Henry VII

Henry Tudor was born in 1457, the son of Edmund Tudor and the Lady Margaret Beaufort. After Edward IV had defeated the Lancastrian Henry VI in battle, the young Henry Tudor was taken into custody by the earl of Pembroke at his seat, Raglan Castle in Wales. Henry was 14 years in Wales, and spent another 14 as a political exile at the Court of Francois II of Brittany.;After the murder of Henry VI and the death of his son, Prince Edward, Henry of Richmond (as he was then known) became head of the House of Lancaster. Henry invaded England in 1485 to defeat the last tyrannous Plantagenet king at Bosworth Field. Henry's hereditary claim to the throne was weak but our first Tudor king was a born politician and became one of our ablest kings.;Bryan Bevan shows how Henry ruled over a splendid court never stinting on expense. His greatest sorrow was the premature death of his son Prince Arthur and after his wife Elizabeth's death, Henry's character deteriorated. He became mean and niggardly. Succeeding to an impoverished kingdom, his ambition was to make England important in the Europe of the time and in that he succeeded, leaving a prosperous kingdom to Henry VIII.