Consolidation of Power

Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, became King Henry VII of England following his victory over Richard III’s forces at the Battle of Bosworth on the 22nd August 1485. The victory terminated Plantagenet rule in England and saw the establishment of the Tudor dynasty

Henry’s claim to the throne was weak. He had descended through the female line represented by his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. He also lived abroad since the age of 14. Henry became the Lancastrian claimant only because there was no one else who could fulfil his role. In reality though it was his victory on the battlefield alone which had brought him to the throne.

Henry VII Character and aims

Henry VII had not been brought up to rule. Henry fled to France where he lived for the most of the time as a fugitive in the Duchy of Brittany. From 1485, Henry’s main purpose was to ensure that he kept his throne. Therefore his primary aim at the start of his reign was to consolidate his power which he did by a number of political actions combined with military success.

Henry consolidated his power in a number of ways:

  • He dated his reign from the 21st August 1485, the day before the Battle of Bosworth, thereby ensuring that anyone who had fought on the Yorkist side could be considered a traitor.

  • He arranged to detain Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, and the Earl of Warwick, Edward IV’s nephew, each of whom could be seen as having a much greater claim to the throne than Henry himself.

  • He made key appointments to his council and household, for example making Sir Reginald Bray Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Sir William Stanley Chamberlain of the Household.

  • Having had her detained the previous year; in January 1486 Henry married Elizabeth of York. Henry was able to exploit royal propaganda the union of the two houses of Lancaster and York. For example, the Tudor rose combined the red rose of Lancaster with the white rose of York.

  • A vital step in the securing of the dynasty took place in September 1489 with the birth of an heir to the throne, Prince Arthur

Lambert Simnel and the rebellion of the Earl of Lincoln

Lambert Simnel was being passed off as the Earl of Warwick by the Yorkists, who had been imprisoned by Henry, and was crowned as King Edward in Ireland in May 1487. The conspiracy was put together by John de la Pole (the nephew of Edward IV and Richard III), the Earl of Lincoln, himself a potential Yorkist claimant. Lincoln joined Lord Lovell and persuaded Margaret of Burgundy to support Simnel’s bogus claim and to pay for a force of mercenaries to invade England.

In response Henry reinstated the Earl of Northumberland, who had led a major portion of Richard III’s army at the Battle of Bosworth. This helped to neutralise Richard’s old power base and also ensured that the traditionally Howard Yorkist family had no intention of joining the conspiracy. He also reinforced coastal defences in East Anglia.

The two armies met at East Stoke near Newark in Nottinghamshire. Henry’s army led effectively by the Earl of Oxford, held firm and the Earl of Lincoln was killed in the battle, having been unable to add sufficient followers to the army of mercenaries with which he had landed in England with. The Battle of Stoke Field was significant as it brought an end to the War of the Roses. Henry was mild in his treatment towards those that rebelled against him which weakened the resolve of many Yorkists to oppose him.

Perkin Warbeck

In 1491 Perkin Warbeck began to impersonate Richard, Duke of York in Ireland. Warbeck’s first attempt to land in England in 1495 proved to be a fiasco. Henry had been informed of Warbeck’s intentions by one of his royal agents, Sir Robert Clifford, and Warbeck was quickly defeated and fled to the court of James IV of Scotland.

Sir William Stanley, Henry’s step-uncle and potential traitor, was Lord Chamberlain at a time when household government was still the normal model of political operation.

  • Household Government: medieval system of governance where the head of the household had authority over the property, labour, and the mobility of everyone living on his land.

In 1496, a small Scottish force crossed the border on Warbeck’s behalf but quickly retreated. Warbeck’s interests were soon sacrifiesed when James gave in to Henry’s offer of marriage to his daughter, Margaret. Warbeck made one final attempt to seek the English throne by trying to exploit the uncertainties created by the Cornish Rebellion in 1497, but his forces were crushed and Warbeck surrendered to the King and was tried and executed.

It was convenient for Henry that Warbeck’s final attempts at conspiracy enabled him to get rid of the Earl of Warwick, potentially the most obvious claimant to the throne. Aged only ten at the time of the Battle of Bosworth, he spent most of his time in solitary confinement before he met his fate in 1499 having been accused of plotting with Perkin Warbeck against Henry, he was beheaded.

Edmund and Richard de la Pole

The final piece of dynastic security concerned Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and Richard de la Pole, younger brothers of the Earl of Lincoln. Suffolk fled to Flanders in 1498 and once again fled in 1501, this time seeking refuge at the court of the Emperor Maximilian. The Treaty of Windsor in 1506 meant that Maximilian was willing to give up Suffolk, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Richard de la Pole, nicknamed the “White Rose”, spent a lot of time in exile but was killed fighting for the French forces at the Battle of Pavia in 1525.