#henry vii: the maligned tudor king

[feuillesmortes]

On 24 March [1509], the king collapsed. Within a week, the Venetian ambassador to London recorded that [Henry VII] was 'utterly without hope of recovery'. On 31 March, Henry made a thirty-seven-page will (totalling 13,000 words), parts of which had been drawn up before. In it, he insisted that any subject who had been unfairly punished by illegal taxation, or fined unjustly by the government, should be repaid and he left enough money for 10,000 masses to be said for his soul in Purgatory. The king cancelled all existing fines owed to the Treasury lower than the sum of £15, and pardoned all minor criminals.

Terry Breverton, Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King

[edwardiionlyfans]

Tudor Week 2021 : Day 1- Favourite Tudor Monarch/s - Henry VII

[ednyfedfychan]

TUDOR WEEK 2021 | @dailytudors Day 1: Favourite Tudor Monarch/s

Henry VII of England (1485-1509)

“Henry VII was a truly great and honourable king. If we measure according to personal contribution to the kingdom, he is England’s finest monarch. Unfortunately, the British ideal of ‘greatness’ in a monarch seems to depend on his percentage of wars won rather than other qualities. Henry was a man of religious sensibility, who worked tirelessly to promote the prosperity of the whole nation. It is difficult to discover a more cultured, intelligent or lenient king in history from the Saxons to the Hanovers, nor one who worked harder, with economy, effectiveness and efficiency for the lasting benefit of England and its monarchy.” — Terry Breverton, Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King

[minervacasterly]

Queen Mary (I) Tudor -The Woman behind the Legend of 'Bloody Mary'

"As Mary continued to face Protestant treason she became even more ruthless, with the infamous burnings intended to eliminate what she perceived as a stubborn and destabilising minority. In our context we see Mary's actions as those of a fanatic. In her context she was eliminating fanatics, and of the most dangerous kind, incorrigible rebels against God and queen. But Mary also had to work positively, to build a future, and this unravelled in the face of her infertility and declining health. She failed in her ultimate duty to produce a child and this meant, once again, that the wider family was key to the future. Mary's preferred choice as her heir, was Margaret Douglas, could not compete with the claims of Henry VIII's second daughter and, as Elizabeth took note, it was the knowledge that she would succeed her sister that fueled the disorder and rebellion against Mary. With the loss of Calais in the last year of Mary's life it would be easy for her enemies to paint the young, Protestant Elizabeth's accession as a brilliant new dawn. It is as such that it is still projected. Mary remains associated with her late seventeenth-century sobriquet 'Bloody Mary', and an infamous recent advertisement for the London Dungeon depicted her face transforming into a demon-zombie. Elizabeth, by contrast, has been played in films by a series of beautiful actresses: Elizabeth is ever Cate Blanchett, fairy queen, to Mary's bitter, grey-faced Kathy Burke. Yet these sisters were neither simple heroines nor villains. Both were rulers of their time and we can only understand Elizabeth if we see, as she did, what the Tudor sisters had in common and how she could learn from Mary's example. Most significant for Elizabeth was the fact that Mary's Protestant enemies had sought to redefine the nature of a 'true' king. They argued that religion was more important than blood, or victory in battles -a true king was Protestant- and that all women were by nature unsuited to rule over men. Elizabeth's response was to offer her ordinary subjects a theatrical representation of herself as a 'true' ruler: the seeds of which had been sown by Mary herself in her speech during the Wyatt revolt, in which she is a mother who loves her subjects as if they were her children. Here was a female authority figure accepted as part of the divine order." ~Leanda de Lisle, TUDOR

"The blackening of Mary's name began in Elizabeth's reign and gathered force at the end of the 17th century, when James II compounded the view that Catholic monarchs were a disaster for England. But it was really the enduring popularity of John Foxe which shaped the view of her that has persisted for 450 years. Attempts to soften her image have been made, but their tendency to depict her as a sad little woman who would have been better off as the Tudor equivalent of a housewife is almost as distasteful as the legend of Bloody Mary. To dismiss her life as nothing more than a personal tragedy is both patronizing and mistaken. One of the main themes of Mary's existence is the triumph of determination over adversity. She lived in a violent, intolerant age, surrounded by the intrigues of a time when men and women gambled their lives for advancement at court. Deceit, like ambition, was endemic among the power-seekers of mid-Tudor England who passed, in procession, through her life. Pride, stubbornness and an instinct for survival saw her through tribulations that would have destroyed a lesser woman. Her bravery put her on the throne and kept her there, so that when she died she was able to bequeath to Elizabeth a precious legacy that is often overlooked: she had demonstrated that a woman could rule in her own right. The vilification of Mary has obscured the many areas of continuity between her rule and those of the other Tudors. Today, despite the fact that much more is known about her reign, she is still the most maligned and misunderstood of English monarchs. For Mary Tudor, the first queen of England, truth has not been the daughter of time." ~Linda Porter, THE MYTH OF BLOODY MARY

"Foxe's account would shape the popular narrative of Mary's reign for the next four hundred and fifty years. Generations of schoolchildren would grow up knowing the first Queen of England only as "Bloody Mary", a Catholic tyrant who sent nearly three hundred Protestants to their deaths, a point made satirically in W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman's 1930s parody 1066 and All That. Mary's presence in a recent survey of the most evil men and women in history is testament to Foxe's enduring legacy. But there is, of course, a different Mary: a woman marked by suffering, devout in her faith and exceptional in her courage. From a childhood in which she was adored and feted and then violently rejected, a fighter was born. Her resolve almost cost her her life as her father, and then her brother, sought to subjugate her to their wills. Yet Mary maintained her faith and self-belief. Despite repeated attempts to deprive her of her life and right to the throne, the warrior princess turned victor and became the warrior princess turned victor and became the warrior queen. The boldness and scale of her achievements are often overlooked. The campaign that Mary led in the summer of 1553 would prove to be the only successful revolt against central government in sixteenth-century England. She, like her grandfather Henry VII and grandmother Isabella of Castile, had to flight for her throne. In the moment of crisis she proved decisive, courageous, and "Herculean" -and won the support of the English people as the legitimate Tudor heir. Mary was a conscientious, hardworking queen who was determined to be closely involved in government business and policy making. She would rise "at daybrea when, after saying her prayers and hearing mass in private," she would "transact business incessantly until after midnight." As rebels thereatend teh capital in January 1554 and she was urged to flee, Mary stood firm and successfully rallied Londoners to her defense. She was also a woman who lived by her conscience and was prepared to die for her faith. And she expected the same of others. Her religious defiance was matched by a personal infatuation with Phililp, her Spanish husband. Her love for him and dependence on her "true father", the Emperor Charles V, was unwavering. Her determination to honor her husband's will led England into an unpopular war with France and the loss of Calais. There was no fruit of the union, and so at her premature death there was no Catholic heir. Her own phantom pregnancies, together with epidemics and harvest failures across the country, left her undermined and unpopular. Her life, always one of tragic contrast, ended in personal tragedy as Philip abandoned her, never to return, even as his queen lay dying. In many ways Mary failed as a woman but triumphed as a queen. She ruled with the full measure of royal majesty and achieved much of what she set out to do. She won her rightful throne, married her Spanish prince, and restored the country to Roman Catholicism. The Spanish marriage was a match with the most powerful ruling house in Europe, and the highly favorable marriage treaty ultimately won the support of the English government. She had defeated the rebels and preserved the Tudor monarchy. Her Catholicism was not simply conservative but influenced by her humanist education and showed many signs of broad acceptance before she died. She was an intelligent, politically adept, and resolute monarch who proved to be very much her own woman. Thanks to Mary, John Aylmer, in exile in Switzerland, could confidently assert that "it is not in England so dangerous a matter to have a woman ruler, as men take it to be." By securing the throne following Edward's attempts to bar both his sisters, she ensured that the crown continued along the legal line of Tudor succession. Mary laid down other important precedents that would benefit her sister. Upon her accession as the first queen regnant of England, she redefined royal ritual and law, thereby establishing that a female ruler, married or unmarried, would enjoy identical power and authority to male monarchs. Mary was the Tudor trailblazer, a politiccal pioneer whose reign redefined the English monarchy." ~Anna Whitelock, MARY TUDOR: PRINCESS, BASTARD, QUEEN

