why was henry vii called the winter king
In 1497 Warbeck landed in Cornwall with a few thousand troops, but was soon captured and executed. Henry VII: Winter King, BBC Two, review - The Telegraph Consultant editor for the. Herbert was captured fighting for the Yorkists and executed by Warwick. [citation needed], During his lifetime the nobility often criticised Henry VII for re-centralizing power in London, and later the 16th-century historian Francis Bacon was ruthlessly critical of the methods by which he enforced tax law, but it is equally true that Henry VII was diligent about keeping detailed records of his personal finances, down to the last halfpenny;[71] these and one account book detailing the expenses of his queen survive in the British National Archives, as do accounts of courtiers and many of the king's own letters. Reading this, I got a much better understanding of where Henry VIII came from, and why he was destined to be the colorful ruler he became, as an antidote to his own father. Henry VII of England - Wikipedia [66], Henry wanted to maintain the Spanish alliance. So 4 stars. In 1501, England had been ravaged for decades by conspiracy, coups . If you are new the era, this wouldn't the first book I would pick up because it does flip flop around a bit in the beginning-but if you want to understand the players that ultimately have a significant impact on Henry VIII, this is the book for you. 1517. [33], In 1490, a young Fleming, Perkin Warbeck, appeared and claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, the younger of the "Princes in the Tower". [43] According to the contemporary historian Polydore Vergil, simple "greed" underscored the means by which royal control was over-asserted in Henry's final years. He spent his entire reign fixated on eliminating or disarming his enemies, and stabilizing England after the bloody, seemingly endless War of the Roses. Before Henry VIII, English kings were addressed as "Your Grace" or "Your Highness.". Thomas Penn's Winter King is not really a biography of Henry VII, and more a study of what he was directing his government to do in his name. The father's government was an exercise in discoloration. Hidden under the floor in St George's Chapel in Windsor, England where thousands of people walk every day, a forgotten tomb lies. Henry VII was the King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 to his death. He cemented his claim by marrying Elizabeth of York, daughter of King Edward IV. The rest, as we say, is history; Richard III was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth and Henry Tudor had arrived out of nowhere and avenged the death of the little princes in the tower, although there is some debate as to who was actually responsible for their murder. His father, Henry VII, was a cold, calculating man (he wasn't called "the Winter King" for nothing), a greedy monarch who during his last years on the throne had squeezed every last drop. Together, they had seven children. Then in 1491 appeared a still more serious menace: Perkin Warbeck, coached by Margaret to impersonate Richard, the younger son of Edward IV. In response to this threat within his own household, the King instituted more rigid security for access to his person. By 1600 historians emphasised Henry's wisdom in drawing lessons in statecraft from other monarchs. Henry had only been accepted as King because the Princes in the Tower, the sons of Edward IV, were dead, so when Yorkist exiles groomed Perkin Warbeck to pose as one of the princes and raised an army it was a huge threat. [58], Henry's principal problem was to restore royal authority in a realm recovering from the Wars of the Roses. In 1622 Francis Bacon published his History of the Reign of King Henry VII. He was the founder of the Tudor dynasty, and his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville brought together the too sides that were facing off during the Wars of the Roses (the Lancasters and the Yorks) basically uniting the two houses into a single family. He had gone from a refugee landing on an isolated beach in Wales to being a great king. Celebrating the release of The Colour of Bone A London Charnel House. Life at court was merry under Henry 8th, a fresh new beginning likened to springtime. In other cases, he brought his over-powerful subjects to heel by decree. Omissions? Philip died shortly after the negotiations. Thus, the two warring houses were joined in marriage. Categories: Monarchy, NewsTags: birth of Tudor dynasty, Henry Tudor, Henry VII, Thomas Penn, Tudor dynasty, Winter King, Copyright 2023 The Anne Boleyn Files In 1621 Francis Bacon's history of. This was excellent. Why was Henry VII called the Winter King? - AnswersAll Watch Henry VII: The Winter King | Prime Video - amazon.com He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. During his 23-year reign, Henry had only two Lord High Treasurers, and this continuity helped provide stability. Effectively an orphan, he had spent wretched years as a fugitive in Brittany. Henry VIII, (born June 28, 1491, Greenwich, near London, Englanddied January 28, 1547, London), king of England (1509-47) who presided over the beginnings of the English Renaissance and the English Reformation. Wow, it was like being battered by facts without remission for good intentions. For other uses, see, Henry holding a rose and wearing the collar of the, Law enforcement and justices of the peace, the 1486 rebellion of the Stafford brothers, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Cultural depictions of Henry VII of England, "Tudor Pembroke | Ymddiriedolaeth Harri Tudur | Henry Tudor Trust", "BBC Wales History Themes Pembroke The Main Street", "Westminster Abbey website: Coronations, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York", "Calendar of State Papers, Spain: Supplement To Volumes 1 and 2, Queen Katherine; Intended Marriage of King Henry VII To Queen Juana", "Domestic and foreign policy of Henry VII", "Queen Margaret's Arch | York Civic Trust", "Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond", The Reign of Henry VII. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [26] Henry married Elizabeth of York with the hope of uniting the Yorkist and Lancastrian sides of the Plantagenet dynastic disputes, and he was largely successful. This battle saw the end of the Wars of the Roses which had brought instability to England. Henry VIII, (born June 28, 1491, Greenwich, near London, Englanddied January 28, 1547, London), king of England (1509-47) who presided over the beginnings of the English Renaissance and the English Reformation. Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England - Goodreads Henry VII ruled - as Machiavelli, just after his reign, was to advise usurpers to do - through fear rather than love. There's a lot of cloak-and-dagger stuff here, something Henry and certain of his counselors seemed especially skilled at, and it was those parts that I particularly enjoyed. Fittingly he dressed in expensive black. [64] This made Henry VII's second son, Henry, Duke of York, heir apparent to the throne. Henry restored power and stability to the English monarchy following the civil war. All the powers of Europe doubted Henrys ability to survive, and most were willing to shelter claimants against him. Much of the ruthless machinery of control was designed to deal with ongoing challenged like pretenders and Yorkist sleepers and expats. Some of it is due to his personality--he played his cards close to the vest, unlike his son--and some of it is due to Tudor spin--they were, after all trying to bolster up the royal credentials for a man who didn't have that many. His claim to the throne was precarious and was from an illegitimate line, a family who had been banned from taking the throne, so Henry needed to make the people believe that he was their rightful King and to do that he had to start behaving like one. I don't read a lot of NF because I usually find it to be tedious, but The Winter King certainly wasn't that. The new prince was the embodiment of the red and white rose, he was the Tudor rose incarnate. Claiming to be Edward, earl of Warwick, the son of Richard IIIs elder brother, George, duke of Clarence, he had the formidable support of John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, Richard IIIs heir designate, of many Irish chieftains, and of 2,000 German mercenaries paid for by Margaret of Burgundy. Henry VIII | Biography, Wives, Religion, Death, & Facts Richard III's death at Bosworth Field effectively ended the Wars of the Roses. Having secured financial backing from Florentine bankers in London, Cabot was granted carefully phrased letters patent from Henry in March 1496, permitting him to embark on an exploratory voyage westerly. For me, history is alive and energizing - not something static and remote. Before taking the throne, he was known as Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond. Penn explained how Henry reworked recent events to suit him. His spies and informers were everywhere. After Edward retook the throne in 1471, Henry Tudor spent 14 years in exile in Brittany. Luther gained support for his ideas and Europe became . [36] However, he spared Warwick's elder sister Margaret, who survived until 1541 when she was executed by Henry VIII. Henry 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 was king of England from 1485 to 1509. His second son, also called Henry, inherited the throne and became . (HIST003) Persecutions, Populations and Politics: Early Modern Britain 1550-1750, (HIST004) Country, Colonies and Culture: Early Modern Britain 1550-1750, (HIST006) The Stuart Court: History Politics and Culture, (HIST010) The Tudors: History, Culture and Religion, (HIST011) The English Country House: History, Architecture and Landscape, (HIST018) The Changing English Countryside, 20th Century Musicals: A Celebration of Song and Dance on the Silver Screen and the Stage. Henry was also worried by the treason of Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, the eldest surviving son of Edward IVs sister Elizabeth, who fled to the Netherlands (1499) and was supported by Maximilian. Henry VIII was the first English king to be called "Your Majesty.". From his victory over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, to his secret death and the succession of his son Henry VIII, the film reveals the ruthless tactics . If Penn's interpretation can sometimes seem slanted, its exposition would be hard to over-praise. The union was both symbolic and necessary. For instance, except for the first few months of the reign, the Baron Dynham and the Earl of Surrey were the only Lord High Treasurers throughout his reign. Royal Collection Trust At the summit, even dinnerware testified to its owner's status. Until the death of his wife, the evidence is clear from these accounting books that Henry was a more doting father and husband than was widely known and there is evidence that his outwardly austere personality belied a devotion to his family. Here was a young man who enjoyed jousting, who enjoyed chatting with the other knights in the tiltyard and with people of low degree. When Henry VII called his first parliament he used it as an opportunity to legitimise his reign. However, such a level of paranoia persisted that anyone (John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, for example)[27] with blood ties to the Plantagenets was suspected of coveting the throne. His first son and heir apparent, Arthur, Prince of Wales, died suddenly