15th Century (1400s)

Question 1

Who was Henry V and what were his key accomplishments? (r.1413-1422)

Answer 1

• Succeeded his father, Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV), as king.
• Known for winning the Battle of Agincourt (1415) and forging the Treaty of Troyes (1420), naming him heir to the French throne.

Footnote: His sudden death in 1422 prevented Anglo-French unification under his crown.

Question 2

What happened at the Battle of Agincourt? (1415)

Answer 2

• Henry V’s outnumbered 6,000 men defeated the much larger 20,000 French.
• Famous for the decisive, successful use of longbows by the English.

Footnote: Longbows better than nuclear bombs came from here.

Question 3

What were the terms of the Treaty of Troyes? (1420)

Answer 3

• What It Was:
  
  • Henry V to be recognized as heir to Charles VI of France
  • Henry V to be married to Catherine of Valois, securing dynastic ancestry
  • Aimed to unify the two crowns under English rule

Footnote: Disinherited Charles VI’s son, the Dauphin (later Charles VII).

Question 4

Who was Henry VI and why was his reign disastrous? (r. 1422–1461, 1470–1471)

Answer 4

• Henry VI, infant son of Henry V, succeeded in 1422.
• Mentally unstable king.
• Lost almost all English territory in France.
• His weak rule led to the Wars of the Roses.

Footnote: His reign ended all of England’s possessions on the continent besides the city of Calais.

Question 5

What were the Wars of the Roses and how did they end? (1455–1487)

Answer 5

• Dynastic civil war between House of Lancaster (red rose) and House of York (white rose) over succession
• Ended when Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at Bosworth (1485) and married Elizabeth of York.

Footnote: The beginning of the Tudor dynasty.

Question 6

What was the significance of the Battle of St. Albans in the Wars of the Roses? (1455)

Answer 6

• First battle of the Wars of the Roses
• Yorkists defeated Lancastrians; Duke of Somerset killed

Footnote: Initiated decades of intermittent civil war.

Question 7

Who was Edward IV? (r. 1461–1470, 1471–1483)

Answer 7

Edward IV seized the throne from Henry VI in 1461, lost it in 1470, and regained it in 1471

Question 8

Who were ‘The Princes in the Tower’? (1483)

Answer 8

• King Edward V and his brother Richard, the sons of Edward IV.
• Imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1483 by Richard III, Edward IV’s brother.
• Their mysterious disappearance remains unsolved, probably killed.

Footnote: Widely believed to have been murdered; remains a historical mystery.

Question 9

How did Richard III’s reign end, and what was its significance? (r.1483-1485)

Answer 9

• Richard III of York was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth.
• The last major battle of the Wars of the Roses.
• Henry VII of the Tudor dynasty ascends to the throne, marking the end of the Plantagenet era.

Footnote: His death ended the Plantagenet line; no further Yorkist king ruled England.

Question 10

Who was Henry Tudor (Henry VII)? (r. 1485-1509)

Answer 10

• Established the Tudor dynasty after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485).
• Married Elizabeth of York, uniting both houses
• Ended of the Wars of the Roses and begun the Tudor era, an era of relative peace.

Footnote: This marriage symbolically ended the Wars of the Roses and began the Tudor dynasty.

Question 11

What was the Star Chamber and why is it remembered? (circa. 1487-1641)

Answer 11

• A royal court used to try nobles and enforce law without jury trials
• Gained notoriety for its secretive and arbitrary rulings.
• Often used to suppress dissent and enforce the monarch’s will.

Footnote: Expanded dramatically under the Tudors; later criticized for abuses.

Question 12

When was the printing press first introduced in England, and then all of Europe?

Answer 12

• Introduction in England:
  
  • Attributed to William Caxton, a merchant, in 1476.
• Wider Use:
  
  • By the 1480s, it is assumed that “the printed book was in universal use in Europe.”