Furthermore, as the country shifted from Catholicism to Protestantism, people began to find it easier to vilify her. During the Victorian age, England was at its height. People would say that the sun never set on the English Empire, and as a result, there was a growing sense of nationalism. Previously beloved figures like Queen Elizabeth I, Kings Edward III, Henry V, among others, were no longer kings and queens for people to admire and look upon but national symbols of pride, who were almost god-like. Edward III's victories against the French, Henry V's conquest of France, Elizabeth's Protestantism and victory against Spain with the Spanish Armada and other Catholic rivals, were extolled, and glorified, while Mary I's foreign ancestry was looked down upon. Ironically, all of these monarchs were also foreign in one way or another. You can say that Queen Elizabeth I wasn't because her parents were English, but what about her paternal ancestry, or her maternal one? No matter which way you look at it, she had foreign ancestry as much as any monarch. In fact, the Victorian era's own monarch, was of foreign descent as well! Victoria wasn't even an English name. She was named after her mother, Victoria of the Saxe-Coburg clan who was German and she married her cousin, who was also German. It was very common for royals to marry other royals, which meant that their offspring would be of foreign descent. In Mary's time this wouldn't be a reason to look down on her, on the contrary, she could point to her royal ancestors, be they foreign or not, with pride as a sign of how much royal blood flowed through her veins, making her eligible to be her father's heir. But as it has been pointed out before, times change and with it, so does our view of every historical figure.

[richmond-rex]

I love your analysis posts so much; do you recommend any non fiction books on h7 and eoy, separately or together?

Hello! Thank you very much for letting me know! I’m glad you like my posts 🤍❤️ Some book recommendations under the cut:

Henry VII:

Henry VII by Stanley Bertram Chrimes (a classic), Nathen Amin’s recently released book Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders, Henry VII’s New Men and The Making of Tudor England by Steven Gunn, Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King by Terry Breverton — the title also is controversial, I know but it’s worth a read. Gladys Temperley wrote a classic biography about Henry VII (which you can read online) but keep in mind that some of her claims are outdated nowadays. I also recommend the book: Westminster Abbey, The Lady Chapel of Henry VII and Chris Skidmore’s Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors.

Books that I haven’t had the chance to read yet: The Son of Prophecy: Henry Tudor’s Road to Bosworth by David Rees, Bosworth 1485: Psychology of a Battle by Michael Jones, and the biographies of Henry VII by Sean Cunningham.

Elizabeth of York:

I recommend Elizabeth of York: Queenship and Power by Arlene Okerlund and Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-law: Fashioning Tudor Queenship 1485-1547 by Retha Warnicke. I’m adding Joanna Laynesmith’s The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 even though it doesn’t only talk about Elizabeth of York. Not many good books about our girl (sadly), but I can say I definitely don’t recommend Alison Weir’s biography of Elizabeth or Lisa Hilton’s Queens Consort.

Amy Licence has also written a biography of Elizabeth of York but I have read just a little of it but I do recommend her In Bed with the Tudors: the Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I which is more about childbirth than anything, really. I do plan to read her entire biography of Elizabeth of York at some point.

Some books related to the family:

The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown by Nathen Amin, Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort, Tudor Matriarch by Nicola Tallis, Jasper: Godfather of the Tudor Dynasty by Debra Bayani and Jasper: The Tudor Kingmaker by Sara Elin Roberts. I would also recommend Arlene Okerlund’s Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen, though I’m still on the lookout for a better biography about Elizabeth Woodville.

Other books I’ve been reading that are not Tudor-related but that I’ve used in my personal research:

Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages by P. H Callum and Katherine J. Lewis Gender and Holiness Men, Women, and Saints in Late Medieval Europe by Samantha Riches and Sarah Salih Brothers and Sisters in Medieval European Literature by Carolyne Larrington Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe by Richard W. Kaeuper Love, Sex and Marriage in the Middle Ages: A Sourcebook by McCarthy Conor Love, Marriage and Family Ties in the Later Middle Ages by Sarah Rees Jones Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference held at Kings College London, April 1995 by Anne J. Duggan Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others and Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages by Ruth Mazo Karras Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, 1270-1540 by Kim M. Philips Young Medieval Women by Katherine J. Lewis, Noël James Menuge, Kim M. Phillips Heraldry, Pageantry, and Social Display in Medieval England by Peter Coss and Maurice Keen Reputation and Representation in Fifteenth Century Europe by Douglas L. Biggs, Sharon D. Michalove, Albert Compton Reeves The Monstrous Regiment of Women Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe by Sharon L. Jansen The Livery Collar in Late Medieval England and Wales: Politics, Identity and Affinity by Matthew Ward    

Already in my possession and to be read at some point: Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the Middle Ages by Erin L. Jordan  Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women by Caroline Walker Bynum How To Be a Tudor A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life by Ruth Goodman (I’ve already read some excerpts)

I hope this selection is helpful to you 🌹x

[visionsofelizabeth]

