lowborn Woodville family.
Even though on his father’s side, Edward V was a legitimate noble York, the English nobility had little enthusiasm for seeing Elizabeth Woodville’s child, Edward V, sitting on the throne of England.
It is reasonable to suppose that Richard of Gloucester, Edward IV’s youngest brother, shared the family’s antipathy for the pushy Woodville tribe. Richard of Gloucester, although a loyal supporter of his brother, Edward IV in all other things, was far from ecstatic over his new assignment to be Protector of the Prince, with responsibility for putting the crown on the head of his nephew, Edward of Westminster.
Common Englishmen strongly supported their very popular King Edward IV; therefore, it is unlikely that they openly opposed his son Edward V, because his mother Queen Elizabeth was a Woodville.
The Basis for Questioning Legitimacy of
Edward IV’s Children
Legitimacy of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville’s children had been raised in court gossip before his death on April 9, 1483. However, Edward IV’s great popularity rendered these previous mutterings of little importance. A challenge against the legitimacy of all children of Edward IV and his queen Elizabeth Woodville was raised in May after his death, and became the major basis for Parliament’s rejection of Edward V as England’s crowned king.
Edward IV was a notorious womanizer, and throughout his life, he had many mistresses. One of these was the widow Lady Eleanor (Talbot) Butler, who captured the king’s eye in 1461. It was rumored that he promised her marriage, if she would yield to his attentions. This affair was held to be of little importance throughout Edward’s twenty-two year reign. However, after his death, the climate of muted...
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...Proofs should not be multiplied beyond necessity.’
One of Henry Tudor’s first acts as King Henry VII in 1485, after usurping the throne from Richard III, demanded that Parliament restore legitimacy to all children of Edward IV. By this means, his Queen Consort Elizabeth of York (the oldest child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville) would not have a cloud of bastardy besmirch any children born to them. Legitimacy was of cardinal concern to Henry Tudor. More than enough bastardy existed in his genealogy. Henry’s father Edmund Tudor was born a bastard who had to be legitimized by Parliament before he was free to marry Henry’s mother, the Venerable Lady Margaret Beaufort. Moreover, her grandfather, John Beaufort was born a bastard of John of Gaunt and his mistress Katherine Swynford, before later being legitimized by Parliament and Pope Boniface IX in 1390.
Richard did not manage to recover from the usurpation of Edward and after allegedly murdering the two Princes in the tower his reputation had fallen greatly. He had lost a lot of respect from nobles and from the populus. Killing the Princes could be seen as one of the major factors of his downfall. It was common place in monarchical families to have brothers and sisters "put out of the picture", but even in these primitive times, the murder of innocent children was a taboo.
King Henry II died leaving the throne to his son Phillip who immediately freed his mother, Queen Eleanor, from semi incarceration. Once free, she took over the throne and ruled while King Richard left, against his mother’s wish, to the third
Edward never seemed interested in hierarchy, royalty or becoming king, many have said that all Edward wanted was to be normal, Edward embarked on an affair with Mrs. Freda Dudley ward in 1918, who was married with 2 young daughters, Edward fell “mad, passionately, abjectly in love with her”. He sometimes would write her three letters in a day, in one letter he wrote “I’m just dippy to die with YOU even if we can’t live together...” He said that he thought the “monarchy was a thing of the past” and “his father was out of touch”. Edward said in letters to various people “I feel quite ready to commit suicide and would if I didn’t think it unfair to Papa.” This presents him as being slightly unhinged.
Second, Richard's family is known to have been extremely close in their affections for each other. Richard's older brother, Edward IV, seems to have trusted Richard a great deal; when the younger sibling was a mere teenager, Edward had him commanding armies in the battles over the succession (a.k.a. The Wars of the Roses). When Edward made his will, he left Richard as Regent to protect the two sons--Edward, Prince of Wales and Richard of York--of the dying king and his wife Elizabeth.
When Henry VIII ascended to the throne in 1509, he became yet another English monarch without absolute power over his realm. Despite not having the same authority as his contemporary European monarchs, Henry was the recipient of two very important prerequisites for a successful reign. The first was a full treasury and the second was a peaceful transfer of power, which had been anything but certain in England since the War of the Roses. At first he was content to enjoy the fruits of his father’s labor, but ultimately he sought glory in his own name. Henry plunged into needless conflict in Europe, eliminated anyone who opposed him, and became so obsessed with securing a male heir that he engineered a split with the Catholic Church. It was this adventurous spirit that would lead to a decline in both of his key inheritances. Henry VIII may not have been an absolute monarch in the sense that his contemporaries were, but he often acted in a manner that resembled a supreme sovereign. Consequently, his reign seems to have been focused on his own ambitions instead of his subjects’ welfare.
Through his earlier years he was upsesed with conquering France. He had spent a lot of England’s money on senseless battles that achieved nothing. He invested lots of money into a navy. He also messed with everybody in Europe including Spain and he was just a man that was hated and loved at the same time. After he died in January 1547 his son Edward took over and reigned. The whole irony is out of all the years he wanted a boy to be his heir, Elizabeth ended up ruling for 43 years.
