How important was foreign support for Henry Tudor in explaining Richard III

Authors Avatar

History Essay

How important was foreign support for Henry Tudor in explaining Richard III’s defeat at Bosworth?

Richard III had proved to be a strong king. Richard had many strength such as crushing Buckingham’s rebellion and taking Buckingham’s heir as his ward after Buckingham was executed. He stopped Henry Tudor’s initial invasion of England. Also by 1483 there was no more open opposition to him and the threat from the Woodville’s was extinguished with many of them in exile and who ever was left was rendered powerless. After crushing Buckingham’s rebellion he confiscated a huge by both Buckingham and the nobles who had joined his rebellion, this land he then controlled and used to reward those who were loyal to him and also gain capital from the lands by letting them out. Two years later half the peers of the realm were firm supporters of Richard III. So how was it that such a strong king was able to be defeated by someone who was foreign in the eyes of many?

        Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne was very weak but then so was Richard III’s. His grand-mother was the mother of Henry IV; this proved that he came from a line of royalty. He also came from nobility as his uncle Jasper Tudor was the Earl of Pembrokeshire. Even though he had a link to a past king Henry Tudor had fled England when Henry VI was finally deposed so he wasn’t very known in England which meant that he did not have the loyal support Richard III had in his powerbase in the north of the country. This lack of support should have meant that he was unable to usurp the throne however many people disliked Richard because there was rumours going around that he had killed the two princes Edward (who was supposed to become king) and Richard the younger of the two brothers because these rumours circulated many people who were loyal to Edward IV refused to accept Richard III so they did not oppose Henry when he arrived in England.

Join now!

Henry Tudor tried to invade England during Buckingham’s rebellion but failed because he was supposed to be met by Buckingham but as the rebellion failed and Buckingham was executed he didn’t even manage to land on English soil and went back to exile in Brittany. This hopeful invasion made him a known threat to Richard III which he knew he had to exterminate, he also knew where to find Henry Tudor in Brittany and set into motion his plans to crush him. Richard III made a deal with the Duke of Brittany in which meant that the Duke would ...

This is a preview of the whole essay