✖ ▒ OH, WHAT A COINCIDENCE! i was just thinking of [ ELIZABETH OF YORK ]. most swear their resemblance to [ KEIRA KNIGHTLEY ] is unmistakable, but she has been around since the [ LATE MIDDLE AGES ]. it is rumoured that the [ CIS FEMALE ] was born in [ LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM ] in the year [ 1466 ], even though they don’t look a day over [ THIRTY ]. what a shame, though: they were once famed for being [ AMBITIOUS ] and [ STEADFAST ] ; yet now, they seem more and more [ STUBBORN ] and [ INTERFERING ]. but while [ ELIZABETH ] spends their days working as [ A POLITICAL AIDE ], they are already notorious around town for [ CRAFTING PRECISELY THE RIGHT WORDS AND FITTING THEM INTO SOMEONE ELSE’S MOUTH; METICULOUS & BEAUTIFUL PENMANSHIP; “ANCESTRAL” HALLS SHORTER-LIVED THAN YOU; THE CENTURIES’ OLD GLEAM OF A CROWN; A WAY TO WIN ON EITHER SIDE OF THE BATTLE ]. when you live forever, you might as well make the most of it. ( shannon. 20. bst/gmt+1. she/her. )

MUN STUFF:

hello hi there, friends! i’m shannon, i really hate ( most of ) philippa gregory, and this is the historical love of my life, elizabeth of york. i hope i make you all love her as much as i absolutely adore her. if you’re invested in the experience, i recommend listening to ‘the tower’ by ludovico einaudi while reading about her because it really helped me get my feelings about her down onto paper.

BASICS:

FULL NAME: her majesty queen elizabeth of england.

MONIKER / NICKNAME: lizzie; the white rose of york ( nicknames. )

TITLES: queen consort of england ( 1486-1503 ), princess ( 1466-1483 officially; regarded a princess by some after this date until her coronation as queen consort in 1486. )

GENDER && PRONOUNS: cis female && she/her.

DOB && AGE: eleventh of february, fourteen sixty-six ( age five hundred and fifty-four; immortally thirty. )

PLACE OF BIRTH: westminster palace, london, england.

ZODIAC SIGN: aquarius.

ETHNICITY: white.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: biromantic

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE:

FACE CLAIM: keira knightley.

HEIGHT: 5 ft 7 in (170cm)

PHYSICAL BUILD: slim, rectangular.

EYE COLOUR AND SHAPE: brown; deep-set.

HAIR COLOUR AND STYLE: brown; varies.

USUAL EXPRESSION: neutral.

ACCENT AND SPEECH STYLE: received pronunciation; measured speed.

DISTINGUISHING MARKS / CHARACTERISTICS: pierced ears & an outline of the rennes cathedral tattooed on her wrist that she got done ten years ago.

CLOTHING STYLE: varies heavily; in her job, she likes suits now.

JEWELLERY AND ACCESSORIES: she still wears her wedding ring from the 1480s, and possesses earrings in the likeness of the tudor rose, though she can so rarely wear the latter.

FAMILY:

FATHER: edward iv of england

MOTHER: elizabeth woodville

SIBLINGS, IF ANY: nine full, two half.

EXTENDED RELATIONS: cecily neville (grandmother) && richard iii of england (uncle.)

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S): henry vii of england (husband, 1486—, legally ended upon her “death” in 1503). there has and will be no one else.

CHILDREN: seven or eight, including henry viii of england.

HOUSEHOLD PET(S): none; they die too soon. she used to keep greyhounds in her heyday.

FAVOURITES:

COLOUR: red && white; the colours of lancaster and york.

WEATHER: when it is overcast but comfortably so, and rain is on the horizon so the air is refreshing when it caresses your face. quintessentially english.

FOOD ITEM: the christmas roast. it reminds her of raucous and happy times with her family.

BEVERAGE: burgundian wine.

TIME OF DAY: just before dawn, when everything is peaceful & the world could just seem... perfectly endless, and yet, so small.

TELEVISION GENRE: drama. political & nordic noir. think borgen & the killing.

FAVOURITE ERA LIVED: 1486-1503; the years of her marriage.

PERSONALITY:

HOBBIES: gambling & music & reading & dancing & writing & watching theatre.

PET PEEVES: people who chew loudly. tardiness.

ALLERGIES: none known.

MBTI TYPE: estj-a.

ENNEAGRAM TYPE: type one, with a two wing: “the advocate.”

SLEEPING HABITS: restless. not as regular as they should be.

OLDEST BELONGING: her wedding ring from the 1480s.

HOME: chester square, belgravia.

DAUGHTER, SISTER, NIECE AND WIFE

No one else will ever be all four to kings ( Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, Henry VII ) but that distinction — much like your life — is marred by instability, grief and strife. 

Your father became sick: whisperings of poison persist, and you must admit you are not sure of the truth. Your brother disappeared to the Tower: whisperings of murder exist, and you must admit you are not sure of the truth. But you are sure that your uncle met his end upon Bosworth field, and on the matter of your husband you are sure that you love him. 

At first you were not sure, at first it was not easy, but such is love.

Sweet Elizabeth, daughter of scandal: the fairest of her father’s children by his second marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. They call her ‘common,’ though she is beautiful; they are not audacious enough to call you half-common, because it is only descendancy from the God-chosen King that matters to them. 

There would be more daughters before Elizabeth Woodville gave unto her husband sons, and by then they are talking.

THINGS I PROBABLY DON’T NEED TO WRITE CREATIVELY BUT YOU DO NEED TO KNOW, A SAGA:

Elizabeth of York was the first-born daughter of Edward IV and his wife Elizabeth Woodville; she was widely believed to be the fairest of his children. She had two older half-siblings from her mother’s first marriage, and would have nine full-blooded siblings: Mary, Cecily, Edward (V), Margaret, Richard, Anne, George, Catherine, and Bridget. Bold denotes the two ‘Princes in the Tower’ and italics denotes siblings who died in infancy.

In childhood, she was betrothed to the future King Charles VIII of France, but the French failed to keep to their end of the agreement & it was called off. Previously, she had been betrothed to a noble’s son, but this too was repudiated after the father rebelled against Edward.

The former King Henry VI was briefly returned to the throne when Elizabeth was but four years old. Elizabeth, her siblings, and their pregnant mother lived under religious protection until Edward was restored in 1471.

In 1483, Edward IV died, and the unexpected nature of this death & the age of her brother — also named Edward — combined by the ambition for power held by her uncle the Lord Protector ( Richard, Duke of Gloucester ) threw the succession into doubt. Once again, they were forced into sancturary.

Ultimately, both Edward V and the younger Richard disappeared shortly after her uncle took the throne as Richard III, known as the Princes in the Tower, with much credence lent to the theory that they were murdered; the Titulus Regius, in declaring the late King’s controversial — as Elizabeth Woodville was a ‘common’ widower and the marriage secret — marriage invalid, bastardised their children and robbed Elizabeth of York and her siblings of status & rights to succession.

