The House of Tudor ruled England from the late 15th century through the 16th century. Henry VII, who came to the throne in 1485, was the first Tudor monarch. His successor was his son, Henry VIII (reigned 1509–47). The other Tudor sovereigns were Henry VIII’s son, Edward VI (1547–53), and his daughters, Mary I (1553–58) and Elizabeth I (1558–1603).
The family traced its descent from the Welsh border lord Owen Tudor. In about 1428, while a courtier in attendance at the court of Henry VI, Tudor became the lover and possibly the husband of Catherine of Valois, the widow of Henry V. The Tudor claim to the throne, however, was based on the marriage of Edmund Tudor, the eldest son of Owen and Catherine, to Margaret Beaufort. Beaufort was a descendant of Edward III through John of Gaunt, the founder of the Lancastrian line. The future Henry VII, who succeeded at birth to his father’s title of earl of Richmond, was the son of this union.
During the Wars of the Roses, as the only remaining claimant of the House of Lancaster, Henry made two attempts to win the English crown. In the second attempt, fought at Bosworth Field in 1485, Richard III, the Yorkist king, was defeated and slain. Henry was acknowledged as sovereign by being crowned with the fallen monarch’s crown picked up on the battlefield. He then proceeded to end the Wars of the Roses, which had lasted for 30 years. He married Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV and heiress of the House of York. The emblem known as the Tudor Rose symbolized this union. It represented the red rose of the Lancastrians superimposed on the white rose of the Yorkists.
During the Tudor reigns the dynasty gave its name to a new style of architecture in which the medieval, fortresslike castle gave way to the brick-and-stone manor house. This unprotected country seat featured rectangular mullioned windows and large bay windows called oriels that overlooked courts, parks, and gardens. Typical examples of the Tudor palaces and manor houses are Hampton Court in the Greater London borough of Richmond upon Thames; St. James’s Palace in London; and Compton Wynyates in Warwick.
Under the Tudor monarchs the perpendicular-vaulted style in Gothic architecture was further developed. Henry VII’s chapel in Westminster Abbey in London is an example. The Tudor period of furniture design is among the most distinctive in the history of English interior decoration.
The Tudor period attained its greatest flowering during the long reign of Elizabeth I, which is called England’s Golden Age. At Elizabeth’s death in 1603 the crown passed to James VI of Scotland. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. When he was enthroned as James I of England, he became the founder of the House of Stuart.