Divorced, Beheaded, Died: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks (8 page)

But Richard was warned by the loyal Lord Hastings that he faced what amounted to a coup, so he intercepted the young King on his way to London and arrested the Woodville leaders. The Queen and her younger son (also called Richard) sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, but other members of the Woodville clan were executed. Edward was taken to the Tower of London (which served as a royal palace as well as a prison) and was joined a short time later by his younger brother.

Richard called a meeting of the full Council of the Protectorate in the Tower, where he accused the astounded Lord Hastings of a treasonable conspiracy with the Woodvilles. Richard had Hastings executed immediately without trial. Plans for Edward’s coronation were then put on hold, as Richard sought to have the King and his brother declared illegitimate, on the grounds that Edward IV had been contracted to marry another woman before marrying Elizabeth Woodville in secret. Parliament accepted this, declared Richard king and he was crowned on 6 July.

Nobody knows for sure what happened to the two boys, but they were never again seen outside the Tower. Were they murdered and if so at whose command? Richard clearly had the motive and the opportunity. Did he personally give the order? Or was it an overzealous supporter who took matters into his own hands? It is worth noting that the Duke of Buckingham and Henry Tudor both had claims to the throne and would also benefit from the death of the Princes. And if they could manage this while placing the blame on Richard, they would kill two birds with one stone. Whatever the case, the Princes simply vanished – no announcements, accusations or excuses were made. Most people blamed the obvious suspect. In 1674 bones of two young boys were found at the foot of a staircase in the Tower and were reburied in Westminster Abbey as the remains of the Princes in the Tower, but the truth remains elusive.

R
ICHARD
III

Reigned 1483–1485

Richard’s life falls into two halves: the first part when he served his brother King Edward IV and his country with loyalty and distinction, and the second part when as Protector and King he displayed a remarkable capacity for decisive and ruthless action.

He was born in 1452 at Fotheringay Castle, Northamptonshire. He finished his education in the home of the Earl of Warwick, where he met Anne Neville, who would later be his queen. By the age of seventeen Richard was a leading figure in the civil war and commanded wings of Edward’s army at the crucial battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, where Warwick and the Lancastrian forces were resoundingly defeated.

Richard was given responsibility for the north, where he ruled with diligence and fairness. He ended the Scottish threat, recaptured Berwick and occupied Edinburgh, and gave his brother’s regime some much-needed military success. But he was not charismatic like his brother. He preferred to stay out of London to avoid the debauchery and intrigue of the London court.

When his brother died in April 1483, Richard was in a very difficult position. The young Edward V had been brought up by the Woodvilles, whom Richard blamed for the ill-health and early death of the King. If they gained control, the consequences for Richard were grave. So he took decisive action, executing various members of the Woodville clan and keeping the young King and his brother in the Tower while he sought to have them declared illegitimate. He was successful in this, and was crowned in July 1483. The fate of the two boys remains unknown, but it is likely that they were murdered in the Tower that same year, possibly at Richard’s behest.

Was the failure of Richard’s reign caused by public revulsion at the Princes’ murders, or was his real failure that he could not command the loyalty of those around him? His first year saw his betrayal by his main supporter, the Duke of Buckingham, who joined an alliance composed of the Woodvilles and Henry Tudor, a rival claimant to the throne. Buckingham was executed. Richard was also betrayed by Lord Stanley and the Earl of Northumberland at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, and bravely went to his death in a last ‘do or die’ charge aimed at killing Henry Tudor. His crucial mistake had been to narrow his power-base and rely on his old northern followers, thus alienating key nobles.

Richard had fathered up to seven illegitimate offspring before he married Anne Neville, but his one legitimate son had recently died aged nine, leaving the way clear for Henry Tudor to inherit the throne.

The Tudors

The Wars of the Roses killed off many of the leading contenders for the throne.  The death of Edward of Lancaster, the son of Henry VI, made Henry Tudor the prominent Lancastrian claimant to the throne, through his mother’s side – even though this Beaufort ancestry (being originally illegitimate) in fact gave him no legal claim at all. His father, Edmund Tudor, was descended from the Welsh prince Rhys ap Gruffudd.  Henry’s marriage to Elizabeth of York united the Yorkist and Lancastrian lines in the form of their son, Henry VIII. The massacre of aristocrats that took place in the Wars of the Roses and in the subsequent executions ordered by Henry VII and VIII is one of the factors that explains why the medieval age is deemed to have ended with the coming of the Tudors.

H
ENRY
VII

Reigned 1485–1509

Henry Tudor had at best a very weak claim to the throne, but he was propelled to the top of the Lancastrian leader board by the deaths of Henry VI and his son. The subsequent deaths of Edward IV, the Duke of Clarence, the Princes in the Tower and the Duke of Buckingham killed off most of the leading Yorkist claimants, and in a short space of time turned Henry from an obscure Welsh noble to the main contender for the throne.