When whispers began of an effort against Richard for the throne, the strongest claim was undoubtedly Elizabeth of York’s own. But there had been no queen that ruled in her own right, and would not for some years, and so Elizabeth Woodville arranged for her to marry the Lancastrian claimant Henry Tudor, who traced his line through a legitimised bastard line. 

It was illegal for a Beaufort to take the throne, but it was agreed that they would support his efforts, perhaps due to Elizabeth’s vitriol toward Richard for the disappearance of her son. Henry vowed to marry Elizabeth in 1483.

Henry Tudor won the battle of Bosworth Field and was crowned Henry VII: he married Elizabeth in January 1486, their first child, Arthur, being born that autumn. 

The marriage initially was politics-born, but they came to love one another deeply, and there is no evidence of the king having kept a mistress. 

FROM DEATH TO “DEATH”

18 March, 1496

The eighteenth of March, fourteen ninety-six, is immortalised in your mind as the day that you died. You were thirty that day — giving birth to your fifth child, Mary — and you are thirty now, utterly untouched by the centuries. 

The death must have lasted mere moments; no one beyond your attentive husband noticed, and it was some time beyond then that the both of you began to believe it. 

It was the tallest of the tales your mother told you in her confinement at Bermondsey before her death four years ago. But when they told you she was dead ( perhaps of plague, demanding a rushed & private ceremony ) it would take a fool not to wonder whether the machinations of Elizabeth Woodville, the queen dowager, would continue from beyond the ‘grave.’

( The Reaper himself surely could not stop so ambitious a woman: and were it not for the king’s mother, perhaps you could have been more like her. You wonder whether you would want to be. )

Time passed, and yet none upon your face. Henry holds you close in anxious murmurings of what they will do to you if you are discovered; whisperings between kisses of witch-burnings. 

You know, though you wish that he was not, that he is right to be afraid.

4 April, 1502

For all the world and time, no worse news could be imagined; the existence of those without faith is one without pity or mercy & you have always tried to keep your love of God intact, but it is oh-so-difficult when the world itself is so malignant as to take your little prince away. 

Why is it, then, that you must live and yet bury your son? Why must his wife live on and yet he must die? You are not a spiteful woman. But even you, in this all-consuming grief, must be allowed your bitterness.

You remind your husband of the grace of God: it does not help you believe it. 

You remind your that you have a son and two daughters, and that Arthur is with God, and it does not help you believe it. 

You remind your husband that you are both young and have time enough yet.

It does not help you believe it.

As soon as you are gone from him, having remained strong for Henry’s sake alone, you buckle, and you wail, and you scream in defiance; it is hopeless, of course, for you to have insisted on sparing him your grief. When you need him, he will always come, until he can no longer.

10th February, 1503

Your newborn daughter Katherine stopped breathing, and something trapped the scream in your throat like a reassurance: some hand over your mouth whispering wait, until the baby girl wailed and began to move again. 

She is too young to have the burden of forever on those tiny shoulders, you think, but did any of you ever get a choice in whether or not you wanted to be Time’s Atlas? You say nothing of the occurrence to anyone bar your dearest beloved, who you trust with an implicitness thought impossible the day you married him. 

How could one of the white rose trust one of the red? 

Your blood still mars the bedsheets, too much of it, dark & damning; they thought the sanguine waterfall would never stem, skin growing paler and paler, until you were a paper ghost. Of course, you knew that you would not die. The doctors didn’t: they call you a miracle. The bells are rung for joy, but when they are gone, there is rue upon your husband’s face. Not long ago, they began to comment upon your unchanging visage, like an ever-fresh flower, and you both knew.

“It won’t be long before—” You press your finger gently to his lips, and he moves it away. “It’s time.”

“I know.”

11th February, 1503

The tower is just barely lit by the sun; you have been here many times before — a highlight of the fact the world still thinks the reality of childbirth, the suffering that comes with a miracle, to be a matter of shame — and he has always hated the separation from you, but this time, in the eyes of the nation ( he will deceive even his mother ) you will not leave it alive. 

Cast your gaze back over your shoulder, and ask the most natural question of the immortal race: how did you get here? 

To this liminal space, this balancing-act, between the past ( for this home of yours will be your past, your life with him will be your past, but your love for him will be your present, your tomorrow, and your always ) and forever? Can you process the endlessness of it — of forever — my love, where so many empires, overestimating their longevity, have failed; can you understand, darling, that you will watch the crumbling demise of so many more without him? 

( When you see his vision misted over with tears, is your husband still the most beautiful, lovable thing you have ever beheld? He is. He is, and no matter how the centuries pass — no matter how many kings, queens and vagabonds you lay eyes upon — he always will be; they will brand him a penny-pincher and a miser as loss haunts him, but you will remember him like this, in the most pain he has and will ever be in, but selfless anyway, because here’s the kicker they all forget: he loves you. )

“My Lizzie,” he murmurs to you, kisses the backs of your fingers, and it is a vow. Even in the depths of his pre-emptive sorrow, he looks up. His mother always says he was God-chosen to be king, but it has always been you who puts him on his knees. “Happy Birthday.”

You promise yourself then — ruminating on the fact you have never had an unhappier birthday than this — that you will never forget it.

LIFE AFTER “DEATH” ( POST-1503 )

As is hinted, Henry knew of Elizabeth’s immortality & assisted her in faking her “death.”

Elizabeth has had a long time to live. 

The sole large expense never recorded in the royal books by Henry was to send her away and give her a life of means: the most painful act her husband ever undertook, but which he did because he loved her so dearly. Henry never remarried: though he spoke of it ( had to, because his wife was ostensibly dead ) he staved it off with the instructions he gave to those searching for a second wife. 

Hint: they perfectly described Elizabeth.

For some time, the parted couple sent letters, before they deemed even that a risk to their wellbeing.

Elizabeth was once a pious woman. She is not, anymore: an eternity of time and of watching all die around her will rob any woman of her faith. She was renowned for gentleness and generosity, and that is not entirely lost upon her, but the same grief that forged the Winter King from Henry has touched her, too. 

She is more cynical, more bitter, but she is still trying. It was necessary for her to change: even at first, knowing she had forever to live, she had to force herself to accept the life Henry gave her & not bequeath her money to others who needed it more, as suddenly she needed it to maintain her own life throughout the centuries.

Throughout her life, though, this attitude has meant she has built up enough money to both give comfortably and be comfortable. For example, now, she is both heavily charitable but lives in Belgravia.

