Henry Tudor: The Legitimacy of His Claim to the Throne

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In this episode, we’re looking at how legitimate Henry Tudor was in his claim to the throne, after he claimed that throne through conquest on 30^th October 1485. Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep my irritation at him at bay long enough to get through his episode.

So why do I hate Henry VII so much? He spent a lot of his reign making threats to people who didn’t agree with the way he did things. There’s even records of him handing out crippling fines to the families of the people who displeased him. That’s on top of what he’d already taken from the individuals themselves. This isn’t something a good king would do. But this episode specifically looks at how Henry managed the legitimacy of his reign as king. In particular, we’ll investigate the timeline of the first year of his reign, and just how he secured that throne so well.

But first, we’ll start with the Houses of Lancaster and York. Who they were and why they had a load of wars over which of them would sit on the throne of England.

The War of the Roses

It all starts because they all descended from Edward III, reigning during the 14^th century. Edward III had five sons: Edward the Black Prince, Lionel Duke of Clarence, John of Gaunt (the House of Lancaster), Edmund of Langley (the House of York), and Thomas Duke of Gloucester.

Because the second son, Lionel, had his daughter as his heir, Edward III amended the right of succession to exclude Lionel’s heirs. Mostly because Phillipa was female, and Edward III wanted the French crown. The French had a law removing women from succession. If Edward was going to rule both England and France, he needed to match up these laws.

When the Black Prince’s son, Richard II, became king, he made his uncle Edmund his heir, Edward III’s fourth son. The third son, John of Gaunt, was essentially that one relative no-one likes.

It was John’s son Henry who killed Richard II over a spat about his inheritance and exile. He became Henry IV in 1399. When he had to come up with a reason why, he said he had a better claim to the throne. He argued John the third son came before Edmund the fourth son in the order of succession and inheritance. It was his grandson, Henry VI, who lost his throne when his cousin Richard, 3^rd Duke of York, went to Parliament to validate his claim for the throne after one of Henry’s bouts of mental instability. And there we have the Cousin’s War.

So Parliament verified all these Yorkist claims to the throne. What was there left for the Lancasters to secure? My argument? Henry VII didn’t have a secure position. He set out to do it after he’d gotten his hands on the throne. Let me tell you why.

Henry Tudor Chose Right of Conquest over Family Lineage

In the first instance, Henry Tudor claimed the throne through the right of conquest rather than through family lineage. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, descended from an illegitimate line of Edward III’s third son John of Gaunt. His father’s mother was the widow of Henry V, Queen Catherine of France. In both cases, neither was strong enough to claim the throne from a legitimate line from the favoured successor of Richard II.

If we remember our crash course on the Cousin’s War rightly, John of Gaunt was the father of Henry IV, the man who killed Richard II because of a spat over inheritances. And Henry V was the son of Henry IV and father of Henry VI. Parliament had already approved of a Yorkist king twice before, so he couldn’t get the throne that way. He was also inferior to thirty other claimants. The avenue he took was to kill the king in battle and take his place.

But even then, it wasn’t a clean battle for the throne. Henry decided the best way to claim the crown was to utilise his status as the sole remaining Lancastrian heir, his experience of French-style kingship, and the lessons learnt from all the times the Yorkist Plantagenets had tried to kill him. He employed spies. He never fought in the battles himself, and he allowed rumours of his enemies to spread. Because if the rumours and his spies could weaken perceptions of the Yorkist claims, he’d only come out that much stronger for it.

By waging war on Richard III and the Yorkist supporters on many fronts, Henry Tudor could bulldoze his way into justifying his claim to the throne. He didn’t have the strongest claim, so he used what he had to ensure he came out on top.

Henry Tudor Ransacked the North

So, Henry’s now king. But his claim isn’t as strong compared to the dynasty he’s just usurped. He knows his next step is to defame his predecessor. He wants everyone thinking he did England a favour by killing Richard.

I mentioned this in my episode on Perkin Warbeck, but it wasn’t Richard III who put himself on the throne. Parliament issued a statement saying they’d found a marriage agreement between his brother and a woman who wasn’t his queen. As these things were essentially marriage without the ceremony, Edward IV’s children were now illegitimate and illegible to inherit. An Act of Parliament known as the Titulus Regis made Richard the next in line for the throne. Parliament even presented it to him and read it out at his coronation and everything.

But when Henry came to the throne in 1485, he had his first Parliament destroy their copy of the Titulus Regis, and any others they could find. Henry had already spread the rumour Richard had killed his nephews, the only people who could contest his claim. Now he needed to solidify this perception.

He had his people ransack the northern strongholds of Yorkist supporters, and Tower of London, for any sign of other claimants. He arrested anyone who might have information, including the Bishop of Bath, and fined the rest. Whatever information was left was then used by his biographers, like Polydore Virgil, to write his histories. This biography was used by Thomas More, and More was the main source for Shakespeare’s play on Richard III.

Henry led such a thorough search throughout England, on top of ensuring little documentation remained of the legitimacy of his predecessor. He knew how dangerous it was to be in a position where he could lose his throne.

That Week Between Bosworth and London

In relation to Henry’s ransacking of the north, Henry didn’t immediately head to London after his army’s victory at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485. He spent a week in the north before he headed south to London, on the 28^th.