Henry was born in 1457 at Pembroke Castle, Wales. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a formidable woman who was descended from Edward III via an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt. On the Tudor side, Henry was descended from Catherine of Valois, Henry V’s widow, who had secretly married a Welsh courtier, Owen Tudor.

Henry was forced into exile in Brittany when he was fourteen years old, and he spent the next fourteen years abroad, fathering one illegitimate child while he was there. Attempts to extradite him intensified under Richard III, but Henry escaped and fled to France, where he gained the support of the French King. In 1485, with a largely French army, Henry made the momentous decision to risk everything and try for the crown. He landed at Milford Haven, where his army was augmented by Welsh volunteers keen to see a Tudor on the throne of England. His success at the subsequent Battle of Bosworth was largely a matter of luck and the betrayal of Richard by leading supporters.

After he was proclaimed king, he fulfilled earlier promises and married Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, in order to unite the Lancastrian and Yorkist families. They had eight children together. Although the marriage is often cited as ending the Wars of the Roses, there was still much unrest, and Henry faced rebellions led by two imposters, Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, who pretended to be the Earl of Warwick and Richard of York (the younger of the Princes in the Tower). He also faced threats from the Yorkist claimant to the throne, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (Edward IV and Richard III’s nephew), as well as a Cornish rebellion that reached as far as London.

Henry was a shrewd ruler. He kept the nobility under control with heavy fines, so that fear of debt kept them compliant. He set up the Star Chamber, a small group of advisors which acted as a royal court and was able to act swiftly to protect the King’s interests. Foreign relations were vastly improved, with commercial treaties being signed with Spain, Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands. He was accused of avarice, over-taxing his subjects and hoarding his money, but this ensured a full treasury to hand over to his heir on his death in 1509.

H
ENRY
VIII

Reigned 1509–1547

Henry VIII is arguably Britain’s most famous monarch, but for all the wrong reasons. He was every inch a king, a man who knew how to command and expected to be obeyed. He combined his regal attributes with an egotism that did not shy away from transforming the entire country so that he got his own way.

He was born in 1491 at Greenwich Palace, the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. He was very well educated, being fluent in French, Spanish and Latin. He was interested in theology, music and poetry and had a passion for physical activity, including jousting, hunting, dancing and tennis. He was tall, athletic, handsome and charismatic.

Henry’s reign began with wild optimism. The young, vital King’s court was the antithesis of his father’s – a shrewd frugality was replaced by largesse, generosity and merriment. It was not only Henry who made his court so glamorous; he had a beautiful bride too. Catherine of Aragon was the widow of Henry’s older brother, Arthur, who had died aged fifteen. What began as a marriage of convenience became a love match, and the royal couple enjoyed a happy relationship for many years.

Henry was greedy for glory in France and led the army there in person, but in 1520 he made peace with Francis I in an ostentatious meeting known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In 1518 the Treaty of London was signed in an attempt to bring together the leaders of Europe – England, France, Spain, Burgundy, the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire united with the Pope in a non-aggression pact. All of this suggested the dawning of a new age of peace, although it did not last long. Henry left most of the detail of government to Cardinal Wolsey, a butcher’s son who was an administrative genius, and who rose to become Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York. He did, however, greatly improve the royal navy, building some magnificent warships.

Henry’s relationship with Catherine was strained by his affairs and by her failure to produce a male heir. From her many pregnancies, only one child survived – a girl, Princess Mary. In 1526 events took a sinister turn for Catherine when Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn, the sister of one of his former mistresses. Made sophisticated by a stay in France, Anne was shrewd enough to refuse the King the prize he yearned for. Henry became convinced that the lack of a male heir was God’s punishment for marrying his brother’s widow, and he was so confident that the Pope would grant an annulment that in 1528 he told Anne they would soon be married.

But the Pope was under the control of Catherine’s nephew, Emperor Charles V, and despite Wolsey’s increasingly desperate attempts, he would not grant Henry a divorce. Wolsey fell from power and was replaced first by Thomas More, who was executed when he refused to support Henry’s plans, and later Thomas Cromwell. Henry achieved the divorce he wanted by making the momentous step of taking England out of the Roman Catholic Church and forming the Church of England, with himself at its head. This gave the King licence to dissolve or demolish the rich, unpopular monasteries, which owned about a third of the country, an act which greatly bolstered the royal treasury, although the widespread destruction of monastic libraries caused an immeasurable cultural loss for the nation. Unlike Anne, Cromwell and other supporters of the Crown, however, Henry was in no sense committed to a ‘Protestant’ Reformation, and lived and died a Catholic, if not a Roman one.

