To What Extent Was Henry Vll Secure?

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To What Extent Was Henry Vll Secure?

Henry was fairly insecure regarding the throne, referring to his

relations with the Yorkists, pretenders, rebellions, the nobility,

finance and his succession.

Henry had bad relations with the Yorkists, after defeating Richard III

at the battle of Bosworth in 1485 he became king by right of conquest

and therefore all the Yorkists would be against him for killing their

former monarch.

Henry descended from Edward III son, John of Gaunt, but only through

his mistress Katherine Swynford, the Lancastrian Henry was aware that

his right to the throne by descent was not to strong, and there were

at least a dozen others with a better claim. Because of this fact many

resented him and especially the Yorkists, Through the Acts of

Attainder those Yorkists who fought against Henry were traitors and he

could legally take their land and possessions, he used this way to

remove many Yorkists from power to solve the problem of the large

amount of 'over mighty subjects'.

There were a few early threats from Yorkists during Henry VII reign.

John de la pole was the nominated heir to the throne and therefore

obviously wouldn't have liked Henry's actions; however he was put on

the council by Henry as he was seen as a good member to have after

swearing loyalty to the king, but later died fighting against Henry in

the battle of East Stoke. In order to patch relations up between the

two houses Henry cleverly decided to unite the house's together, and

with this Henry hopefully thought he may be able to avoid another war

of the roses which could lead to his usurpation so in January 1486 he

married Elizabeth of York, Edward VI's daughter to unite the houses of

York and Lancaster. This seemed to patch relationships up between the

houses although some bore a grudge all through his reign like the De

la pole family. Therefore he did try to reduce the threat from the

Yorkists, but sparks still remained.

During Henrys reign there were two great pretenders, the first was

Lambert Simnel, he was an imposter to the English throne, he met

Richard Symonds who trained him to impersonate Richard, Duke of York,

younger son of Edward IV, but the plan was changed and Simnel was

taken to Ireland, claiming that he was Edward, Earl of Warwick, which

would have given him a strong claim to the throne.

A number of Yorkists supported him; many knowing this were only a fake

just so that they could get back into Yorkists rule, in May 1487

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Simnel and his supporters, led by John de la Pole crossed to England

and were defeated by Henrys forces. Margaret of Burgundy also

supported Simnel as she was brother of Richard III and wanted to see

the Lancastrians defeated. When Simnel was caught he was pardoned,

this suggested he was just a puppet in the hands of the Yorkists.

He was never a real threat to Henry and the events lasted less than

one year and Simnel never had much evidence he was real and the rebel

support he gained was easily defeated by Henry.

However the second ...

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