The Controversial Rise Of Henry VII: The First Tudor | Henry VII Winter King | Chronicle

so [Music] [Music] sailing from france an invading army is about to land in wales leader of this army was a refugee a fugitive a man who had spent half of his 28 years on the run and who had barely acclaimed the throne of england his name was henry tudor and as king henry vii he would create the dynasty that bore his name the tudors but henry vii remains obscure eclipsed by the monarch he deposed richard iii by the glamour and notoriety of his wife-killing son henry viii and the charisma of his granddaughter elizabeth the first [Music] yet henry vii is possibly the most extraordinary story of them all with a hunger for power and an iron determination to hang on to the throne at all costs he would rewrite history seizing the crown and rebuilding the monarchy in his own image he would become paranoid described later as an infinitely suspicious ruler a dark prince his reign seen as a bleak wintry landscape [Music] for years i've explored his murky story of spies and informers intrigue and extortion and i've found that the deeper you go the more you discover fascinating glimpses of this manipulative king [Music] who created one of the strangest regimes in history magnificent oppressive and terrifying this is the story of henry vii the first tudor [Music] this is henry it's what remains of his funeral effigy which was paraded through the streets of london after his death dressed in his parliament robes and clutching his auburn scepter of state we can see his fine boned features and the distinctive cast in his left eye but this is also a face emaciated and ravaged by illness and stress it's the face of a man who's never known a moment's peace henry's journey to fulfill his unlikely destiny brought him to milford haven on sunday the 7th of august 1485. his small fleet appeared from the south and anchored quietly in mill bay henry ships drop anchor here and his men come ashore and we can picture them heaving munitions onto the beach cannons horses coming through the surf henry wade's ashore and as he gets to this beach to the sand he sinks to his knees raises his eyes to heaven clasps his hands in prayer and says judge me o lord and favor my cause henry would need all the help he could get his army was a ragtag bunch of political dissidents and foreign mercenaries a mixture of different axes filled the air henry had deliberately chosen this windswept and distant corner of wales he wanted to slip in undetected giving him time to raise support in his welsh homeland before facing richard iii's much larger army and so this invasion really feels more than anything else it feels almost not like an invasion it feels very kind of furtive and anxious he knows that the odds are stacked against him [Music] henry made his way northwards to the homeland of his stepfather lord stanley the stanleys a powerful noble family had half promised henry their support the plan was to make for london but richard's army was now hot on his heels he had no choice but to turn and fight on the eve of battle henry knew richard's army was only a few miles away and that it massively outnumbered his own [Music] it had come down to this tomorrow he would claim the throne of england or he would die trying [Music] early on the morning of 22nd august 1485 henry advanced from over here towards richard's much bigger army drawn up on the ridge over here was to william stanley with his men watching as the battle unfolded stanley was keeping his options open he only wanted to back a winner [Music] seeing henry's army fragmented richard spotted his chance and charged in the carnage the two men fought nose to nose and henry's standard bearer was cut down and it was at this moment probably as he saw henry standard begin to topple that sir william stanley made his fateful decision at the crucial moment stanley's army piled in on henry's side richard it was said fought valiantly like a true king one of henry's men reportedly heard him shout i will die like a king this day or win and richard himself was swept away richard iii the king of england was viciously battered to death by mid-morning it was all over henry's men moved busily about the battlefield relieving the dead and dying of their valuables piling bodies onto carts on a nearby hill lord stanley placed the dead king's circlet on henry's head to the shouts of acclimation from his troops against all odds henry had achieved the impossible this man who had been a refugee and fugitive half his life had won the crown of england the battle of bosworth may have been over but the real struggle was about to begin for over half a century no monarch had passed on the crown without turmoil building a dynasty would be a battle that henry would fight for the rest of his life i'm taking off my shoes because i'm about to tread on what is one of the most extraordinary pieces of medieval art not just in england but in europe [Music] this is amazing [Music] it feels astounding to stand here every single english king and queen for that matter since 38 has been crowned on this spot precisely here and it was here on the 30th of october 1485 that henry vii was crowned it was a glorious triumphant occasion and henry must have felt as though he'd achieved almost the impossible this was an affirmation of his victory at bosworth it was a vindication of everything that he'd done that he prayed for on the beach at milford haven there was perhaps a sense too of something else after all henry had seen a crowned king richard iii killed disboiled mutilated and trust naked on the back of a donkey without so much as a rag to cover his genitals and he knew that what happened to richard iii could also happen to him henry's claim to the