Many lives have passed: in just one, for example, she has been a teacher, just as she was to her son Henry. She has settled in this life on a political aide, so she can more obviously move the world. 

The years have made her more ambitious.

She just hopes she will find hope — and her husband, because she knows that if he were dead he would feel it in her heart — before she indelibly becomes the Winter Queen.

TRIVIA ( some things I love & a note on some I have elected to ignore )

Obligatory note that I would sell my soul for someone to play James McAvoy as Henry VII.

Among other things, the Queen from “Sing A Song Of Sixpence” is reportedly Elizabeth of York, and Henry is the King counting his money. 

However, Henry’s penny-pinching nature only blossomed after Elizabeth’s death ( or in this case ‘death’ ) and prior to that death he was very liberal in spending money upon his wife and family. 

Elizabeth may also have inspired the Queen of Hearts on modern-day playing cards.

She was particularly tall for Tudor women — perhaps inherited from her father — as most were much shorter than five-foot six or seven. 

History believes Elizabeth had little political influence, but that perhaps is not so true as they believe. 

It is true that Margaret Beaufort exercised a grand deal of influence and was loudly opinionated, but Elizabeth was able to influence matters through gentle whispers in her husband’s ear, and through love. She did not live for the applause: never had done. Elizabeth was known to be heavily charitable. So why would she make fanfare of her achievements in her husband’s court?

I know Henry VIII isn’t allowed, but Elizabeth would bitch slap him. She would. It has to be said.

[chaotic-archaeologist]

What can you tell us about Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury? Especially archaeologically (I may be mis-remembering that their bodies went missing?)

THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER, buckle the hell up

*quick disclaimer: Richard III is my guy, and I don’t think that he killed them. If that’s your thing then we can agree to disagree, but this post isn’t going to be for you.* that being said...

Edward V and his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury were sort of the last generation of the Wars of the Roses. They were just boys when their father died, leaving Edward as the heir to the throne. (check out my post on their dudebro dad here)

A lot of complicated politics lead to the boys being put into the care of their uncle, Richard of Gloucester (soon to be Richard III). The brothers are occasionally glimpsed by the public, until, one day... they aren’t. Both brothers are never seen or heard from again, and now their uncle is king. Uh, oh, it smells like foul play.

Their deaths caused a huge uproar and played a big part in Henry VII’s successful rebellion to take the crown for the Tudors. If you want a book that I personally found to be very compelling on both who did and didn’t kill the princes in the tower and why, check out The Maligned King.

So what do we know? The bodies of the princes have never been found, despite a lot of looking. At this point if we did find them, the remains would be fairly easy to identify with genetic markers like mitochondrial DNA. But we haven’t found them, and I don’t think we ever will.

Listen... if I murdered two princes as part of a play for power, I certainly wouldn’t just leave their bodies laying around where people (even several centuries later) might find them. The bones of those two boys are most likely resting at the bottom of some lake or river (or scattered around in several different places), well hidden. 

That being said, if we did find their bodies, it would be really interesting to be able to investigate their cause of death. How/if they were murdered could tell us a lot about the intent and mindset of their killer. It’s also possible that their death was one of the most devastating accidents in York reign-- maybe they both caught some fever and couldn’t be saved. Without the bodies, we’ll never know.

-Reid

[my-world-travel]

Leicester, England

The reason I was in Leeds for 5 hours was because I went to Leicester over reading week. I have a friend, Thyme @voldemortcalmlypooping who lived there, and wanted to try out the coach system and also do an overnight trip in a very controlled manner (aka by sleeping on their sofa for free).

Coincidentally, Leicester also has a number of interesting historical features.

The big one, of course, is Richard III. A brief precis: Back in 1485, what began as a familial power struggle got egregiously out of hand and an army led by Henry Tudor killed Richard of York, King of England. Richard’s body was identified on the field, but due to the very rapid propaganda team of Henry Tudor (now Henry VII), his burial was quiet. By the modern era, while records indicated he had been buried at Greyfriars Church in Leicester, it wasn’t at all clear a) where the church was and b) whether he was still there. Since missing royal tombs aren’t exactly common, the topic was a popular puzzle for archaeologists until 2012. In that year, excavations in a city centre car park–explicitly looking for him, but not daring to hope quite so high and so officially looking for the church–found first the church and then a skeleton from the right era with scoliosis. DNA testing found that a woman known to be descended from Richard’s sister shared mitochondrial DNA with the skeleton and the announcement was made.

This promptly raised the question of burial. Most English monarchs are in Winchester Cathedral (the very old ones), Westminster Abbey (the famous ones), or Windsor Castle (the new ones). But Richard has a long history of being maligned, Westminster is rather full, and Leicester didn’t want to give him up–besides, he had been properly buried there, just the original church was destroyed. So he was reburied in 2015 in Leicester Cathedral, across the road from the original location.

Photo 1: I have my problems with the new tomb. It’s very modern: Very sleek and elegant and not an obnoxious giant white boar to be seen. Compare the absolutely hideous and stunning double tomb for his replacement, Henry VII and his niece, Elizabeth of York. Amazing. Very Renaissance, unlike this thing.

From there, we went across the street to the new and very shiny museum on Richard, where I tried again to figure out the Wars of the Roses (I can’t), and then we looked at the site. Photo 2 shows the original ground floor of the church, while photo 3 is the hole from which they removed his casket. Very cool stuff.

And then there was a reenactor in the museum and he helped me try on some armor. It’s heavy, would probably eventually be exhausting, but not cumbersome–even though the set wasn’t remotely fitted to me. The helmet was very annoying though. (Photo 4)

We popped into the guildhall, built in 1586, because Europe is old as shit–and this is not the oldest building in Leicester! Leicester is a decently old town (you can tell because the -cester refers to it having been a Roman fort) and it is far outclassed by, say, most things in Orkney. The point is, I still like seeing shit from 1586.

The last photo is actually from the cathedral again. It reads:

Here lyeth buried the bodie of John Bericke of this parrish, who departed this life the 2 of Aprill 1589 being about the age of 76. he did marry Marie the daughter of John Bond of Warend in the countie of Warwicke esquire[?], who lived with the said Marie in one house full, 52 yeares. and in all that tyme, though they were sometimes 20 in house hold, he had yssue by the said Marie. 5 soans and 7 daughters. [Sons] Robert, Nicholas, Thomas, John, and William. Daughters Ursula, Agnes, Marie, Elizabeth, Ellin, Christian, et [and] Alice. The said John was maior of this [town?] in Anno 1559 et [and] againe in 1572. the said Marie departed this life the 8 of December 1611 being of the age of 97 yeares. shee did [???] before her departure of her children et [and] childrens children et [and] their children to the number of 142.

