HENRY VII. (1457-1509), king of England, great-great grandson of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford, whose issue born before their marriage had been legitimated by parliament, was the first Tudor (q.v.) king. He was the son of Edmund, earl of Richmond, and Margaret Beaufort, only daughter of John, duke of Somerset, and was born in Pembroke castle on Jan. 28, 1457, two months after his father's death. During the reign of Edward IV. the child Henry was hidden in various castles until his uncle Jasper took him to Brittany. There he was joined by many Englishmen driven abroad by the cruelties of Richard III. An invasion of England was planned in 1483 in concert with the duke of Buckingham's rising; but stormy weather defeated the movement. A second expedition, two years later, aided this time by France, was successful. Henry landed at Mil ford Haven among his Welsh allies and defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth (Aug. 22, 1485) . He was crowned at West minster on Oct. 3o, and in fulfilment of pledges to his Yorkist supporters, married Elizabeth (1465-1503 ), eldest daughter and heiress of Edward 1V. (Jan. 18, 1486), whose two brothers-had been murdered by Richard III. Thus the Red and White Roses were united and the pretexts for civil war done away with.
Nevertheless, Henry's reign was much disturbed by a succes sion of Yorkist conspiracies. Of the two most notable impostors, the first, Lambert Simnel (q.v.) personated the earl of Warwick, son of the duke of Clarence, but the rebellion in his favour was put down at the battle of Stoke, near Newark (June 16, 1487).
This movement had been greatly assisted by the Irish and by Mar garet, duchess dowager of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV. The second pretender, Perkin Warbeck (q.v.), who impersonated Richard duke of York, one of the princes murdered in the Tower, was also much indebted to foreign support. Anxious as Henry was to avoid foreign wars, he was committed to war with France, partly by his desire of an alliance with Spain, and partly by desire to prevent the incorporation of Brittany with France. Moreover, the French king gave assistance to Perkin War beck. Henry gave Brittany defensive aid; but after the duchess Anne had married Charles VIII. of France, he felt bound to fulfil his obligations to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and also to the German king Maximilian, by an invasion of France in 1492. After besieging Boulogne for some little time, he made peace with France at Etaples (Nov. 3, 1492).
Meanwhile Margaret of Burgundy received Perkin Warbeck as her nephew, and Maximilian, now estranged from Henry, recog nized him (1494) as king of England. Perkin Warbeck attempted to land at Deal, but sailed to Ireland and then to Scotland, where James IV. received him (Nov. 1495), married him to an earl's daughter and made a futile invasion (1496) of England with him. But in 1497 he thought best to dismiss him, and Perkin, after an unsuccessful visit to Ireland, landed with a small body of men in Cornwall, where shortly before an insurrection on account of the taxation imposed for repelling the Scottish invasion, had been put down. Perkin, after a futile siege of Exeter and an advance to Taunton, took sanctuary at Beaulieu in Hampshire, and sur rendered (Sept. 1497) . Imprisoned near the earl of Warwick, in the Tower, he inveigled that simple-minded youth into a project of escape. For this, both were executed (1499) and during the rest of Henry's reign no further insurrections occurred.
The king was now seeking alliances for his children. While the eldest, Arthur, was still an infant, a marriage had been proposed for him with Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon. Cathe rine was now brought to England and they were married on Nov. 14, 150 1. On Arthur's death in the following April, Catherine was betrothed to the king's second son, Henry. Meanwhile Henry's eldest daughter Margaret was married (15o3) to James IV. of Scotland—a match intended to confirm the treaty of peace signed in July 1499 and to make possible the ultimate union of England and Scotland, which actually resulted from it. Henry's queen died on Feb. i 1, 1503, and during the remainder of his reign he made fruitless proposals for a second marriage—proposals in which political objects were the chief consideration.
In his latter years the king became unpopular from the extor tions practised by his two instruments, Empson and Dudley, under the authority of antiquated statutes. From the beginning of his reign he had accumulated money, mainly for his own security against intrigues and conspiracies, and avarice had grown upon him. When he died in April 1509 he was undoubtedly the richest prince in Christendom. Before his death, however, he had finished the hospital of the Savoy and made provision for the magnificent chapel at Westminster which bears his name.
Henry not only terminated a disastrous civil war, put down the Scottish invasion and reduced Ireland to obedience, but after the profitable Treaty of Etaples, remained on good terms with France, with the duchy of Brittany and with Spain, and was able to mollify Maximilian. With Maximilian's son, the archduke Philip, governor of the Netherlands, Henry made a special effort to keep peace because of the commercial advantages involved. With the papacy also his diplomacy and orthodoxy kept him in friendly relations. During the 24 years of Henry's reign only seven parliaments met, the second one instituting the famous court of the Star Chamber for the correction of irregularities in the ad ministration of justice due to the breakdown of the jury system. The question of wages, hours of labour and standards of commerce and manufacture, were also taken up by parliament, and internal trade became less local. When Henry died his position was strong both in England and on the Continent.
See W. Campbell, Materials for a Hist. of the Reign of Henry VII. in Rolls Series (2 vols. 1873-77) ; Francis Bacon, Life of Henry VII. (ed. Lumby, Cambridge 188i) ; J. Gairdner, Henry the Seventh (1889) ; H. A. L. Fisher in vol. v. (2nd ed. 1913) of the Political Hist.
of England; A. F. Pollard, The Reign of Henry VII. front Contempo rary sources (3 vols. 1913-54) ; Gladys Temperley, Henry VII. (1914) and W. D. Bushell, The Lady Margaret Beaufort and Henry VII. (1916).