Reports say Henry spent that week sending out missionaries for work he never really states. These notes passed through quickly, so the delay wasn’t due to the medieval version of a six o’clock rush hour. This “secret business” continues throughout his reign. He’s sending men out to Ireland in 1486 and Portugal in 1488, as soon as his spies tell him rumours of the location of two boys matching the descriptions of Edward IV’s sons.

He asks for claimants to the throne to come forward in September 1485, a week after his search in the north before he sets off to London after Bosworth. His coronation is a month later on 30^th October.

He repels the Titulus Regis in January 1486 a week after he’s married Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth. He never procures any proof of death for the Princes in the Tower, not even a proclamation of their deaths. This would have strengthened his claim after he reversed the princes’ bastardy status.

The delay in the north and legitimising of Elizabeth of York hint at insecurity in Henry’s reign. The haste with his correspondence between northern cities isn’s due to is bad roads or weather. His extensive spy network and lack of bodies for the Princes in the Tower suggests that Henry knew his reign was in danger from a stronger claim. Much of what he was doing was ensuring that his claim was the only one that mattered.

The Rumours Henry Tudor Spread

It’s quite interesting when you look at which rumours started when. With the Tudors, that the first explicit mention of the deaths of the Princes in the Tower started in France, the place Henry Tudor was in exile, soon after the coronation of Richard III. We’ll focus on the people during the reign of Richard III.

The first account written was Mancini. He compiled his report in France by December 1483, and makes no reference to the younger prince at all. He hints at the death of the oldest boy and had himself left England by the time the events he was talking about took place, he returned to France in July. Mancini doesn’t elaborate or back up his claims at all, he only alludes to the death of the boys. Mancini also didn’t have any connections in the circles relevant to the events he’s talking about. We must therefore consider that someone gave him the information he’s reporting on.

So who else was talking about the deaths of the Princes in the Tower? Six weeks after Mancini’s report, another French report comes out. The French Chancellor, Guillaume de Rochefort, delivers the opening address at the assembly of the Estates-General. He outright accuses Richard of murdering all his niblings before his coronation and taking the crown for himself. This is inaccurate, his nieces were in sanctuary at Westminster and all of the children were seen prior to his coronation on 26^th June 1483. In fact, records from the Royal Exchequer and Close Roll describe the boys as late as 1485.

Henry Tudor Himself

Finally, Henry Tudor himself. He sent an open letter in 1485 to his allies calling Richard a “homicide and unnatural tyrant,” which may hint at the rumours in France. Let’s not forget that in 1483, Henry had promised to marry Richard’s niece. He fled to the French court in September 1484, becoming a significant threat.

We can’t blame coincidence for rumours of the Princes’ deaths occurring from the place their rival resides in exile. He was already in France when Mancini was writing his report, and in the court itself when he sent the open letter. What better way to continue scheming than to whisper English slander in the ears of England’s enemies?

Let’s not forget he dates his reign from the day before the Battle of Bosworth. While official paperwork states 30^th October 1485, his coronation, he personally starts his reign on 21^st August 1485.

One of the first things he does after the battle is to round up Richard III’s supporters and sign their arrest warrants. He ordered executions without a record of conviction by trial. A local account from Leicester said they were “without ceremony or decency.”

Henry’s fourteen-year incarceration and execution of Edward, the 17^th Earl of Warwick indicates a degree of ruthlessness and severity not usually associated with a king holding a secure throne. Edward was cousin to the Princes in the Tower and a potential Yorkist claimant for the throne. Warwick’s execution in 1499 was thought to have been on a manufactured charge. He was ten when Henry imprisoned him, and twenty-four when he died.

Henry’s behaviour in the immediate aftermath of Bosworth suggests his priority was to eliminate any threat. He tore the north apart for Richard’s supporters and made it impossible for anyone, regardless of age, to challenge him.

Conclusion

This episode hopes to have shed some light on the legitimacy of Henry VII’s reign. His claim wasn’t as secure as the Yorkists. He had to rely on alternative means to solidify his position as the King of England, in particular the destruction of legal documentation, the use of rumours and slander, imprisoning Yorkist supporters for treason, and the campaign itself to kill Richard III. He dated is reign to the day before the battle.

His use of spies and rumours allowed him to weaken or even control the public’s perception of his enemies. This gave him leeway to maintain his hold on the throne. By destroying legal documentation and ransacking the strongholds of his enemies, Henry could control which information made it out to the public and what was accessible to the people writing his biographies even thirty years later.

The one thing which would have solidified his reign was to proclaim the deaths of the Princes in the Tower. While Henry kept his spies on the movements of the men he named Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, and was quick to declare them pretenders, he never officially declared the princes themselves dead. Instead, his open letter in 1483 encouraged the rumours of their deaths. He neither confirmed nor denied the boys’ existence.

Henry Tudor’s reign wasn’t the most stable of all the English monarchs, but to just dismiss this as the start of a new dynasty does a disservice to everyone who came before him.

Resources and Links

• “The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case” by Philippa Langley (2023). Langley uses contemporary sources rather than later Tudor ones to establish just what was going on in the period before and the aftermath of the Battle of Bosworth.

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