throne was precarious his mother lady margaret beaufort provided the only trickle of royal blood in henry's veins the beauforts were a great but illegitimate lancastrian family banned from ever claiming the throne on the other side of his family henry's grandfather owen tudor a fast-talking welsh servant had secretly married henry v's widow catherine some 50 years previously not exactly the ideal pedigree for a king henry was born a nobleman the earl of richmond but his upbringing in exile had left him with no experience of governing it had made him a sharp observer and a man who gave nothing away for england to believe that henry was the rightful king he would need to behave like one and that is exactly what he did parliament has met at westminster for over 800 years the official records of its debates meetings and acts stretch back to the middle ages in early november 1485 henry vii's first parliament met he would use it to tackle the inconvenient truth of richard iii's reign and to rework recent events to suit himself and here's the written proof the parliamentary record which shows how he did just that in this record richard iii is the usurper henry vii is the rightful king putting the record straight richard iii is referred to as the late duke of gloucester and afterwards indeed and not of right king of england and his legislation is referred to as the act of false and malicious imaginations there was one thing in particular during this parliament that henry did which sent a ripple of unease through the commons he rewrote history it simply consists of a date here now the battle of bosworth was fought on the 22nd of august 1485. but here henry vii has dated his reign the 21st in roman numerals day of august last past that's to say the day before the battle was fought we might ask what's in a day well by back dating his reign to the day before he beat richard iii and became king henry was effectively accusing everybody who had turned out for richard iii on the battlefield of treason [Music] the commons was shocked but in practice there was very little they could do about it henry had won his battle and he was king and here it is enshrined in parliamentary record with parliament sewn up henry's next move would bolster his position further a marriage to cement all his dynastic ambitions it was a strategic partnership the fulfillment of a pact made while he was in exile the pact on which his invasion was founded the previous 30 years had seen england torn apart in what would come to be known as the wars of the roses the house of lancaster represented by the red rose against the house of york represented by the white rose richard iii's coming to the throne in 1483 divided the house of york he imprisoned his young nephews two princes in the tower and proclaimed himself king the princes were never seen again their supporters fled to brittany where they found the young lancastrian henry a refugee in exile they agreed to support henry's challenge to the throne but only if he would marry elizabeth of york daughter of the late king edward iv it would be a union that promised to reconcile a divided england [Music] but henry needed something to reinforce this union something that would link this new dynasty with the english crown in the minds of his subjects so he brought in the decorators at westminster the seat of government he plastered his family emblems across the walls ceilings and windows they included a symbol so powerful in its simplicity that we still recognize it to this day this of course is a victorian building but we can get a sense of how these badges and emblems were deployed and used by henry we can still see his mother's badge the beaufort port cullis and alongside it the most significant emblem of all henry's red rose henry's revival of a rather obscure lancastrian emblem the red rose was a master stroke what it allowed him to do was to place his own rather sketchy credentials on a par with those of his wife elizabeth of york the white rose and together these two roses would combine to create the most potent and enduring emblem in english royal history the rose both red and white the tudor rose [Music] henry was stamping his mark on the nation [Music] but of course the tudor rose could only be truly embodied by an heir vital if henry was to build a dynasty [Music] and henry would not have to wait long named after king arthur the mythical king of britain prince arthur was born early on the rain last morning of the 20th of september 1486 at winchester the legendary seat of camelot [Music] this is a wonderful and very rare book it's a song book from henry vii court we can see in this song book a song celebrating prince arthur's birth and it says precisely this i love the rose both red and white it runs is that your pure perfect appetite to hear talk of them is my delight joyed may we be our prince to see and roses three so in other words arthur was the embodiment of the red and the white rose he was the tudor rose incarnate henry and elizabeth were lucky they would have more children including another son henry was building a myth that he and his family were the true and rightful royal blood of england but there were those who just didn't buy it in fact they would do their own rewriting of history to expose henry for the usurper he was [Music] what we have here is a genealogical role these family trees were owned by kings and noblemen to describe and sometimes invent their glorious ancestries and it's this part that we're interested in in particular and which tells us why henry was so very afraid and what he was afraid of we start here with edward iii the plantagenet king from whom both the yorkists and the lancastrians traced their lines of descent we can see here the lancastrian line