at Ludlow Castle, very likely from a viral respiratory illness known at the time as the "English sweating sickness". More than a biography of Henry VII, this book is really a highly detailed history of the last ten years of his reign, and how he meticulously and ruthlessly turned England into a police state ruled by what amounted to an organized crime syndicate. Author of, Assistant Master and Professor of History, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. His bouts of grave illness brought the question repeatedly to the fore. He made huge gobs of money binding his subjects to him with loyalty bonds. [citation needed], All Acts of Parliament were overseen by the justices of the peace. France, Burgundy, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and the Hanseatic League all rejected the treaty, which was never in force. Penn showed a genealogical roll that had belonged to the de la Pole family which showed Henry VI being the end of the Lancastrian line and the Yorkist line continuing on to Richard III. But Henry had a crucial asset: his queen and their children, the living embodiment of his hoped-for dynasty. [citation needed], After 1503, records show the Tower of London was never again used as a royal residence by Henry VII, and all royal births under Henry VIII took place in palaces. It was a fantastic programme and I highly recommend Thomas Penns book on Henry VII Winter King. That was to prevent the King of France capturing him and letting him loose on the English as a rival. He rewrote history by backdating his reign to 21st August 1485, the day before the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was crowned on October 30 and secured parliamentary recognition of his title early in November. Henry VII is usually treated as a charmless and thrifty prelude to the big reign of Henry VIII, with the inevitable marriage of Henry and Catherine of Aragon, and the reversal of his father's bully policies for a golden age of chivalry and, you know, all the crazy shit Henry VIII was about to do. Based on the terms of the accord, Henry sent 6000 troops to fight (at the expense of Brittany) under the command of Lord Daubeney. In 1837 Henry VIII's tomb was eventually marked in the chapel with a commemorative marble slab. This book was way too focused on what happened, but not so much on the why or why it was important. For many he remained a usurper, a false king. Old rivalries simmered, however. Its restoration by the Magnus Intercursus was very much to England's benefit in removing taxation for English merchants and significantly increasing England's wealth. Henry VII comes across as a talented micromanager and financier. These bonds were enforced by the Council Learned in the Law, a council of legal advisers who were only answerable to the King. Henry, recognizing that Simnel had been a mere dupe, employed him in the royal kitchens. Coinage of Henry VII of England | Mintage World There's a (relatively) brief explanation of Henry's rather tumultuous childhood and his rise to the throne, before Penn really gets into the nitty gritty details during the second half of Henry's reign, focusing on his intricate foreign policy, his increasing use of finance as a means of control over his subjects and, most entertaining to me, the various plots and conspiracies of Henry's enemies. When he met Richard III at Bosworth Field, Henry found that his army of dissidents and mercenaries was completely outnumbered. Hed achieved the impossible, hed risen from refugee to King of England. [citation needed] Following the example of Edward IV, Henry VII created a Council of Wales and the Marches for his son Arthur, which was intended to govern Wales and the Marches, Cheshire and Cornwall. For inheriting an unstable throne, holding it for 25 year and leaving England relatively stable, Henry VII deserves his own biography and a lot more credit. [15], By 1483, Henry's mother was actively promoting him as an alternative to Richard III, despite her being married to Lord Stanley, a Yorkist. The king's own death seven years later had to be kept secret until his nervous entourage had ensured the succession. This revived an earlier practice of using a small (and trusted) group of the Privy Council as a personal or Prerogative Court, able to cut through the cumbersome legal system and act swiftly. Martin Luther 95 thesis. In turn, Antwerp became an extremely important trade entrept (transshipment port), through which, for example, goods from the Baltic, spices from the east and Italian silks were exchanged for English cloth. Henry was building a myth, the idea that he and his family were the true royal blood of England. [11] When Edward IV became King in 1461, Jasper Tudor went into exile abroad. The reigns of his three predecessors were interrupted or foreshortened. An ally of Henry's, Viscount Jean du Qulennec[fr], soon arrived, bringing news that Francis had recovered, and in the confusion Henry was able to flee to a monastery. [49] The confused, fractious nature of Breton politics undermined his efforts, which finally failed after three sizeable expeditions, at a cost of 24,000. When he died, his only surviving son, Henry VIII, succeeded him without a breath of opposition. Henry VII is actually a less familiar figure, despite being the same person. [75], Henry VII died of tuberculosis at Richmond Palace on 21 April 1509 and was buried in the chapel he commissioned in Westminster Abbey next to his wife, Elizabeth. Why is Henry VIII's Tomb So Small When His Life Was So Very Opulent? The research was thorough and it was presented well and kept me engaged. Penn then moved on to how Henry became King. He stabilised the government's finances by introducing several new taxes. People saw him as being like a traditional