament proclaim him king instead as
Richard III.
He is presumed responsible for the disappearance,
and possible murders, of Edward V and his younger
brother Richard who was next in line to the throne. The boys, known as the Princes in the Tower, were last seen in 1483 in the Tower of London where they were kept prisoners on Richard’s orders. No irrefutable evidence has yet been found however proving him directly guilty of their deaths.
He was defeated and killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 by Henry Tudor, the last Lancastrian claimant to the throne who became King Henry VII in his place.
Richard was the last English king to die in battle, the last 100
Plantagenet king to rule England, and his death marked the definite end of the Wars of the Roses.
Demonized by the Tudor dynasty as an evil king, he
was famously turned by William Shakespeare into a
scheming hunchbacked monster in his play Richard III. He was partly rehabilitated in the 21st century after the rediscovery of his remains in Leicester in 2012, which proved among other things that he suffered from
scoliosis but was not a hunchback.
Peculiar Fact:
Extensive DNA analysis carried out on Richard’s bones showed that his diet as king included lots of shellfish; that he ate bird meat like heron, crane and swan; and that he drank about a bottle of wine a day. It also showed that he had a roundworm infection when he died.
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Henry VII
Reign:
22 August 1485 – 21 April 1509
Birth:
28 January 1457, at Pembroke Castle, Wales. Only child of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, and of Margaret
Beaufort, a descendant of King Edward III.
Queen:
Elizabeth of York (1466-1503), daughter of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville.
Death:
21 April 1509, at Richmond Palace, near London.
Key Facts:
The founder of the Tudor dynasty, Henry finally
brought peace to England after decades of political chaos caused by the Wars of the Roses between Yorkists and Lancastrians. He won the crown at the Battle of Bosworth 102
in 1485 as the last Lancastrian claimant to the throne after defeating the Yorkist Richard III. By marrying Elizabeth of York, daughter of the Yorkist Edward IV, he united the two warring dynasties.
Throughout his reign he had to put down several
rebellions fomented by remaining Yorkists factions. These included uprisings led by two fake pretenders to the throne: Lambert Simnel in 1487 and Perkin Warbeck in 1495/97. Although initially merciful towards the house of York, these uprisings forced him later in his reign to execute some of the last Yorkist royal claimants.
He strengthened the institution of the monarchy by
breaking the power of the English nobility, which had been one of the causes of factional fighting during the Wars of the Roses. He accumulated much wealth by
annexing former Yorkist and Lancastrian lands and by imposing taxes and fines.
Because of the many taxes he imposed across the
land he gained the reputation of a miser among the
people. Increasing financial burdens on all classes provoked popular resentment, and a rebellion eventually erupted in Cornwall in 1497 which marched across
southern England and was put down only on the outskirts of London.
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He sponsored trips of exploration to the newly
discovered American lands, particularly the voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot. The two Italian explorers claimed the first lands in North America for the English Crown in the 1490s, in present-day Newfoundland.
Peculiar Fact:
After marrying Elizabeth of York Henry created the Tudor rose emblem, a symbol that combined the red rose of the house of Lancaster and the white rose of the House of York. The Tudor rose has since become one of the
national symbols of England, shown on many English
government buildings and included in the insignia of many military regiments. It is also shown on British coins and on the shirts of the England national football team.
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Henry VIII
Reign:
21 April 1509 – 28 January 1547
Birth:
28 June 1491, at Greenwich Palace, near London. Second son of King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth of York.
Queens:
1. (1509-1533) Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen
Isabella I of Castile.
2. (1533-1536) Anne Boleyn (c.1500/01-1536), daughter of Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire.
3. (1536-1537) Jane Seymour (c.1507/09-1537), daughter of Sir John Seymour.
4. (1540) Anne of Cleves (1515-1557), daughter of Duke John III of Cleves.
5. (1540-1541) Catherine Howard (c.1522/25-1542), daughter of Lord Edmund Howard.
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6. (1543-1547) Catherine Parr (c.1512-1548), daughter of Sir Thomas Parr.
Death:
28 January 1547, at Whitehall Palace, London.
Key Facts:
A larger than life personality, Henry was a true
Renaissance Prince with a humanist education. He was a skilled musician, dancer, jouster, writer and poet. He created one of the most refined courts in Europe and patronised artists and musicians.
He increased England’s status in Europe through
diplomacy, alliances and short wars. His meeting with King Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in France in 1520 was one of the most grandiose occasions of the century. He competed for glory and renown with both Francis I and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
His famous search for a male heir drove him to
divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn, whom he also divorced and executed later before marrying a third time to Jane Seymour. His
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subsequent three marriages were driven more by
political alliances and the need for companionship.
In order to divorce Catherine of Aragon he split
England away from the Roman Catholic Church, created the Church of England in its place and proclaimed
independence from the pope. He then made himself
Supreme Head of the English Church. At heart however he remained a Catholic when it came to religious
doctrine.
His religious reforms saw the Dissolution of the
English Monasteries, the dispersal of monks and nuns, and the re-distribution of church lands to the Crown and English nobility. He also ordered the destruction of sacred relics and shrines. All these upheavals caused a popular rebellion in 1536 called the Pilgrimage of Grace which was put down with much difficulty.
He officially united Wales into the kingdom of
England, making English the official language, creating new counties, and including Welsh representation in Parliament. He also made himself the first English King of Ireland.
He became increasingly obese, illness-ridden
and
paranoid as he grew older. The last 10 years of his reign 107
were marked by court intrigues and multiple executions, including those of Thomas Cromwell, Catherine Howard, Margaret de la Pole and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
Peculiar Fact:
Although Henry VIII’s court in his last years was a dangerous place where mere words could bring disgrace and even death, there was one person who was allowed to say anything he wanted: Henry’s jester Will Somers.
For over 20 years Somers made Henry laugh while
making fun of people at court. Only once he caused