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Shakespeare's later Tudor view of Henry VII changed very little between the first study of the reign by Francis Bacon in 1622 and Henry's last academic biography, by Stanley Chrimes, in 1973

Henry Tudor could not understand the problems he faced, and was essentially a bad medieval king. He could only have changed their policies after he had learned how to be an effective king. However, this interpretation takes little account of Henry's particular circumstances in 1485. It was precisely because of his unique upbringing and disconnection from England that Henry Tudor was able to bring new ways of doing things to his kingdom. Between about 1480 and 1520 England was certainly transformed from what Nicholas Pronay described as the 'merry but unstable England ruled by Edward IV to the tame, sullen and tense land inherited by Henry VIII'

It was control of personal relationships and mental attitudes among the people who represented the king that Henry VII saw as the key to forcing change upon the medieval ruling structures he inherited

he became heir to the French throne through his marriage to Margaret of Valois

Despite converting to Catholicism after becoming king of France in 1589, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes to foster religious tolerance. He was killed on May 14, 1610, in Paris, France

the spread of civil war made him reflect on its disastrous effect on France

The fortunes of the Tudor dynasty were laid by the most romantic mésalliance in English history, the secret betrothal of a Welsh attendant at the Court of Henry VI to the dowager queen

Henry V, the hammer of the Welsh, had continued his father's proscription of the whole nation in punishment for the rebellion

Owain's marriage to Katherine of Valois, although hubristic, was not annulled when discovered, and the fruit of its consummation, the two sons, Edmund and Jasper, were not declared illegitimate.

On July 31st, 1589, a young Jacobin friar, Jacques Clément, left Paris for the suburb of Saint-Cloud where Henry III of France had set up his military encampment.

As he did so, the friar produced a knife that he had hidden in the capacious sleeve of his habit and plunged it into Henry’s abdomen

Henry died early the next morning bringing to an end the Valois dynasty that had occupied the French throne since 1328. Henry III was the first king of France to be assassinated by one of his own subjects

One of the most extraordinary events of the 16th century was the election in 1573 of a French prince to the throne of Poland. The prince was Henri, the third son of Henry II of France.

Catherine’s two eldest sons, François and Charles, were kings of France successively. Henri also succeeded to that throne in 1574. Their sister, Marguerite, became queen of Navarre by marrying the future Henri IV of France in 1572

The Polish throne, unusually, was elective. Since 1386 the election had been in practice limited to members of the Jagiellon dynasty, but now, for the first time, it was to be free. Five candidates offered themselves including John III of Sweden, Ivan IV, Tsar of Muscovy, the Archduke Ernest, son of the Emperor Maximilian II, and Henri, Duke of Anjou

Louis XII became king of France by accident. Or, more precisely, because of an accident. On April 7th 1498, his cousin, the reigning monarch Charles VIII, stumbled and hit his head on the lintel of a doorway through which he was passing on his way to watch a tennis match in the royal chateau at Amboise. The king had recently been ill. He seemed to be recovering but this final blow in a life full of hard knocks finished him off. Having no surviving male heir, the crown passed to his nearest male relative, Louis duke of Orleans, who was crowned king in Rheims cathedral on 27 May 1498

Louis ended his reign having reformed the French legal system, reduced taxes, having enjoyed some military success in Italy and bearing the loving accolade, 'Father of the People'. In many respects he stands comparison with his contemporary, Henry VII of England

Louis was born in 1462 during the reign of his second cousin Louis XI. His father was Charles duke of Orleans, a celebrated poet and the head of a cadet branch of the royal house of Valois. Louis XI was succeeded by his son, Charles VIII, in 1483

the diplomatic nightmare of the trial and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots

the French crown maintained the only permanent embassy of Elizabeth’s reign

The Spanish embassy was a stormy one, suspended between 1572 and 1578 and permanently terminated in 1584

One was of Henry VIII of England and the other was of Francis I of France. Their symbolic presence at the beginning of an ambitious project designed to link England and France was especially appropriate. Henry VIII is often called a 'Renaissance prince' and is popularly remembered for his ebullience and the extraordinariness of his reign

influenced by his relationship with that other 'Renaissance prince', Francis I

France and England been so drawn together by some higher ideal or imperative

In June 1488, just three years after Henry VII’s unlikely victory in the English Midlands, James IV became king on the battlefield of Sauchieburn south of Stirling, close to the spot where Robert Bruce had won his great victory over the English at Bannockburn in 1314.

