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The House of Tudor was an English and Welsh dynasty that held the throne of England from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd, a Welsh noble family, and Catherine of Valois. The Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and the Lordship of Ireland for 118 years with five monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the Scottish House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, descended through his mother from the House of Beaufort, a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster, a cadet house of the Plantagenets. The Tudor family rose to power and started the Tudor period in the wake of the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), which left the main House of Lancaster extinct in the male line.
Catherine Parr was Queen of England and Ireland as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 12 July 1543 until Henry's death on 28 January 1547. Catherine was the final queen consort of the House of Tudor, and outlived Henry by a year and eight months. With four husbands, she is the most-married English queen. She was the first woman to publish in print an original work under her own name in England in the English language.
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Viscount Beauchamp, also known as Edward Semel, was an English nobleman and politician who served as Lord Protector of England from 1547 to 1549 during the minority of his nephew King Edward VI. He was the eldest surviving brother of Queen Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII.
Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, KG, PC was a brother of Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII. With his brother, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England, he vied for control of their nephew, the young King Edward VI. In 1547, Seymour married Catherine Parr, the widow of Henry VIII. During his marriage to Catherine, Seymour involved the future Queen Elizabeth I, who resided in his household, in flirtatious and possibly sexual behaviour.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, KG was an English nobleman, politician and poet. He was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry and was the last known person to have been executed at the instance of King Henry VIII. His name is usually associated in literature with that of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt. Owing largely to the powerful position of his father Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Henry took a prominent part in court life, and served as a soldier both in France and in Scotland. He was a man of reckless temper, which involved him in many quarrels, and finally brought upon him the wrath of the ageing Henry VIII. He was arrested, tried for treason and beheaded on Tower Hill.
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was a prominent English politician and nobleman of the Tudor era. He was an uncle of two of the wives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both of whom were beheaded, and played a major role in the machinations affecting these royal marriages. After falling from favour in 1546, he was stripped of his dukedom and imprisoned in the Tower of London, avoiding execution when Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547.
In common parlance, the wives of Henry VIII were the six queens consort of King Henry VIII of England between 1509 and his death in 1547. In legal terms, Henry had only three wives, because three of his marriages were annulled by the Church of England. He was never granted an annulment by the Pope, as he desired, however, for Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. Annulments declare that a true marriage never took place, unlike a divorce, in which a married couple end their union. Along with his six wives, Henry took several mistresses.
William Parr, Marquess of Northampton, Earl of Essex, 1st Baron Parr, 1st Baron Hart, was the only brother of Queen Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII. He was a "sincere, plain, direct man, not crafty nor involved", whose "delight was music and poetry and his exercise war" who co-authored a treatise on hare coursing. He was in favour with Henry VIII and his son Edward VI, under whom he was the leader of the Protestant party, but having supported the desire of the latter to be succeeded by the Protestant Lady Jane Grey, was attainted by Edward's Catholic half-sister, Queen Mary I. He was restored by her Protestant half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I. He married thrice but died without issue.
Mary Seymour, born at her father’s country seat, Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, was the only daughter of Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, and the dowager queen, Catherine Parr, widow of Henry VIII. Although Catherine was married four times, Mary was her only child. Complications from Mary's birth would claim the life of her mother on 5 September 1548, and her father was executed less than a year later for treason against her cousin Edward VI.
Agnes Howard was the second wife of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Two of King Henry VIII's queens were her step-granddaughters, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Catherine Howard was placed in the Dowager Duchess's care after her mother's death.
Henry VIII is a two-part British television serial produced principally by Granada Television for ITV from 12 to 19 October 2003. It chronicles the life of Henry VIII of England from the disintegration of his first marriage to an aging Spanish princess until his death following a stroke in 1547, by which time he had married for the sixth time. Additional production funding was provided by WGBH Boston, Powercorp and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Events from the 1530s in England.
Mary FitzRoy, Duchess of Richmond and Somerset, born Mary Howard, was a daughter-in-law of King Henry VIII of England, being the wife of his illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset.
Events from the 1510s in England.
Maud Green, Lady Parr was an English courtier. She was the mother of Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII of England. She was a close friend and lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon. She was also co-heiress to her father, Sir Thomas Green of Green's Norton in Northamptonshire along with her sister, Anne, Lady Vaux.
Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, Baroness Herbert of Cardiff was lady-in-waiting to each of Henry VIII of England's six wives. She was the younger sister of his sixth wife, Catherine Parr.
Dorothy Bray, Baroness Chandos was an English noblewoman, who served as a Maid of Honour to three queens consort of King Henry VIII of England; Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. From 1541 to 1543, she had an affair with the latter's married brother, William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton.
Sir William Sharington was an English landowner and merchant, a courtier of the time of Henry VIII, master and embezzler of the Bristol Mint, member of parliament, conspirator, and High Sheriff of Wiltshire.
Sir Henry Seymour was an English landowner and MP, the brother of Jane Seymour, queen consort of Henry VIII, and consequently uncle to Edward VI. He was created a Knight of the Bath after his nephew's coronation.
Walter Erle (c.1515/20-1581) of Colcombe in the parish of Colyton, of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth, both in Devon, and of Charborough in Dorset, England, was a courtier and servant of the Royal Household to two of the wives of King Henry VIII, namely Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, and successively to his son King Edward VI (1547-1553) and two daughters, Queen Mary I (1553-1558) and Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) during their successive reigns.