Barb Alexander - The Tudor Tutor: Your Cheeky Guide to the Dynasty

Copyright 2015 by Barb Alexander and Lisa Graves All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Anthony Morais Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-402-7

When I was a child and would spend the night at
my grandmothers house, Id ask her to tell me
a true story, a tale of her days growing up
in South Philadelphia, before I went to sleep.

This book is dedicated to her, Gertie Presti,
my most beloved part of my own history.

Welcome!

You are about to enter the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

Take care not to judge this time period by our twenty-first-century standards. This includes conventions on religious tolerance, crime and punishment, adultery, and parent-child relationships.

Please leave your desire for indoor plumbing, antibiotics, and good dental care behind.

Enjoy your journey!

In a Hurry?
Just the Basics

The Tudor dynasty began with the highly organized and fiscally responsible Henry VII, whose oldest son Arthur was meant to be the next king before he kicked the bucket at age fifteen. Henrys second son, the future Henry VIII, then became heir to the throne.

As you may recall, the charismatic and increasingly beefy Henry VIII was on a fierce mission to create a male heir. The only surviving one was to become Edward VI after his fathers death.

Fifteen is an unlucky age for males in this family: When Edward was that age, he too died and his cousin Lady Jane Grey became queen for a short blip (nine days, to be exact). Edwards half-sister Mary wasnt taking that lying down. She executed Lady Jane and she soon became Mary I.

After engaging in behavior that would later inspire a tomato-based cocktail, Mary died childless, and her half-sister became Elizabeth I, easily identifiable by her cupcake-paper neck ruff and pasty complexion. Elizabeth too died childless; with all this familys bad luck in the health and reproductive departments, there were no other Tudors to step in. The crown went to James VI of Scotland (whose great-great grandfather was Henry VII). He became James I of England, and the Stuart dynasty began.

Henry VII: Who Died
and Made Him King?

What is arguably the most interesting dynasty in English royal history almost never came to be. Before the Tudors of Wales became the Tudors, Richard III, head of the house of York, sat on the throne. But during one little battle, Henry Tudor and his guys swept in and finished him off with their weapons. When Richard IIIs bones were discovered under a Leicester parking lot in 2012, they showed evidence of fatal blows. A sword had entered his skull on one end and came out the other after slicing through his brain, and another segment of his skull had been whacked clear away. The king was dead, long live the new king, Henry VII!

But who did this Henry think he was? Primogeniture, the tradition of passing the crown on from father to oldest son, had been all the rage in England for about four hundred years. Richard III had no surviving heirs when he died and the rest of the children on the York side were either freshly dead (the little princes in the Tower) or female (definitely a problem). But how did Henry Tudor enter the picture?

First, lets talk about Henry himself. His mother, Margaret Beaufort (a powerhouse in an itty-bitty package) was pregnant with him at age thirteen, not unusual for that time period. His father was captured during the Wars of the Roses and died in prison, before his son was born. Even as a boy, this kid oozed self-confidence, so much so that Henry VI stated he was one to whom both we and our adversaries must yield, and give over the domain. Though his mother remarried later, Henry spent a lot of time with his uncle Jasper, and it was Jasper who took him to France when he was a teenager. As someone with a claim to the throne, Henry was safer in France than in Wales.

The Wars of the Roses were a series of civil wars between two sides of the same family. (This is known today in some families as the holidays.) The house of York was on one side; the house of Lancaster was on the other. This massive family feud carried on for about thirty years. Henry was the last surviving possibility for the Lancastrians, but the Yorkists were currently in charge in the form of Richard III.

Shortly after his dear brother, Edward IV, died (and Edwards son became Edward V), Richard took the throne for himself. He convinced Parliament that his two nephews were illegitimate because their father was betrothed to another woman before he married their mother. At that time, betrothal held as much weight as marriage, so Richard had no trouble declaring the boys bastards (so much for the one being Edward V; now he was just plain old Edward) and imprisoning them in the Tower of London.

Edward, age twelve, and Richard, age ten, have since been referred to as the little princes in the Tower, who were seen in the grounds occasionally for a few months after their imprisonment and then vanished altogether. In 1674, a chest containing the skeletons of two adolescents was found by workmen who were demolishing stairs leading to the White Tower. While the fate of the two princes has never been determined for certain, many believe these remains were the royal boys. If they were, in fact, murdered, and by whom, is one of English historys enduring mysteries to this day.

Usurper or not, Richard III had only been king for a scant two years when Henry Tudor felt the time was right and whipped up an army of fellow twenty-somethings, marching off to meet Richard and his own army in Leicestershire. Richard III, a seasoned military commander, charged down the hill with his men, who greatly outnumbered the Tudor troops. Henrys supporters assembled themselves into a human shield, which Richard et al hacked their way through laboriously with the intent of securing victory! But no dice: Richard was slain in nothing flat and died from the aforementioned wounds. And then, prestothere was Henry VII.