1400 Monarchy Flashcards
Henry VI
1422 - 1461
Henry IV
1399 - 1413
Henry VII
1485 - 1509
Henry V
1413 - 1422
Edward V
1483
Edward IV
1461 - 1470 and 1471 - 1483
Richard III
1483 - 1485
HENRY VI FACTS
- Coming to the throne at the age of just 9 months old, Henry VI set a record (which still stands today) as the youngest ever king of England.
- For the first twenty years of Henry’s reign, it was his uncle’s and others who governed for him in England and also France, which he had inherited under the treaty which his victorious father had made in 1420.
- In 1422 Henry became King of France on the death of his maternal grandfather Charles 6th King of France.
- The French disliked being ruled by England. In 1429, Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl, led the French armies to many victories against the English, before she was captured and charged for being a witch and burnt alive. Later she was made a saint and there is a statue of her in Winchester Cathedral.
- By 1453, Henry had lost the English claim to all French soil except for Calais.
- Henry was often very ill during his reign. In 1453, the king had a mental breakdown and Richard, Duke of York, was made protector. The king recovered in 1455, but civil war broke out between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions. The ensuing struggle came to be known as the War of the Roses.
- Henry VI founded Eton College in 1440.
HENRY V FACTS
- King of England
- Henry was and is still, thanks to Shakespeare, the best known and most popular of all English Kings.
- He was the first English king who could read and write easily in English.
- Henry was 14 years old when he fought his first battle.
- Perhaps he is best remembered for his victory against the French at the Battle of Agincourt
- Died at the age of 35 from dysentery
- Henry’s son Henry 6th becomes King of England and France but he is only 9 months old.
HENRY IV FACTS
- Henry came to the English throne by force. He made his cousin Richard ll, abdicate, and then seized the crown himself. This started a dispute between the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
- Henry’s coronation on 13 October 1399 was the first occasion after the Norman Conquest when the monarch made an address in English.
- 1400 - Death of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer leaving The Canterbury Tales unfinished.
- Henry died of leprosy in 1413.
RICHARD III FACTS
- Prime suspect to the suspected murders of the two princes, Edward and Richard.
- Shakespeare portrayed Richard as the most evil of Kings.
- Richard was killed in battle against Henry Tudor (Henry VII) ending the Wars of the Roses. He was the last English King to die on the Battlefield.
EDWARD V FACTS
- Elder son of Edward IV. He was deposed two months and 17 days after his accession in favour of his uncle (Richard III), and is traditionally believed to have been murdered (with his brother) in the Tower of London on Richard’s orders.
- Died: 3 September 1483 at Tower of London (murdered), aged 12 years
- Ascended to the throne: 9 April 1483 aged 12 years
- Buried at: Tower of London
- Succeeded by: his uncle Richard III
EDWARD IV FACTS
- Edward IV was twice king of England, winning the struggle against the Lancastrians to establish the House of York on the English throne.
- Edward IV was the first Yorkist King of England.
- Edward defeated the Lancastrians in a series of battles, culminating in the Battle of Towton in 1461. With the Lancastrian king, Henry VI, overthrown, Edward was crowned Edward IV.
- 1470 - 71 Henry VI briefly restored as king
- 1471 - Edward is restored to the throne and with his wife Elizabeth Woodville produce their first of 10 children and heir to the Yorkist throne also a Prince Edward.
- During his reign the first printing press was established in Westminster by William Caxton.
HENRY VII FACTS
- 1471 - Henry aged 14 fled to Brittany, France, when Lancastrian King Henry VI was murdered by Yorkist King Edward IV making Welsh Henry next in line to the throne.
- 1485 - Henry gained the throne when he defeated and killed Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. The battle ended the War of the Roses, a dispute between the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
- Immediately following his victory at Bosworth he married the Yorkist heiress, Edward IV ‘s daughter, Elizabeth to consolidate the warring families.
- Henry VII kept England peaceful and brought riches to the crown and country.
The War of the Roses
From 1455 - 1487
The Wars of the Roses were a series of civil wars fought in medieval England from 1455 to 1487. For thirty - two years, a bitter struggle for the English throne was waged between two branches on the same family, the House of York and the House of Lancaster, both descended from Edward lll.
The War of the Roses began in 1455, when many barons resented the way that the Lancaster family had seized the throne in 1399 and felt that Henry V, IV or VI were not the rightful kings. (Henry IV, the first Lancastrian King, came to the English throne by force. He made his cousin Richard ll, abdicate, and then seized the crown himself.) According to the barons, the York family, cousins of the Lancasters, were truly entitled to reign.
The Battle of Stoke is considered by most people as the final conflict in the Wars of the Roses.
The Struggle for power was know as the War of the Roses because the Lancaster emblem was a red rose and the York emblem a white rose.
The battle of Bosworth is one of the most important battles in English history. It led to the War of the Roses, and planted the Tudor house on the throne of England.