coming down through henry iv henry v victor of agincourt and henry vi and then it stops because the lancastrians are exterminated and this thick red line is what this role believes to be the main line of royal descent and it goes to the yorkist king to edward iv and his wife elizabeth woodville the main line of descent carries on to richard iii but as we can see the line runs out it's actually unfinished henry is notably absent in this glorious vision of english kingship henry vii doesn't fit at all he's squashed in here and then a thick black line traces his descent all the way up and it goes past the lancastrian line it's not connected to it significantly and it keeps going and it keeps going up to here not to any king but simply to owen tudor a chamber servant so this role was composed for a family who took a very dim view of henry vii's claim to the throne indeed what was more they believed that they not he were the rightful kings of england the role belonged to a great yorkist family called the dilla pools john de la pool earl of lincoln was related to the late king richard iii and he claimed that richard had named him as his heir to the throne john de la pool earl of lincoln would in fact instigate the first serious rebellion of henry vii reign in 1487 lincoln's forces clashed with henry's troops in the east midlands but there would be no dead king as they had been at bosworth henry's battle-hardened army massacred lincoln's men and lincoln himself was slaughtered henry had won a decisive victory and removed a genuine yorkist contender for the throne [Music] with this threat eradicated he set about consolidating his rule he looked for new ways to drive home the power and permanence of his reign through magnificent architecture [Music] an opulent household and the thing dearest to his heart [Music] money look at the very first english girl so in the very first pound as a coin well this is uh this is an extraordinary privilege really to see these barry cook looks after the medieval coin collection at the british museum henry vii is the first person to think i will create a pound coin and he gives you this very special name sovereign and what he's doing with the word sovereign is to say i am sovereign over my land yes this is not a coin anybody used in their daily lives it's a way for the king to show his power and authority to it to spread his message to put in circulation literally it's a special message and in some ways the audience for this might not have been so much his own subjects but but foreign visitors so when ambassadors were visiting hedy would have given them a kind of royal goody bag as it were and along with them he would have given them a number of these a takeaway souvenir of henry's england absolutely you have a huge stonking gold coin what does that tell you about the person who gives it you in a casual way usually just the head of the monarch was featured but here henry sits full length on a great throne auburn scepter in hand and the imperial crown on his head every bit the image of a king but the most important part of the coin is on the reverse this is a tudor rose isn't it that's again the tradition in the medieval period you had a cross on the back of a coin but now we've got the tudor double rows on the arms of england superimposed upon it it's very specifically associating the coat of arms of england with the symbols of the tudor family dynasty the two are interlinked inextricable is reality um for power i mean that's what these things are they are the one way a ruler can get the message across to the widest number of people before the other to the modern world i mean they are the only mass media so what's on them is very important but while henry was starting to convince the international community that he was here to stay at home old rivalries simmered and the aftershocks of rebellion rippled on in early 1493 henry got wind of another plot yorkist exiles in europe were grooming a young man named perkin warbeck to impersonate one of the princes in the tower and were raising an army to invade england for henry this was a disaster many had accepted him as king only because the princes in the tower were presumed dead now with this supposed reappearance their loyalties would be torn after a decade of battling to establish his dynasty this was a threat that henry had to defuse spun a web of surveillance outwardly he was always calm and inscrutable giving nothing away but this masked a savage intensity he embedded spies in suspects households interviewing their servants and the chaplains and confessors to whom they opened their souls and he discovered his horror that the trail of conspiracy led him very close to home indeed in fact right to the heart of the royal household to his lord chamberlin who was responsible for the king's personal security this man was none other than sir william stanley whose intervention had won henry the battle of bosworth when henry's men searched stanley's house they found a yorkist livery collar studded with white roses and ten thousand pounds enough money to bankroll an army henry began to feel that he would never be able to convince everyone that he was the rightful king he would need to become even more vigilant starting with how he ran his household this is the fabulous great hall at hampton court henry's royal houses were destroyed centuries ago but hampton court is laid out along much the same lines this is the awe-inspiring public face of the royal household and just to get in here you would have had to have been one of the many hundreds of servants who worked here on a regular basis or an accredited visitor but the king was rarely seen here he resided in the state apartments which began behind this heavily guarded door and if your