James IV was brought up at Stirling Castle by his mother, Margaret of Denmark, alongside his two younger brothers. The queen had produced three healthy sons but she and James III led separate lives after an earlier rebellion in 1482. The king, who had managed to alienate all of his siblings, believed that his wife had sided with his brother, the Duke of Albany, when the duke returned from exile in France and invaded Scotland with the future Richard III of England. James III seems also to have felt that his eldest son was tainted by contact with Albany and perhaps considered barring the boy from the succession

James IV was ruler of a land famously described in a letter written by its own nobility in 1320 to Pope John XXII as ‘the tiny country of Scotia lying on the very edge of the inhabited world’. Scotland was poor, cold and wet. Edinburgh, its capital, held only 12,000 citizens, in contrast to London’s 50,000. Yet, like its new monarch, the country was not inward-looking.  Difficulty of travel by road over rugged terrain meant that it had long relied on sea routes for transport and communication with the wider world. The kings of Scotland were determined not to be overlooked in Europe. They forged trade and political alliances with Scandinavia and were long-standing allies of the French, who viewed Scotland as a brake on the ambitions of England. The two countries that occupied the island of Britain were natural enemies, nowhere more so than in the Borders, where centuries-old feuds and the violence that fuelled them were adjudicated by special courts composed of English and Scots. But James III had attempted a policy of conciliation with England that was unpopular with his aristocracy and Henry VII, a cautious man, did not relish constant war with his northern neighbour. It remained to be seen how James IV would approach Anglo-Scottish relations and how he would develop his ambition to make Scotland a European power.

under whose reign the prolonged crisis of the Wars of Religion was made worse by dynastic rivalries arising because the male line of the Valois dynasty was going to die out with him

In 1572 she presented him as a candidate for the vacant throne of Poland, to which he was finally elected in May 1573. In May 1574, however, Charles died, and Henry abandoned Poland and was crowned at Reims on Feb. 13, 1575. He was married two days later to Louise de Vaudémont, a princess of the house of Lorraine. The marriage proved childless.

The French Wars of Religion (1562–98) continued during Henry III’s reign

Henry was the second son of Henry VII, first of the Tudor line, and Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, first king of the short-lived line of York. When his elder brother, Arthur, died in 1502, Henry became the heir to the throne; of all the Tudor monarchs, he alone spent his childhood in calm expectation of the crown, which helped give an assurance of majesty and righteousness to his willful, ebullient character.

More serious was Henry’s determination to engage in military adventure. Europe was being kept on the boil by rivalries between the French and Spanish kingdoms, mostly over Italian claims; and, against the advice of his older councillors, Henry in 1512 joined his father-in-law, Ferdinand II of Aragon, against France and ostensibly in support of a threatened pope, to whom the devout king for a long time paid almost slavish respect.

The cardinal had some occasional ambition for the papal tiara, and this Henry supported; Wolsey at Rome would have been a powerful card in English hands. In fact, there was never any chance of this happening, any more than there was of Henry’s election to the imperial crown, briefly mooted in 1519 when the emperor Maximilian I died, to be succeeded by his grandson Charles V.

France was then sharply divided by religion. Thousands of Protestants, or Huguenots, had been massacred in Paris and other cities in 1572, but they remained strong in the south and west, while Paris was fiercely Catholic. Though a Catholic himself, Henry III lacked the means to take on the Huguenots in an all-out war.

accused the mignons of destroying Henry III’s virility

Monarchs were used to distributing special favours to certain members of their entourage in return for their loyalty and services. The first French king to do so was Philip III, ‘the Bold’ (1270-85). A long line of favourites can be traced through the succeeding reigns until that of Louis XIV, who had none. Henry III seems to have had more than any other French king. They can be divided into two groups: the first, formed in the 1570s, comprised some 20 young men, roughly of the same age as Henry. They belonged to families of the provincial nobility (or noblesse seconde), which had served the crown for generations. The second group was formed in the 1580s. It consisted of only two men, Anne de Joyeuse, baron d’Arques and Jean-Louis de La Valette. They became far more powerful than their predecessors and were known as the archimignons