king and hoped that his reign would bring positive change. To unite the opponents of Richard III, Henry had promised to marry Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV; and the coalition of Yorkists and Lancastrians continued, helped by French support, since Richard III talked of invading France. Pembroke Castle, birthplace of Henry VII [ JKMMX ] [ CC BY-SA 3.0 ]. Claiming the throne by just title of inheritance and by the judgment of God in battle, he was crowned on October 30 and secured parliamentary recognition of his title early in November. Henry VII - History Learning Site He became paranoid and made the decision that if his people couldnt love him then they should fear him. [citation needed] Henry also formed an alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (14931519) and persuaded Pope Innocent VIII to issue a papal bull of excommunication against all pretenders to Henry's throne. Henrys throne, however, was far from secure. Penn pointed out that for over half a century no king had passed on the crown without turmoil and Henry knew that what had happened to Richard could happen to him. Yorkist malcontents had strength in the north of England and in Ireland and had a powerful ally in Richard IIIs sister Margaret, dowager duchess of Burgundy. Claire is going live on YouTube on 11 February! Edmund was created Earl of Richmond in 1452, and "formally declared legitimate by Parliament". The whole system was ingeniously designed to ensure the unchallenged supremacy of the king while stamping out any challenges to his authority from the nobles, merchants, and commons. [68] In 1505 he was sufficiently interested in a potential marriage to Joanna of Naples that he sent ambassadors to Naples to report on the 27-year-old Joanna's physical suitability. Please check your email to confirm your subscription. Penn notes something else about the paeans on the son's accession: later in the Tudor period, apologists for the regime would remember Henry VII as the restorer of national peace and unity, but in 1509 it was the king's death, not his rule, that was held to have ended a long era of dark instability. The 6 Main Achievements of Henry VII | History Hit His claim to the throne was tenuous and permanently contested. Letters to relatives have an affectionate tone not captured by official state business, as evidenced by many written to his mother Margaret. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-VII-king-of-England, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Henry VII, English Monarchs - Biography of Henry VII, Henry VII - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Henry VII - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Henry VII, also called (1457-85) Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, (born January 28, 1457, Pembroke Castle, Pembrokeshire, Walesdied April 21, 1509, Richmond, Surrey, England), king of England (1485-1509), who succeeded in ending the Wars of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York and founded the Tudor dynasty. Why was Henry VII called the "Winter King"? - Quora Yet in the hands of a narrator as accomplished as Penn, the reign acquires its own, troubling fascination. When Henry VII called his first parliament he used it as an opportunity to legitimise his reign. Through this, he found that his Lord Chamberlain, Sir William Stanley, was involved in the plot. After his victory at Bosworth Field, Henry married Edward IVs daughter Elizabeth of York. [a] Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a descendant of the Lancastrian branch of the House of Plantagenet. Thomas Penns Winter King in a brilliant mash-up of gothic horror and political biography. That is, suspicious, insecure and crafty but also determined, patient and fiercely proud of his Lancastrian ancestry. I've never read much on the reign of Henry VII - mostly because to really get to grips with his policies, you first have to get to grips with his exhaustively complicated financial policies - but Penn provides a wonderful accessibility through his writing, which provides valuable context to the man who founded England's most famous dynasty. These laws were used shrewdly in levying fines upon those that he perceived as threats. Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a descendant of the Lancastrian branch of the House of Plantagenet. 1845. When they married in 1396 they already had four children, including Henry's great-grandfather John Beaufort. Henry VII was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII. Henrys Chamber Accounts show payment to strangers and people across the sea, who appear to have been part of a network of spies and informers who kept an eye on potential troublemakers and alerted the King. For Henry VII, it was all about the money and stability. Henry started a new policy to recover Guyenne and other lost Plantagenet claims in France. Author Thomas Penn takes an extraordinary journey into the dark and chilling world of the first Tudor King, Henry VII. He spent most of the next 14 years under the protection of Francis II, Duke of Brittany. Thus, Henry Tudor had no choice but to gather together an army including mercenary soldiers as well as his own supporters, and he landed in Wales in August, 1485. As his mother was only 14 when he was born and soon married again, Henry was brought up by his uncle Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke. ||sitemap_index.xml The wedding was a triumph but in April 1502 a messenger brought the King the news that his eldest son had died of sweating sickness. [45], Henry VII established the pound avoirdupois as a standard of weight; it later became part of the Imperial[46] and customary systems of units.
why was henry vii called the winter king