King Henry VII of England - by J. Pass - 1785

An Original  

Line Engraving

of

"Henry VII of England"

Drawn and engraved by J. Pass from an original portrait in the Royal Collection

Produced by Ashburton's. London

c 1785

This item comprises the portrait as described above in fairly good condition for its age with some rubbing and minor foxing at the margins. The image itself is clear and bright.

This is a genuine antique being over 200 years old - NOT a modern reproduction.

This item is being offered, suitably mounted, ready for framing

FORMAT

Overall Size:- 8" x 10" including the margin.

Image Size:- 6" x 8" approx

About the Subject...

Henry VII (before accession known as Henry Tudor; Welsh: Harri Tudur; 28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) was the King of England and Lord of Ireland from his usurpation of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Henry was born at Pembroke Castle, Wales in 1457, only son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond and Lady Margaret Beaufort. His father died three months before he was born, meaning the young Henry spent much of his life with his uncle, Jasper Tudor. During the first reign of Edward IV, he was in the care of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke while his uncle was in exile abroad. When the Yorkist Edward IV returned to the throne in 1471, Henry, who was a Lancastrian, fled to Brittany, where he spent most of the next 14 years.

By 1483, his mother, despite being married to pro-Yorkist Lord Stanley, was actively promoting Henry as an alternative to the unpopular Richard III. With money and supplies borrowed from his host, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, Henry tried to land in England, but his conspiracy unravelled, resulting in the execution of his primary co-conspirator, Duke of Buckingham. Richard III attempted to extradite Henry via an arrangement with the Breton authorities, but Henry escaped to France. He was welcomed by the French, who readily supplied him with troops and equipment for a second invasion.

Having gained the support of the Woodvilles, in-laws of the late Edward IV, he landed with a French and Scottish force in Mill Bay, Pembrokeshire, and marched into England, accompanied by his uncle, Jasper Tudor, and John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. Wales was traditionally a Lancastrian stronghold, and Henry owed the support he gathered to his ancestry, being directly descended, through his father, from the Lord Rhys. He amassed an army of around 5,000 soldiers and went north.

Henry was aware that his best chance to seize the throne would be to engage Richard quickly and defeat him immediately, as Richard had reinforcements in Nottingham and Leicester. Richard only needed to avoid being killed in order to keep his throne. Though outnumbered, Henry's Lancastrian forces decisively defeated Richard's Yorkist army at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485. Several of Richard's key allies, such as the Earl of Northumberland and William and Thomas Stanley, crucially switched sides or left the battlefield. Richard III's death at the Battle of Bosworth Field effectively ended the Wars of the Roses, although it was not the last battle Henry had to fight.

Henry VII's paternal grandfather, Owen Tudor, is said to have secretly married the widow of Henry V, Catherine of Valois. The result of their union was Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, father of Henry VII. Henry's claim to the throne, however, derived from his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. His claim was somewhat tenuous; it was from a woman, and based on a lineage of illegitimate succession, overlooking the fact that the Beauforts were disinherited by Letters Patent of King Henry IV. Henry's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, claimed royal blood as a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III, and his third wife Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster. Katherine was John's mistress for 25 years and they had four children; John, Henry, Thomas and Joan Beaufort, when they married in 1396.

Nonetheless, John ensured his and Katherine's children were legitimized.

His nephew, Richard II, issued Letters Patent, confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1397, that legitimized John of Gaunt's Beaufort children.

Richard's cousin and successor, Henry IV, son of John of Gaunt and his first wife Blanche of Lancaster, issued an order barring his Beaufort siblings from the throne. The legality of Henry's order was doubtful, given the Beauforts were previously legitimized by an Act of Parliament. In any event, Henry VII was not the only monarch descended from the union of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. The Yorkist kings were as well, as Joan Beaufort, only daughter of the Gaunt-Swynford union, was the mother of Cecily Neville, wife of Richard, Duke of York and mother of Edward IV and Richard III.

It is also noteworthy that the Tudors were said to be descended from Edward I through his granddaughter Eleanor of Bar, daughter of the Count of Bar, apparently without intending to create a connection to earlier Plantagenets. If forged, that pretension was, however, unnecessary since Catherine of Valois was twice a descendant of Henry II through the Kings of Castile. However, the Wars of the Roses had ensured that any other claimants were either dead or too weak to challenge him. The throne was Henry's by right of conquest.

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