Henry married Anne in 1533, but she too failed to produce the male heir required, giving birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. Henry became convinced that she had used witchcraft to seduce him and that she was an insatiable adulteress. A list of five lovers was compiled, which included her own brother. Subjected to torture, they were forced to admit their guilt and were executed. Anne followed them to the block in 1536. The King then married the gentle Jane Seymour, who produced the much-desired male heir, Edward, but died twelve days later.

Henry next turned to a foreign wife, Anne of Cleves, to help consolidate Protestant alliances, but she was not as pretty as Holbein’s portrait of her had suggested and so she was quickly divorced, which was a diplomatic disaster. Cromwell, who had suggested the marriage, was executed for treason. He was not adequately replaced and the gains made earlier in the reign were dissipated with unsuccessful and expensive wars in France and Scotland.

By this time Henry’s disposition had become grimmer. He was suspicious to the point of paranoia and his bad temper was exacerbated by a painful leg injury which would not heal and prevented exercise. In his late forties, he married the teenaged Catherine Howard. But she too was accused of adultery and treason and she was executed in 1542. A year later, Henry was married to his sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, who outlived him.

Henry died in 1547, leaving the throne to his only son, Edward. Although his reign was not as successful as the early years had promised, Henry did leave behind a more united country. Administrative practices in the north and west were aligned with those in the south and helped bring to an end the separatist tendencies in Northumberland, and the over-mighty aristocrats who had caused the Wars of the Roses had lost their power base.

Henry had three or four illegitimate children in addition to those by his wives, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward.

E
DWARD
VI

Reigned 1547–1553

Edward was born in 1537 at Hampton Court. He was a precocious and rather priggish child – serious, scholarly and dedicated to the Protestant religion.

He came to the throne aged ten, on the death of his father. The Council of Regency carefully put together by Henry VIII was overthrown by Edward’s uncle, Edward Seymour, who became Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector, supported by Archbishop Cranmer and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, all of whom were committed to the Reformation.

Cranmer introduced the
Book of Common Prayer
, a Protestant prayer book written in English, in 1548. Changes were made to the sacraments, services had to be held in English and there was widespread destruction of Catholic icons and religious art. But this consolidation of the Protestant Church of England led to Catholic rebellions in the West Country and Norfolk, and in 1549 Somerset was overthrown, and Dudley, who was made Duke of Northumberland, took the lead in government. Somerset was eventually tried for treason and executed.

Dudley tried to involve Edward as much as possible in matters of government, and the young King does appear to have supported the Reformation. How much of this was due to Dudley’s influence, however, is not clear because Edward never reached adulthood.

When it became clear in his final year that he would not survive to have children, thoughts turned to the succession. According to Henry VIII’s will, next in line to the throne was Edward’s eldest sister Mary, then Elizabeth. Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, had remained steadfast in her Catholicism, despite pressure from Edward. Edward wanted to save the Protestant religion and Dudley wanted to save himself, so Mary and Elizabeth were excluded and Edward’s cousin Lady Jane Grey was made heir to the throne and quickly married to Dudley’s son, Guilford.

J
ANE

Reigned 1553

Jane Grey was born in Bradgate Manor, Leicestershire in 1537, the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and Lady Frances Brandon. Lady Frances was the daughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary, and so Jane had a claim to the throne. Jane’s parents were very stern and she said she was ‘so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened...with pinches, nips and bobs and other ways...that I think myself in hell’. As a consequence, Jane was gentle, meek and scholarly, finding solace in her books.

A committed Protestant, Jane was an attractive option for those who did not wish to see the Catholic Princess Mary ascend to the throne, and the Duke of Northumberland and his protégé King Edward VI sought to ensure that she would succeed. She was married to Guilford Dudley, the handsome son of the Duke of Northumberland in 1553, shortly before Edward’s death. The wedding and subsequent manoeuvrings were probably much against Jane’s will.

Edward died on 6 July 1553 and Jane was proclaimed queen on 10 July. But Edward’s death had come sooner than expected and Northumberland was too slow to seize Princess Mary, who fled to Suffolk. Mary quickly drummed up support for her cause, while Northumberland’s supporters deserted him, evidence of popular belief in Mary’s legitimacy and rights as heir, regardless of religion. Queen Jane was deposed after only nine days of nominal power and the throne passed to Mary. Jane and Guilford Dudley were imprisoned in the Tower, though Mary’s inclination was to be lenient with Jane, as she seemed to have been a largely innocent victim of Northumberland’s machinations. However, the outbreak of a rebellion led by Thomas Wyatt forced Mary to act and the unlucky Jane and her husband were beheaded on Tower Green in February 1554. Jane was just seventeen years old.