name wasn't down you weren't coming [Music] in this is one of the great public apartments and on the feast days of court it would have been packed with noblemen courtiers diplomats petitioners of all kinds hoping to catch a glimpse of the king [Music] but it was this door that people most wanted to get through and behind which very few indeed were ever admitted behind this door lay the secret or privy chamber the private apartments where the king worked slept ate and relaxed and it was what happened behind this door that would become synonymous with henry vii reign [Music] with the discovery of the stanley plot the privy chamber went into lockdown [Music] previously its workings were transparent but with the new security overhaul only those who would best content the king were admitted so at the heart of this glittering household was an institutional black hole whose workings were known only to henry himself [Music] inside the privy chamber things were changing henry was obsessed with control especially when it came to money the remit of his private chamber treasury was expanding these books are chamber accounts they're books of payments and what's interesting about these books is that they represent henry's very personal control of finance these account books are brought to him and he will look down everything and he will sign it at the bottom we have everything from from wages for trumpeters for barbers queen's minstrels the prince's trumpeters falcons brought from hungary falcons brought from hungary brilliant quite a journey brilliant historian sean cunningham has been studying henry's account books this one shows money coming directly into henry's personal coffers and these pages are written by henry himself i love this entry in particular we have money delivered in old weighty crowns you can you can sense him weighing it in his hand that's right just seeing what picking up this weighty crown huh that's good and then and then and then i like these good crowns yeah this is some these are some good crowns we have here and there's thousands of pounds worth of bullion going through the king's literally through the king's hands to henry money meant security and control and how he used it was key there's all sorts of of unofficial activity going on you'll have for example quite substantial rewards of tens or maybe hundreds of pounds sometimes being given to strangers and reward people from across the sea or certain persons riding on the king's business and here this is an interesting one sean who's this this is it's a servant charles probably said charles somerset who was one of the king's masters of intelligence yeah from anna flanders a man of flanders up to up to something or other on official business lack of full detail isn't it which is a bit frustrating well it's always a giveaway though isn't it if you haven't got the detail you have a sense that he's on his majesty's secret service henry was building up a dense network of spies and informers whose reach would extend into the furthest and darkest corners of the realm he would map the political loyalties of his subjects putting under surveillance those who look likely to cause trouble [Music] in 1497 warbeck the yorkist pretender who had caused henry such anxiety over the years was captured and eventually executed as the new century began henry vii had been on the throne for 15 years only now did he feel truly safe [Music] things seem good [Music] henry completed his magnificent new house on the thames west of london and named it after his earldom richmond [Music] here in his maze of rooms henry could control his allies and keep a close eye on his enemies the spanish ambassador was clearly impressed by the state of the nation england he said was remarkably tranquil previously he wrote there had always been a number of competing claims for the throne but now there remained only the true blood of henry vii queen elizabeth and their firstborn son and heir prince arthur there remained not a drop of doubtful royal blood left in the kingdom the stage was now set for the most significant moment of henry's reign so far a royal marriage that had taken a decade to broker his eldest son prince arthur was to marry a great spanish princess catherine of aragon for henry it would be the culmination of everything he had fought for setting the seal on his dynastic ambitions and the celebrations would be glorious on the early afternoon of friday the 12th of november 51 catherine's procession rode into the city across london bridge it was a dank grey drizzly afternoon but what awaited her was spectacular it was the first stage in the fortnight long series of wedding celebrations that would be henry's ultimate pr event and it would showcase his chief source of political capital his sons london was in a carnival mood [Applause] the heaving streets were a riot of color accompanying catherine of aragon on her procession through london was the king's younger son the ten-year-old prince henry loved the limelight already he was a boy with the popular touch but one thing was clear to everybody and to catherine in particular she was about to become part of something very special indeed but for one onlooker this lavish occasion provoked unease among the masses that lined the route craning to catch a glimpse of the princess was a young legal student called thomas moore moore later described the procession he'd been enraptured by catherine she was so beautiful he said that words couldn't do her justice but he ended on a slightly hesitant note i do hope he said that these celebrations will prove a happy omen it was as if in their splendor and magnificence that the festivities were somehow tempting fate the wedding was a triumph the tudor myth was turning into reality