Edward IV's Reign and Success Edward’s reign was mainly stable and successful. He was the first king to die financially solvent in over 200 years due mainly to his careful avoidance of major foreign wars and by the end of his reign there was evident recovery of prosperity in the southern counties. However, Edward died too early to ensure that his heir would succeed him unchallenged. He had not created a collective commitment to the future of his dynasty that would make his heir strong enough to survive a minority reign. Although this was his main failure, he did not wholly succeed in all other actions through his reign.
his nephew he should be king, but the majority of the French were against Edward
believe that Richard didn’t trust the Southern English so he sent young Edward V and his brother up north to be guarded by
King Charles was not the only child of James VI and Anne of Denmark he had a sister named Elizabeth and elder brother Prince Henry of Wales who later on died in the year 1612 at the age of 18 of suspected typhoid. Heavy hearted was not even the word for King Charles after his brother died, due to the fact that King Charles was overshadowed by his older brother, someone to look up to. However sadness was not all that came from the death of Prince Henry something good came of it as well which was a bond that was created between King Charles and his sister Elizabeth while they mourned the death of their older brother together. Henry's death was King Charles open door to the throne as the new ...
Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. She was born on 7 September 1533 at Greenwich Palace. Her birth was possibly the greatest disappointment of her father's life. He had wanted a son and heir to succeed him as he already had a daughter, Mary, by his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. He had not divorced Katherine, and changed the religion of the country in the process, to have only another daughter. Elizabeth's early life was consequently troubled. Her mother failed to provide the King with a son and was executed on false charges of incest and adultery on 19 May 1536. Her marriage to the King was declared null and void, and Elizabeth, like her half-sister, Mary, was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the line of succession. The next eight years of her life saw a quick succession of stepmothers. There was Jane Seymour who died giving birth to the King's longed for son, Edward; Anne of Cleves who was divorced; Catherine Howard who was beheaded; and finally Catherine Parr. For generations, historians have debated whether the constant bride changing of her father was responsible for Elizabeth's apparent refusal to marry. It is certainly possible that the tragic fates of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard impressed upon her a certain fear of marriage, but there may have been other reasons for the Queen's single state, such as a fear of childbirth, which claimed the lives of a significant number of women in this period. Even if the Queen had no personal reservations about marriage, there were political problems with almost every contender for her hand. Religion was a major divisive issue, and there was also the problem of whether Elizabeth would have to relinquish any of her royal powers to a husband in an age when the political sphere was exclusively male.
King Henry VII was next in line to take over the throne, but could not, because of Richard the 3rd was king at that time. In August 22, 1485, Henry changed all of that, during the battle of Bosworthfield Henry killed Richard and became king of England (Meyer, G.J. pg114). During the time of King Henry’s reign there was a war going on between two families, The York and The Lancaster family. This war was known as the War of the Roses and had gone on for centuries, but Henry changed that on January 18, 1486, Henry of the Lancaster family and Elizabeth of the York family got married, because of their marriage the war had ended and it brought peace to England once again. King Henry and Elizabeth ended up having four kids, Arthur, Margaret, Henry, and Mary. Only two of them became rulers of England.
Shakespeare’s character, Gloucester, has two sons, Edmund and Edgar. Edmund is the illegitimate son, the result of Gloucester’s affair with his mother. Gloucester doesn’t let this idea rest, as even when he introduces his bastard son to Kent at the beginning of the play, it’s mentioned. “Though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport in his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged” (I.I.21-24). Gloucester openly denotes Edmund and puts him in his place as illegitimate and unfit to take his crown.
In conclusion, Henry VIII life was marked with tragedy and achievements. The overall reign of the Tudor Dynasty is the same. There were three children of Henry that took the throne: Edward, who improved some of the protestant problems, but was largely unsuccessful; "Bloody Mary" who murdered, destroyed, and angered the populace of England; and finally Elizabeth took the throne. It's ironic but Henry's least expected heir was actually the best. Princess Elizabeth saved the country with her intelligence, wisdom, and ingenuity, brought England to become a world power. To the best state the country had been in for years. Henry would have been proud of Elizabeth the Virgin Queen. Too bad the fate of not having an heir to the throne repeated and the dynasty was given over to the Spanish.
King Henry VIII didn’t even claim Queen Elizabeth I until she made it obvious that she was respectable at everything she did and was very intelligent to be so young. On top of all her knowledge, she was a girl and in that time period girls weren’t respected like they are today. Because Elizabeth’s mother, Anne, could not provide the King with a son she was executed on false charges of incest and adultery in 1536 on May nineteenth (“Queen Elizabeth I Biography”). Elizabeth was only three years old when her mother was accused of such actions. Following her mother’s death, Elizabeth went through countless step mothers. One of which giving the King his longed for son, King Edward VI (“Queen Elizabeth I Biography”). King Henry VIII married Jane Seymour twelve days after Elizabeth’s mothers’ execution. However, Jane passed away due to childbed fever ("Queen Elizabeth I: Biography, Portraits, Primary Sources."). It was Henry 's sixth and final wife, Katharine Parr, who had the greatest impact upon Elizabeth 's life. A kind woman who believed passionately in education and religious reform, it seemed as if Katharine was a devoted stepmother and took pride in helping Elizabeth further her