I find it an interesting reflection of modern culture that we give so much money and time to a man whose major import was in his ancestors–and who left so very little behind. Whereas a man and woman who left 142 descendants and may have any descendants alive today are completely unknown.

[chillyravenart]

What do you think about Henry Tudor (the 7th, the other one is shite)?

That upstart! Team Richard III Plantagenet all the way!!!😭😭😭

Not denying Henry VII was a capable king who brought a degree of stability and prosperity to England after the Wars of the Roses. (So had Richard ahem). He certainly left a better legacy than his eponymous son did, but the Tudors are definitely not my favourite monarchical dynasty... Elizabeth I was admirable though.

HOWEVER. I will not stand for the maligning and defamatory propaganda the Tudor regime spread about Richard III. Not having it I tell you!

[jezabelofthenorth]

because it is the burden i must bear running this blog and i am certyfied pregs Hater (it’s in my bio) i’ll go through this spanish princess interview so you don’t have to

“She really causes gigantic ripples in this old-fashioned, rather fusty male Tudor world,” Frost explains. “As history goes on to tell us, her daughter Mary [with Henry VIII] becomes the first queen in her own right, Mary I.”

right out of the gate with That Bullshit lmao, let’s get this out of the way, just because isabella was queen regnant of castile did not put spain as a lead in women’s rights in the 16th century, the court of the catholic monarchs was noted for being strict and uptight morally, not shocking these are the self proclaimed catholic monarchs, while england and france were notably more loose with the rules, spanish ambassadors at the time talked about this, about the status of english women and the freedom they had over women on the continent, england after all did not have salic law

  “This woman exists as a footnote in history but no one has ever bothered to dramatise her or acknowledge she was there. What we know is Lina married another African in London, Oviedo, and it was very unusual in this period for people of colour to marry each other. So this is a really extraordinary story of these two African people in early Tudor England marrying each other and being very much part of the world of the court. So there is a whole new massive piece of this story that is reappropriating history for people of colour as well as for women by telling this story of these two people who really did exist.”

oooh boy, okay, uh, i know i’m not the only one worried as hell over two white british showrunners trying their hand at racial politics in the 16th century, considering spain was a literal slaver country at this point of history, again if they use this to try to push ‘progressive spain’ over ‘uptight racist england’ B A D, we know that many african people enslaved by spain sought refuge in england during the 16th century where slavery was outlawed, again this is not saying that england was progressive, this was somewhat a tactic to use against spain rather than the average english person really caring out the morality of slavery, but still it is true

Frost argues Catherine is much maligned by history, overshadowed by Henry VIII’s later wives, particularly those who lost their heads in the process. “She’s characterised as this unwanted old bag, but it’s a phenomenal story that’s very pertinent to the 21st century,” she adds.

Catherine’s arrival from Spain is used to great visual effect in the series, contrasting the bright sunshine and rich colours of her homeland against the dark, gloominess of England – a place of shadows and people whispering in corridors.

i mean yes, i’m looking forward to starting catherine’s story earlier than usual too, but saying she’s maligned? lmao that a bit much, england was hardly a ‘gloomy’ place in the late 15th early 16th century, it was the beginning of the english renaissance, henry vii was a wealthy king and had all intentions of proving that to any visitors

okay, so basically this is just the same one note, ignoring of the whole picture nonsense from both twq and twp, except with even more room to be offensive with this idea of being ‘progressive’ by including black characters (again as far as i’m aware not black writers on the show? tell me if i’m wrong but)

[feuillesmortes]

Terry Breverton, Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King

[edwardiionlyfans]

The new Earl of Richmond was born on 28 January 1457, two months after his father’s death. The birth was extremely difficult for Margaret, small-framed at thirteen, and it looked as if both mother and child would die.

- Henry VII the Maligned Tudor King

[charlottehopesource]

Showrunners Emma Frost and Matthew Graham explore the early life of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, in historical drama The Spanish Princess. They reveal how the future queen caused a stir in Tudor England and the drama’s parallels with Breaking Bad.

Hot on the heels of The White Queen and The White Princess, US premium cable network Starz is continuing its dynastic saga of Tudor England with eight-part drama The Spanish Princess.

Like both of its predecessors, this new series recalls history from the perspective of its female characters and is based on historical novels by author Philippa Gregory, this time The Constant Princess and The King’s Curse. But while the story ostensibly focuses on Catherine of Aragon’s arrival from Spain with dreams of becoming queen – an ambition she achieved by marrying the future Henry VIII – it stands apart from previous instalments through its perspective of an outsider causing a stir in the Royal Court, themes of immigration and its focus on people of colour living in 16th century London.

Under the leadership of co-showrunners Emma Frost and Matthew Graham, the series will reveal how Catherine left a Spain ruled by her fearsome mother, Isabella of Castile, and came to England, where she experienced a huge culture shock in a land that was comparatively old fashioned and male dominated.

“She really causes gigantic ripples in this old-fashioned, rather fusty male Tudor world,” Frost explains. “As history goes on to tell us, her daughter Mary [with Henry VIII] becomes the first queen in her own right, Mary I.”

But there’s another reason that Frost and Graham believe The Spanish Princess promises to be the most exciting chapter yet. Beginning their research during production of The White Princess, they were keen to understand the place of people of colour in 16th century London. Historical advisers suggested diverse characters would have been an anachronism for the period, which Frost admits “really pissed me off,” as she already knew that wasn’t true.

“What we discovered without breaking too much of a sweat is that Catherine of Aragon came to England with an incredibly diverse entourage of people, notably including an African Iberian lady-in-waiting called Catalina de Cardones, who we call Lina in the show,” reveals Frost, who was also the showrunner of The White Queen and The White Princess.

“This woman exists as a footnote in history but no one has ever bothered to dramatise her or acknowledge she was there. What we know is Lina married another African in London, Oviedo, and it was very unusual in this period for people of colour to marry each other. So this is a really extraordinary story of these two African people in early Tudor England marrying each other and being very much part of the world of the court. So there is a whole new massive piece of this story that is reappropriating history for people of colour as well as for women by telling this story of these two people who really did exist.”

Graham says The Spanish Princess also looks at issues of class and social mobility in a way the previous versions weren’t able to. “The White Queen and The White Princess were both very much about the Yorks and Lancasters and all of it was at that level. Now we can tell stories that take place in the taverns, the streets and the way their love story unfolds,” he says. “The other thing you get a chance to do is tell what could not be a more pertinent story about immigration. There was cultural wariness of people who came from a different country. Frankly, though, in Tudor London you were wary of people who came from Wales. It wasn’t the colour of the skin that was the issue, so that’s quite nice – here we are with two black people in the middle of Tudor England and we don’t tell a story about racism.”