but as arthur and catherine left london to start their married life it wouldn't be long before thomas moore's words would be fulfilled late on the 4th of april 1502 a boat docked at greenwich where the king and queen were in residence a board was a messenger who brought terrible news prince arthur had caught the virulent sweating sickness and was dead [Music] henry was devastated [Music] on saint george's day prince arthur was laid to rest here at worcester cathedral far away from westminster and the glare of international attention it was a funeral befitting a prince reflecting the scale of the tragedy [Music] as a requiem mass was sung through this door the west door and through crowds of mourners rode a man on horseback wearing arthur's own plate armor and gripping a polax blade downwards the man at arms rode a black comparisoned war horse up the nave and into the choir arthur's coat of arms his sword and shield the symbols of his earthly roles were offered up and his coffin body was lowered into its grave to have seen the weepings when the offering was done wrote one herald he had a hard heart the web not [Music] this is arthur's chapel his final resting place the political impact of arthur's death was immense the tudor dynasty now hung by a thread the dynasty's future now rested on the shoulders of arthur's younger brother prince henry the king's only surviving son but elizabeth reassured the king that they were still young enough to have more children and sure enough within months she was pregnant the royal household moved here to the tower where elizabeth was to give birth she went into confinement surrounded by her ladies and gentle woman but it was a traumatic and premature labor with a raging temperature she slipped in and out of consciousness henry was beside himself messengers rode through the night to summon specialists but nothing worked on the 11th of february 1503 her 37th birthday elizabeth died [Music] their marriage had been one of genuine love and henry was shattered by her loss but of course their marriage had represented something else as well the union of lancaster and york the reuniting of england after decades of civil war [Music] many had accepted henry as king out of loyalty to elizabeth's yorkist family now her death threatened to tear the country apart all over again perhaps nothing summed up better the situation that henry now found himself in than a poem that thomas moore wrote on the occasion of elizabeth's death where are our castles now moore's poem read where are our towers goodly richmond soon are thou gone from me at westminster that costly work of yours my own dear lord now i shall never see moore was referring to the new chapel henry vii was building at westminster abbey [Music] adorned with all the familiar symbols of his kingship the beaufort port cullis and the tudor rose the chapel was intended to be yet another monument to the splendor of henry's dynasty [Music] thomas moore's poem struck at the heart of the mata henry could build all the magnificent buildings he wanted but without his wife the very foundations of his reign were shaken [Music] usually so inscrutable henry's reaction to elizabeth's death was one of complete physical collapse retreating into the depths of richmond he came close to death but when he emerged six weeks later the mask was back in place and his drive for control was even more remorseless the cornerstones of his reign his wife and air were gone and henry's crown was more at risk than ever [Music] old enemies had resurfaced john de la pool who had instigated the first rebellion against henry had died 15 years before but his younger brother the earl of suffolk was now a man and at large on the continent raising an army increasingly ill suspicious and unable to trust people henry saw conspiracy at every turn but his resolve was unshakable he would hang on to the crown whatever the cost if his subjects would not love him they would be made to fear him [Music] henry was perfecting a very effective system of repression his counsellors were experts in extortion they forced people into bonds and debts to the king to guarantee their good behavior and find people vast unpayable sums of money for everyone from nobles to merchants it was like being on permanent bail anybody who broke the conditions of these bonds faced financial ruin now betraying the king was not just unthinkable it was unaffordable [Music] this terrifying system was enforced by a shadowy tribunal known as the council learned in the law it would become the most notorious expression of henry's rule and the minutes of its meetings are recorded here in this book it wasn't legally constituted it wasn't the court of record but it consisted of a number of henry's most powerful legal advisors and this council answered directly and only to the king it relied on information supplied by the regime's network of informers and spies who provided details about offences committed or potential debts owing to the king and what's interesting about the council learn it is that it overrode a lot of the normal processes of government and of law it might for example interrupt normal legal processes that were going on and pluck them out of the process pluck them out of the system and haul them in front of this group of counsellors it acts with complete impunity it is totally unaccountable this was a process that struck fear and rage and frustration into those people who were caught up in his dealings of all the men associated with the council learned perhaps the most infamous and potent was a silver-tongued lawyer named edmund dudley dudley had spent six years working in the city of london networking and becoming intimately familiar with its corridors of power its major players and the