Royal Marriage and the Birth of the Tudors

This marriage was symbolized by the creation of the Tudor Rose.

     

     The marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York on January 18, 1486 helped to seal a dynastic union between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, the two rival English royal houses that had fought for the throne for around 30 years in an on-and-off conflict known as the Wars of the Roses – so named due to the representative floral emblems: the White Rose of York and Red Rose of Lancaster. Both houses were branches of the Plantagenet dynasty, but they disagreed who had a greater claim to the throne. The war initially resulted in the Yorkists taking the Crown and killing off most of the Lancastrians, but a distant Lancastrian claimant named Henry Tudor – a man of Welsh descent who had lived in exile in France for several years – landed in Pembrokeshire, Wales with a small army to take on Richard III. At the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Tudor and his army killed Richard and decisively defeated his forces, making Richard III the last Yorkist king and the last of the Plantagenet monarchs, which had ruled in England since 1154.

     Bosworth was a victory for the Lancastrians, and Henry Tudor was soon crowned as Henry VII of England. But in order to place his status on solid footing, the new King had to make good on his promise to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Richard III’s brother, Edward IV. This arrangement was the handiwork of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, and Elizabeth Woodville, wife and Queen consort of Edward IV.

     Upon King Edward’s death in 1483, he was succeeded by his son Edward V, who at the age of twelve needed a Lord Protector  (or Regent) to act in his name during his minority. His uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester was chosen for this role, but Richard eventually had Edward and his younger brother (also named Richard) placed under his custody in the Tower of London – where they have become known through history as the Princes in the Tower. The brothers, who were the only surviving sons of Edward IV, were eventually never seen in public again, and it has been suggested that their uncle Richard had them murdered, which cleared his path to the throne as Richard III.

     With her sons likely dead, Queen Elizabeth made contact with Lady Margaret Beaufort through an intermediary, and the two women made common cause against King Richard. Between them, it was agreed that Elizabeth would support Henry Tudor’s bid for the throne, and that Margaret would consent to the marriage of her son to Elizabeth’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, who was Edward IV’s daughter, had a better claim to the throne than Richard.

     Henry pledged to marry Elizabeth in December 1483, and when he became king, he honored this commitment. With this marriage, the Wars of the Roses came to an end, and the rival houses of Lancaster and York were united into the new House of Tudor. This was symbolized by the creation of the Tudor Rose, a combination of the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York, which remains the representative floral emblem of England and is often seen together with the other floral emblems of the United Kingdom – the thistle for Scotland, the shamrock for Northern Ireland, and the leek for Wales. 

     The House of Tudor itself would reign in England for the next 118 years and produced five of its monarchs.