Henry succeeded his father, Henry V, on September 1, 1422, and on the death (October 21, 1422) of his maternal grandfather, the French king Charles VI, Henry was proclaimed king of France in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) made after Henry V’s French victories.

the English hold on France was steadily eroded; despite a truce—as part of which Henry married (April 1445) Margaret of Anjou, a niece of the French queen—Maine and Normandy were lost and by 1453 so were the remaining English-held lands in Guyenne.

York was lord protector, but his hopes of ultimately succeeding Henry were shattered by the birth of Edward, prince of Wales, on October 13, 1453

The queen of France, Marie de’ Medici, had been crowned the previous day at the basilica of Saint Denis and was due to make her formal entry into the capital.

French queens were not crowned as a matter of course and Henry IV, king of France since 1589, saw no reason to go to the expense of a coronation for his second queen whom he had married in 1610

The alarm was shared by France, which had been at war with the Habsburg empire for much of the 16th century. Religion was also involved, as the Catholic Habsburgs were opposed by many German Protestant princes. Henry IV was urged to intervene militarily, but he had hesitated initially.

Firstly, that Henry VIII failed to achieve his primary goal, which was to recover the French empire which had been conquered by Henry V

his foreign policy was often incoherent, thus allowing more wily operators, such as King Ferdinand of Aragon and the Emperor Maximilian, to manipulate him

He only succeeded in capturing the towns of Therouanne and Tournai in northern France in 1513, and these were soft targets

a vigorous suppressor of Protestants within his kingdom

Henry was sent with his brother Francis, the dauphin, as a hostage to Spain in 1526

In foreign affairs Henry continued his father’s warfare against the Holy Roman emperor Charles V

The first of these rulers whom he served was Llywelyn the Great, the most eminent of all the independent Welsh princes, who married Joan, the daughter of King John, and played his part in the winning of the Great Charter

But the link between it and the dynasty was slender; merely that it belonged to the descendants of King Henry VII’s greatgrandfather’s eldest brother. This brother, that is, Goronwy, is known to have served in France, probably in the army of the Black Prince. He died by drowning in Kent in 1382, and his brother, Ednyfed, seems to have died about the same time

Through their mother, the five sons of Tudur ap Goronwy were first cousins of Glyn Dwr, and three of them, also, Goronwy, Rhys and Gwilym, are known to have been, at one time or another, in the retinue of Richard II

In 1388 Charles VI assumed full authority himself.

In 1392 the king lost his sanity, a shocking event that aroused popular solicitude for the crown. His recurrent lapses into insanity, however, played into the hands of his uncles. Philip the Bold again dominated the council. Fortunately for France, England was incapable of renewing the war.

When conflict with England was renewed in the 15th century, circumstances had changed. Henry IV of England was committed to the recovery of English rights in France

The restoration of royal authority was not, of course, simply a matter of adjusting theories of kingship; there was a clear practical reason for Henry’s success. The country had tottered on the brink of disintegration for three decades. By the time of Henry’s succession, it was generally recognized that only a strong personality, independent of faction, could guarantee the unity of the state, even though unity meant religious toleration for the Protestant minority. In the Edict of Nantes (April 13, 1598) Henry guaranteed the Huguenots freedom of conscience and the right to practice their religion publicly in certain prescribed areas of the country.

Although the problem of religion was not finally settled by the Edict of Nantes, Henry did succeed in effecting an extended truce during which he could apply himself to the task of restoring the royal position

The chief need of the monarchy was to improve the financial situation, parlous since the days of Henry II’s wars and aggravated by the subsequent internecine conflict.

mother of the last Valois Kings

preserve the authority of the monarchy through the years of its degradation

Médicis Queen entered the capital as the prospective mother of the new Bourbon dynasty