intricate web of rivalry opportunism and distrust that linked the guilds and companies he saw firsthand the dodgy dealings and corrupt transactions of the bankers and merchants that made the city tick when in autumn 15 3 dudley resigned from his post he was given a golden handshake by a grateful city but what the city did not expect was that dudley was going to work for the king dudley was a poacher turned gamekeeper fast tracking him into royal service henry handed him an unprecedented role dudley's expertise lay in defining and enforcing the king's legal rights sifting through pages and pages of financial paperwork he used long forgotten laws to inflict crushing financial penalties on henry's subjects dudley described the brief he had been given henry he said wanted many persons in danger at his pleasure bound to his grace for great sums of money [Music] what dudley was doing was technically legal but it was stretching the law to its absolute limits it was he said extraordinary justice and nowhere was this extraordinary justice applied more thoroughly than in dudley's own stamping ground the city of london but as time passed the charges brought against people didn't just stem from obscure laws sometimes they were entirely fabricated perhaps nothing sums up the atmosphere of confusion and terror in the city at this time more than an appalling case of extortion involving the prosperous london haberdasher thomas sunif and his wife alice dudley falsely accused the sunifs of murdering a newborn child and dumping the body in the thames the phony charges were designed to make it seem that the sunifs had broken an existing bond for good behavior the fine for doing so was 500 pounds a huge sum of money sunif refused to pay instead he was carted off to prison where he stayed for three months when his case finally came to court the jury was rigged and the judges intimidated by the king's lawyers found him guilty [Music] with no prospect of release and fearing that he may have died in jail thomas sunif finally broke and paid up in his account book dudley entered sunip's fine of 500 pounds for a pardon for the murdering of the child as his men tightened their grip on the city henry had an incredible stroke of luck he received an unexpected guest at court in january 1506 philip of burgundy the man sheltering the earl of suffolk on the continent was shipwrecked on the coast of england seizing the opportunity henry welcomed this powerful prince with lavish hospitality but it was clear that philip was trapped henry would release him only if he agreed to hand suffolk over and so in mid-march a ship carrying the fugitive earl docked at the port of london a heavily armed reception committee marched him to the tower he would never emerge the threat of suffolk was finally gone but two decades spent fending off rebellion plot and conspiracy had left their mark this perpetual state of emergency had hardened into a way of rule and england was now in the grip of a system that people found both disorientating and terrifying henry's subjects were scared and they were resentful but they knew that henry could not go on forever closeted away at richmond his health had been failing for years [Music] all eyes were on prince henry and what sort of king he was going to be ever since prince arthur's death the king had wrapped prince henry in cotton wool keeping him confined in the royal household by 1507 prince henry was growing into a brilliant handsome and athletic teenager but his father's control had begun to chafe [Music] the king increasingly ill was only too happy to show off his son he allowed prince henry to organise the spring tournament the prince would be shown off but not in the way his father anticipated tournaments were spectacular events lasting for days and at their center were the chivalric superheroes of the age armored knights jousting on horseback but although he was proving a brilliant jouster prince henry was not allowed to fight his father had already lost one son and wasn't about to lose another toby capwell is the curator of arms at the wallace collection and has first-hand experience of the joust there's always risk in anything that's worth doing right and jousting would be pointless if it was completely safe when you you look at what they're fighting with this is a safe one this is the safe kind you have three prongs on the head and that prevents the lance from penetrating too much but still if you can imagine being struck by one of these in your face at a closing speed of 40 miles an hour or more in a collision that is in all respects very much like a car crash the danger is what makes it meaningful right strong bonds were formed in the jousting arena between knights their loyalties forged in combat like brothers in arms on a battlefield so while henry vii commanded loyalty through financial control his son prince henry would form his bonds in the tilt yard he's clearly built physically very differently from his father but also he thinks differently from him as well it's really just a matter of henry vii being perfectly aware of the importance of chivalry and chivalric display but he just wasn't willing to back that up with his own body whereas his son couldn't wait to get involved personally prince henry's friends put on a thrillingly violent display of jousting pushing the sport to its boundaries in a brash disregard for the rule book it was a performance that the king and his councillors found alarming but prince henry loved it caught up in the occasion he eagerly chatted with gentleman of low degree his openness a sharp contrast with his father's remote detachment so people started to see prince henry even at the tender age of 15 as someone who would be a return to a traditional kind of king