HENRY VII. was born at Pembroke Castle on the 21st of January 1456. Ilia father was Edmund Tudor, surnamed of Hadham, who had been created Earl of Richmond iu 1452, being the son of Sir Owen Tudor and Queen Catherine, widow of Henry V. He was thus pater nally descended both from the royal house of France and also, it is said, from the ancient sovereigns of Wales, for such is the derivation assigned by the genealogists to the Tudors. But it was his maternal extraction that gave Henry Tudor his political importance. His mother was Margaret, the only child of John Beaufort, duke of Somer. set, whose father of the same name was the eldest of the sone of John of Gaunt, duko of Lancaster, the root of the Lancastrlau house, by his third wife, Catherine Swynford. The Beaufol ts, as tho children of Gaunt by this wife were named, having been born before marriage, and only subsequently legitimated by a patent entered on the rolls of parliament, which appears (though there is some doubt as to that point) not to have opened to them the succession to the crown, were not at first looked upon as in themselves or their descendants forming strictly a branch of the House of Lancaster; their came itself dis tinguished them as another family. But towards the close of the reign of Henry VL their royal descent and proximity to the throne began to be spoken of as giving them important pretensions. After the termination of the wars of the Roses, the Somerset family remained the only representatives of the House of Lancaster in England: there were indeed in Portugal, Spain, Germany, and Denmark, nearly a dozen descendants of the daughters of John of Gaunt by his two earlier marriages, some of whom at least, namely, those sprung from Henry IV., had clearly a prior place in the line of succession to the Beauforta, had the legitimation of the latter been aver so perfect ; but the circumstances of tho time were not such as to allow any validity to these foreign titles. After Richard III. obtained the throne, only two really formidable members of the House of Lancaster survived, namely, this Henry, earl of Richmond, and Henry, duke of Bucking ham, whoae mother was also a Margaret Beaufort, a great-grand-daughter of John of Gaunt But her father was a younger brother of the father of the Conntess of Richmond, whose son therefore undoubtedly stood first iu the lino of the family succession.
Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, died in 1456, the same year in which his son Henry was born. Throughout the stormy period that followed the child found a protector in his uncle Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, till on the accession of Edward IV., iu 1461, the earl was attainted and obliged to fly the country. Henry appears to have been then consigned by the new king to the charge of Sir William Herbert, baron Herbert (afterwards created Earl of Pembroke), and to have been carried by that nobleman to his residence of Raglan Castle in Monmouthahire. Long afterwards he told the French histo rian Comines that be had been either in prison or under strict surveillance from the time he was five years of age. He is said how ever to have been brought to court on the restoration of Henry VI. in 1470, and it is to this date that the story is assigned of his having been prophetically pointed out by Henry as the person that was to bring to a close the contest between the two houses. It must have been at this time also that he was sent to Eton, if he ever really studied, as is reported by some, at that school. After the battle of Tewkesbury he seems to have been sent back to Raglan Castle, and to have remained there till his uncle, who had fled to France, returned secretly, and found means to carry him off to his own castle of Pem broke. Upon this Edward immediately took measures to recover possession of the boy, but his uncle at last contrived to embark with him at Tenby, with the intention of proceeding to France. They were forced however by stress of weather to put into a port of Bretagne, and there they were detained by the duke, Francis II. But although thie prince would not suffer them to pursuk their journey, he allowed them an honourable maintenance, and as much liberty as was con sistent with his design that they should not pass out of his dominions, nor although repeatedly importuned by King Edward to deliver them tap would he ever listen to the proposal. Henry continued resident in these circumstances iu the town of Vannes in Bretagne till after the accession of Richard III.