Henry VII

1457 – 1509

Henry VII, known as Henry Tudor, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1485 until his death in 1509, and the first monarch of the House of Tudor after seizing the crown by defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He consolidated his shaky claim to the throne through aggressive financial extraction—using bonds, recognizances, and the Council Learned in the Law to extort large sums from his nobility—and through ruthless suppression of pretenders, including the executions of Lambert Simnel's Yorkist sponsors and of Perkin Warbeck. He left an extraordinary fortune to his son Henry VIII alongside a much-feared apparatus of royal taxation.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM