The Tudors: A Captivating Guide to the History of England from Henry VII to Elizabeth I (Exploring England's Past)

by Captivating History

In fact, the first Tudors were not even English, but Welsh.

With Richard dead, Henry Tudor proudly pronounced himself the King of England.

Margaret was a 13-year-old widow with a newborn son, the first Henry Tudor.

Anne Boleyn, and she was of the noble birth required to serve at court. The king wrote numerous letters to Anne and sent her extravagant gifts of jewelry. Anne, however, was well aware that Henry had multiple mistresses at court – included her own sister, Mary. Anne refused the king’s gifts and advances, asserting her belief that no happiness would come to her in the role of mistress: "If you ... give yourself up, heart, body and soul to me ...” wrote Henry, “I will take you for my only mistress, rejecting from thought and affection all others save yourself, to serve only you." To which Anne replied: "Your wife I cannot be, both in respect of mine own unworthiness, and also because you have a queen already. Your mistress I will not be."

Catherine of Aragon died on January 7, 1536, after a long period of constant fasting and self-deprivation. On the day she was buried as a Dowager Princess of Wales at Peterborough Cathedral, Henry did not attend the service, and forbade his daughter Mary to pay this last respect to her mother.

have the marriage annulled so that he could marry one of her ladies-in-waiting. By July of 1540, just six months after their wedding, Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves had their marriage declared illegal and illegitimate. The jilted bride was neither executed nor cast out of the royal houses, however. In a rare show of empathy and respect, King Henry declared that henceforth, Anne of Cleves was his "sister" and the owner of several beautiful, rich estates throughout the kingdom. She was given a luxurious annual salary from the crown and lived the rest of her life a rich woman in England. She died in 1557 at the age of 41.

On February 13, 1542, Catherine Howard was helped up the steps to the executioner’s scaffold and decapitated. Her body was disposed of in the same mass grave as her cousins, Anne and George Boleyn. King Henry VIII did not attend the execution.

Four days after Edward’s death on July 6, 1553, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen. She never made it to her coronation.