More information about:
Henry VII
Henry Tudor was born on 28 January 1457 in Pembroke, Wales. His father, Edmund Tudor, had died two months earlier and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, was just thirteen.
Henry was born into a country divided by conflict. He belonged to one branch of the Plantagenet Royal Family, the House of Lancaster, who were fighting another branch, the House of York, for control of the throne – the so-called Wars of the Roses. Henry’s mother Margaret was a descendant of Edward III, which gave Henry a real, although tenuous, claim to the throne.
Mindful of Henry's vulnerability, Margaret entrusted her son to the care of his uncle, Jasper Tudor. When Henry was 14, Edward IV won power for the House of York in the Battle of Tewkesbury. Many Lancastrians died or were executed as a result of the battle. Jasper fled with Henry to France.