Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor.
Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England fought between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions between 1455 and 1487.
Margaret of Anjou was Queen of England by marriage to King Henry VI from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471. Through marriage, she was also nominally Queen of France from 1445 to 1453. Born in the Duchy of Lorraine into the House of Valois-Anjou, Margaret was the second eldest daughter of René, King of Naples, and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine.
The House of York was a cadet branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet. Three of its members became kings of England in the late 15th century. The House of York descended in the male line from Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, the fourth surviving son of Edward III. In time, it also represented Edward III's senior line, when an heir of York married the heiress-descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Edward III's second surviving son. It is based on these descents that they claimed the English crown. Compared with its rival, the House of Lancaster, it had a superior claim to the throne of England according to cognatic primogeniture, but an inferior claim according to agnatic primogeniture. The reign of this dynasty ended with the death of Richard III of England at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. It became extinct in the male line with the death of Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, in 1499.
Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk, 6th Earl of Suffolk, KG, Duke of Suffolk, was an English nobleman and soldier. The son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk and his wife Elizabeth of York, he was through his mother the nephew of the Yorkist kings of England Edward IV and Richard III and the cousin of Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York and of Henry VII's queen Elizabeth of York.
Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford was the uncle of King Henry VII of England and a leading architect of his nephew's successful accession to the throne in 1485. He was a member of the Tudor family of Penmynydd.
Cecily Neville was an English noblewoman, the wife of Richard, Duke of York (1411–1460), and the mother of two kings of England—Edward IV and Richard III. Cecily Neville was known as "the Rose of Raby", because she was born at Raby Castle in Durham, and "Proud Cis", because of her pride and a temper that went with it, although she was also known for her piety. She herself signed her name "Cecylle".
Henry Percy, 4th Earl of NorthumberlandKG was an English aristocrat during the Wars of the Roses. After losing his title when his father was killed fighting the Yorkists, he later regained his position. He led the rearguard of Richard III's army at the Battle of Bosworth, but failed to commit his troops. He was briefly imprisoned by Henry VII, but later restored to his position. A few years later he was murdered by citizens of York during a revolt against Henry VII's taxation.
John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk, KG, was a major magnate in 15th-century England. He was the son of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Alice Chaucer, the daughter of Thomas Chaucer. His youth was blighted, in 1450, by the political fall and subsequent murder of his father, who had been a favourite of king Henry VI but was increasingly distrusted by the rest of the nobility. Although the first duke of Suffolk had made himself rich through trade and – particularly – royal grants, this source of income dried up on his death, so John de la Pole was among the poorest of English dukes on his accession to the title in 1463. This was a circumstance which John felt acutely; on more than one occasion, he refused to come to London due to his impoverishment being such that he could not afford the costs of maintaining a retinue.
John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln was a leading figure in the Yorkist aristocracy during the Wars of the Roses.
The House of Plantagenet was a royal house which originated in the French County of Anjou. The name Plantagenet is used by modern historians to identify four distinct royal houses: the Angevins, who were also counts of Anjou; the main line of the Plantagenets following the loss of Anjou; and the Houses of Lancaster and York, two of the Plantagenets cadet branches. The family held the English throne from 1154, with the accession of Henry II, until 1485, when Richard III died.
The Intercursus Magnus was a major and long-lasting commercial treaty signed in February 1496 by King Henry VII of England and Duke Philip IV of Burgundy. Other signatories included the commercial powers of Venice, Florence, the Netherlands, and the Hanseatic League.
Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk also known as Elizabeth Plantagenet was the sixth child and third daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville. She was thus a sister of kings Edward IV and Richard III.
The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: A Romance is an 1830 historical novel by Mary Shelley about the life of Perkin Warbeck. The book takes a Yorkist point of view and proceeds from the conceit that Perkin Warbeck died in childhood and the supposed impostor was indeed Richard of Shrewsbury. Henry VII of England is repeatedly described as a "fiend" who hates Elizabeth of York, his wife and Richard's sister, and the future Henry VIII, mentioned only twice in the novel, is a vile youth who abuses dogs. Her preface establishes that records of the Tower of London, as well as the histories of Edward Hall, Raphael Holinshed, and Francis Bacon, the letters of Sir John Ramsay to Henry VII that are printed in the Appendix to John Pinkerton's History of Scotland establish this as fact. Each chapter opens with a quotation. The entire book is prefaced with a quotation in French by Georges Chastellain and Jean Molinet.
Events from the 1450s in England.
Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk, LG was a granddaughter of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Married three times, she eventually became a Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, an honour granted rarely to women and marking the friendship between herself and her third husband, William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, with King Henry VI and his wife Margaret of Anjou.
French history has been the basis of plays in the English-speaking theatre since the English Renaissance theatre.
The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The wars were fought between supporters of the House of Lancaster and House of York, two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The conflict resulted in the end of Lancaster's male line in 1471, leaving the Tudor family to inherit their claim to the throne through the female line. Conflict was largely brought to an end upon the union of the two houses through marriage, creating the Tudor dynasty that would subsequently rule England.
Sir William de la Pole, was an English nobleman, and Knight of Wingfield Castle in Wingfield, Suffolk. He was the son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk (1442–1492) and Elizabeth Plantagenet (1444–1504), a sister of Edward IV and Richard III. Through his mother, he was clearly in the line of succession to the English Crown, with ultimately disastrous consequences for himself.