Like The White Queen and The White Princess, every scene in The Spanish Princess is from one of the leading female characters’ points of view, with Catherine and Lina joined as the main protagonists by another Iberian lady-in-waiting, Rosa, and Maggie Pole, who also featured in The White Princess. Meanwhile, Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, is still very much a key player and antagonist-in-chief, Frost says. “There are various very strong conflicting female points of view that interweave or fall in behind Catherine. She’s the main character but we always have these other incredible strong women in the show.”

Frost argues Catherine is much maligned by history, overshadowed by Henry VIII’s later wives, particularly those who lost their heads in the process. “She’s characterised as this unwanted old bag, but it’s a phenomenal story that’s very pertinent to the 21st century,” she adds.

Catherine’s arrival from Spain is used to great visual effect in the series, contrasting the bright sunshine and rich colours of her homeland against the dark, gloominess of England – a place of shadows and people whispering in corridors.

“She’s a breath of fresh air but she’s also not to be trusted. She brings her own culture,” Graham says of Catherine. Frost notes that the character’s arrival in the country allows the show to observe Tudor England from an outsider’s perspective, something not possible in the previous iterations.

“That’s a really exciting point of view shift because now the Tudor world is the ‘other’ to the world of our heroine,” she says. “That allows for all sorts of other conflicts. There’s also an incredibly exciting theme running through the show about faith, because the Inquisition is beginning in Spain under Isabella, Catherine’s mother, and several of her entourage are Muslim, so they have to deal with their feelings about what’s happening in Spain and what Catherine’s real allegiances are. There is a world where the Catholic faith is no longer the only gig in town for a lot of characters who have always peopled the show. So we’re able to explore lots of thorny issues around conflicting ideas about faith, God, forgiveness and redemption.”

Leading the drama as Catherine is Charlotte Hope (pictured top), who was cast following an international search across Europe and North America. Frost and Graham were looking for someone who could embody the strength and vulnerability of the princess. That Hope (Game of Thrones) looks eerily like Catherine was a bonus.

“Charlotte just looks like her,” says Frost. “She has this strength, this fragility, and she’s just grown into the role. It was very hard casting a lead because there are so many factors to consider, but she is the most talented, hard-working, wonderful actress. We just love her.”

Rory O’Connor plays Henry, with Stephanie Levi-John as Lina de Cardonnes, Aaron Cobham as Oviedo, Nadia Parks as Rosa, Harriet Walter as Margaret Beaufort and Laura Carmichael (Downton Abbey) as Maggie Pole.

Graham was watching from the sidelines while his real-life partner Frost ran The White Princess, living and breathing Tudor England through her work. So when she suggested they do the next one together, he jumped at the opportunity to work alongside her and share the endless responsibilities of a showrunner – a role they had both previously performed separately. They say every TV show they both work on in future, they will do together.

Frost also welcomed the introduction of a male viewpoint behind the scenes. “Even though the show is told from the point of view of women, the male characters really matter, and trying to write a young Henry VIII – a complex, mercurial, intelligent, likeable, flawed and dangerous man – it’s been fantastic to have Matthew’s voice coming into that as well.

“Every single TV show we are working on now we do together, so we’re showrunning everything we do in TV. We break the stories together, we write the pilot together and then, moving forward, we write episodes separately and give each other notes. Then Matthew’s brilliant at all the bits in production that I’m hopeless at.”

Behind the camera, Birgitte Stærmose (Norskov) directs the first two episodes and Maya Zamodia is the DOP. Graham also got to try his hand at directing, picking up some battle sequences and palace-set scenes in Spain. Production designer Will Hughes-Jones (The Alienist) and costume designer Phoebe de Gaye (Killing Eve) return from The White Princess. Composer Samuel Sim is adding the music to the production, which Graham says won’t feel like “your grandmother’s period drama.”

“It’s got to have a buoyancy and momentum to it that feels fresh and cinematic and youthful,” he adds. “That’s one of the big things in production we’ve gone for.”

Frost picks up: “It’s a tremendously ambitious show. For the budget, what we’ve achieved is extraordinary. We’ve all had to be really inventive about how we cut our cloth and how we make the show.”

Distributed internationally by Lionsgate, the series is produced by New Pictures and Playground and is due to debut early next year. Frost and Graham, however, are already working on a second season of The Spanish Princess, which will continue the story of Catherine of Aragon – one Frost likens to Walter White’s journey from idealism into darkness in Breaking Bad.

“This doesn’t have the same darkness but it does arguably have more tragedy. Ultimately, it’s the story about the lie,” she adds, referring to Catherine’s claim that her marriage to Prince Arthur was not consummated before his death, thus leaving her free to wed Henry and become queen.

“Our whole exploration really is an exploration of that decision she makes and whether she’s lying or telling the truth and the consequences of those actions. It’s a really strong female story of a woman trying to define her place in the world. It’s very familiar [to modern audiences] in that regard.”

[minervacasterly]

Henry VII of England and Lord of Ireland: The First Tudor Monarch  

On the thirtieth of October 1485, over two months after the Battle of Bosworth, Henry Tudor, former Earl of Richmond, was crowned King of England and Lord of Ireland. This was the day that the Tudor Dynasty officially began. It was a momentous occassion. Not just for him, but for his mother who had fought earth and heaven (first) for his survival, (then) his inheritance and (finally) his ascension to the monarchy.

In spite of the efforts on the part of revisionist history to bring much needed fairness to maligned kings and queens, Henry VII, his mother and the rest of the Lancastrians continue to be seen - and portrayed - in a negative light as opposed to the angelic Yorks who brought stability and fairness to a war-torn realm.Henry's personal accounts, as well as the personal accounts of his mother prior to his coronation, show a different picture from pop culture's caricature of them.

Henry VII wasn't perfect by any means. Like his Plantagenet predecessors, he was briefly taken by dreams of grandeur when he sought glory in France but he had the good common sense to refrain himself from that when he realized that it'd do England no good. Furthermore, he rewarded many of his Welsh supporters and remained eternally grateful to his uncle, Jasper Tudor, whom he immediately elevated to Duke of Bedford. It was due to Jasper that he got a lot of Welsh support.As for his relationship with his children, not much is said but much can be surmised by his devotion to his wife and his correspondence to his eldest daughter Margaret. In a letter to her father, Margaret told him how much she missed him and wished he was close so she wouldn't feel homesick. Margaret at the time was in Scotland. Scotland and England had been long time enemies. The first years of Henry's reign, Scotland had been the cause of many headaches for the first Tudor king. For one, Scotland had sided with Henry's enemies, namely Margaret of York, Duchess Dowager of Burgundy and her puppet pretender, Perkin Warbeck. Perkin Warbeck pretended to be the youngest of the two lost princes in the tower, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. To counter this menace, Henry VII elevated his second son, Prince Henry to Duke of York.To demonstrate how committed Scotland was to the Yorkist cause, James VI, King of Scots offered one Scottish noblewoman to the pretender as his wife. To presume that Henry was furious, is an understatement. And nevertheless, his desire to keep the country from being torn apart by endless wars and rebellions was greater than his fury.After Perkin Warbeck was hung, Henry VII sought a peace between both kingdoms. 

This was the first time in a long time that England and Scotland enjoyed a truce. As an olive branch, Henry VII got James IV to agree to establish courts where half of the jury would be Scots and the other English to judge raiders and bandits who were caught on either side of the border. This alliance was further strengthened with the union of Henry's eldest daughter to James IV. The administrative reforms started by his wife's late father, the first Yorkist King, Edward IV, were carried out by Henry VII. 

On the day of his coronation, his uncle and stepfather played a prominent role. Jasper Tudor had the honor of holding the crown while his stepfather carried the sword of state.Ironically, before Henry became King of England, when he was just a child, the bards sang songs in honor of his late father (Edmund Tudor) and predicted that great things awaited his son. When he landed on Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the bards sang louder, praising now his uncle as well, saying “Jasper will breed us a dragon” claiming that Henry was the chosen one, the prince that was promised, of an ancient Welsh prophecy. Never forgetting who was responsible for his rise, he rewarded many of his Welsh supporters with lands, titles and offices.

As for his personal style, Henry VII showed a strong favoritism for Burgundian dress and architecture. This came from spending nearly half of his teenage and young adult years in the court of Brittany where such a style was favored, along with some aspects of French government.

“In Brittany he had enjoyed gambling, music, dancing, poetry and literature. He was quick to smile, with an exceptionally expressive face, but his years of vulnerability had made him a man anxious to be in control of every detail of his environment. For his physical protection Henry had replaced the personal service of the nobility traditionally offered an English king with a security guard in the French model: huge yeomen, dressed in livery embroidered with red roses.” ~ Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England’s Most Notorious Royal Family

This personal anxiety became more pronounced after the deaths of his firstborn Arthur and his wife Elizabeth of York. Both less than a year from each other. Henry VII still appeared dressed in his finest robes at public functions and meetings of state, but his public image and his private one suddenly merged into one where he adopted a strict stoicism that was seen as heartless, and synonymous with his unrelenting taxation and over-protectiveness of his remaining heir.

Henry VII died on the 21st of April 1509, after nearly twenty-four years of government. He was buried at the Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey next to his wife, Elizabeth of York. Though the Tudor Dynasty name died out with his granddaughter, Elizabeth I; his bloodline continued through his eldest daughter's descendant James VI of Scotland who became King of England and Ireland after Queen Elizabeth I's death on the 24th of March 1603.

[richmond-rex]

Have you read "Tudor" by Leanda De Lisle? Is it worth a read? Why/why not? What are your thoughts on it? Thanks and Merry Xmas.

🌹 Hello! I have read it! Now, as I give you my personal opinion, I’m speaking more about the section she dedicates to Henry VII (if you want to know more about the sections she dedicates to other Tudor monarchs, I recommend you to ask elsewhere as they’re not my area of expertise)—but generally, as I rule of thumb I don’t really recommend any book that was written before 2014. That was the year when the bones of Richard III were discovered in that car park in Leicester, and before their discovery, everyone just assumed King Richard had been unfairly maligned by Tudor propaganda. The ‘hunchback’ thing was fairly big in people’s minds and when it came about that he really suffered from severe scoliosis, people started reassessing what they thought were simply slanders against his character. 

De Lisle’s Tudor: The Family Story suffers from it. It was published in 2013 and by reading the Henry VII section you have to endure her calling Richard III ‘the true king’ — I mean, the man was king, but so were many before him and many after him, so what makes him the ‘true king’ especially considering he had usurped the crown just like Henry IV, Edward IV and Henry VII, for example? To give you an idea, in my edition you have Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I in the cover and... Richard III. Not Henry VII, mind you, not the one who actually started the dynasty but a Plantagenet king who usurped the crown of his nephews. Okay. One thing that de Lisle gets better than other authors, though, is Henry VII’s religious devotions, but overall, I didn’t really enjoy that book.

Maybe it’s a good ‘overall’ book to look at the dynasty as a whole? Maybe, but I’m not really knowledgeable on the other Tudor monarchs to say if her assessment of them is really fair. I hope my answer is helpful to you, though (as lame as it is)! I hope you’re having a merry Christmas too! 🌹x    

[ofgraveconcern]

16th September 1400, Welsh leader and resistance fighter Owain Glyndŵr is declared Prince of Wales by his followers, the last native Welshman to hold the title. The declaration leads to a war of independence against English King Henry IV, and English rule in Wales. Despite its initial successes, the rebellion ultimately is suppressed, but the legend of Glyndŵr is imprinted into the popular imagination. By 1409 the Welsh had lost all the territory gained during the rebellion, and Glyndŵr was last seen in 1412, despite pardons and a reward for his capture from Henry V. He is said to have died in 1415, although by this point he had become a folk hero with his return prophesied among those still willing to fight for him. At this point in history his mythical status endures him to a similar role to King Arthur. This is shown in Shakespeare’s depiction of Glyndŵr in his play Henry IV, where the Welsh Folk Hero is surrounded by magic and wild emotions, calling “spirits from the vasty deep". 20th September 1486, birth of English crown prince, and eldest son of Tudor King Henry VII, and Elizabeth of York, Arthur, Prince of Wales. Despite being propelled as the heir that would heal the country after the War of the Roses, and cement the house of Tudor; Arthur died in 1502, at the age of 16, from "a malign vapour which proceeded from the air." Also afflicted was his wife of only five months Catherine of Aragon who recovered. Following his death, Catherine was married to Arthur’s brother Henry in 1509, two months after he was crowned Henry VIII. In 1526 Henry wishing to divorce Catherine in favour of Anne Boleyn, began to believe that in marrying the wife of his dead brother, the marriage was cursed, and he would remain without a son. The resulting affair became known as the “King's great matter". On the same day a hundred years later, Anthony Babington instigator of the "Babington Plot", which aimed to assassinate Henry VIII’s daughter by Anne Boleyn Elizabeth Ist, in favour of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots; is hanged, drawn and quartered. #welshhistory #15thcentury #tudor #tudors #tudorhistory #history #historical #williamshakespeare #henryiv #owainglyndwr https://www.instagram.com/p/CFXCiCBgG_3/?igshid=1ffu8vkthq4mo