valuing honor and glory over money he would privilege noblemen above lawyers and accountants an entirely different proposition to his calculating and distant father imperceptibly allegiances were starting to shift [Music] in january 1509 henry vii shut himself away at richmond his health was failing yet again only this time there would be no recovering at 11 o'clock at night on saturday the 21st of april 1509 henry vii died he had brought the kingdom to the brink of dynastic succession almost but not quite this is a pen and ink drawing of the scene around henry's bed in his privy chamber at the moment of his death here we can see one of the king's gentleman ushers closing henry's eyes at the moment of his death and we can see his doctors holding urine flasks among those present were some of henry's oldest and closest servants in the past century the deaths of kings have brought violence and instability to england and they were determined to make sure the same thing did not happen this time now the 14 people in this picture were the only people who knew that henry vii had died they had a unique opportunity to order events to their own advantage and this is precisely what they did they agreed to keep the king's death a secret for two days until the court gathered for the feast of the garter on saint george's day [Music] but in order to smooth the path of prince henry's succession there would need to be scapegoats people to take the rap for the wrongs that have been done in his father's name the new regime had to send out an emphatic statement that it would not be like the old one of those not at court on st george's day was edmund dudley he was away in the city dudley had failed to understand how resented and isolated his rapidly acquired power had made him and consequently he failed to watch his back [Music] he had become the unacceptable face of the old regime he was thrown into the tower on trumped-up charges of treason and finally executed [Music] as the 17 year old henry viii was proclaimed king he worked with a populist touch issuing a general pardon which promised reforms justice and the redressing of wrongs thomas moore's coronation poem celebrated the coming of this spectacular new young king and contrasted the rain to come with the dark days that had just passed this day is the end of our slavery the beginning of our freedom the end of sadness the source of joy now he said there were no thieves with their sly clutching hands and no longer does fear hiss whispered secrets in one's ear this king is loved moore also said that the crowning of the new king was like the coming of a new season but this reference to the seasons also said something else in fact it underscored a contrast that more emphasized throughout his poem if there was to be a new spring of joy and freedom it had to follow a winter of repression and fear if henry viii was the spring henry vii had been the winter [Music] henry vii funeral cortege processed through london's streets his effigy displayed on a carriage drawn by five horses draped in black velvet but for all the criticism of his reign henry vii had still achieved what he had set out to do he had passed on the crown of england westminster abbey is a national shrine the burial place of kings politicians poets and playwrights and this is where henry vii was laid to rest in the chapel he had been building for the past six years it was one of the architectural wonders of the age [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] it was described in the 16th century as miraculum orbis universally the wonder of the entire world and it really is a staggering building this spectacular mausoleum is henry's ultimate statement to the world [Music] not what we might expect from a wintry miser king [Music] so here they are henry buried according to his last will and testament alongside his dearest wife elizabeth [Music] these are idealized portraits of henry and elizabeth as they were in their prime they're intended to be eternal figures of kingship and queenship [Music] more than 500 years after his death henry's chapel remains at the heart of british political life it stands as testament to his extraordinary determination and will to power to everything he aimed for and wanted to be from an isolated beach in wales where he landed with little claim to the throne and even less hope he fought and he won his battles he unified a kingdom he accrued immense wealth but his greatest legacy would only become clear over time running around the tomb is an inscription henry it says was the most rich the most intelligent the most dignified the most glorious of kings and elizabeth his wife was the most beautiful the most chaste and the most fruitful not only had their marriage been a happy one but crucially it had also produced children the inscription concludes by saying that the land of england should count itself particularly lucky in the foremost of those offspring the current king henry viii lucky old england henry viii's reign would be turbulent in the extreme yet it was also his father's greatest achievement henry vii had created our most famous most notorious dynasty the tudors

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 159,623

Keywords: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries, british crown, british monarchy, british royalty, british rulers, henry VIII succession, historical documentaries, medieval england, medieval manuscripts, medieval politics, medieval rulers, rise of royals, royal families, royal lineage disputes, secrets of henry VII, tudor court, tudor dynasty history, tudor historical figures, tudor monarchs, tudor period, tudor secrets

Id: tRCDIzCIc4Q

Length: 58min 33sec (3513 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 30 2021