Henry VII Tudor

Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, was the English magnate whose claim to the throne opened the Wars of the Roses and whose sons became Edward IV and Richard III. Born in 1411, he inherited vast estates and a double descent from Edward III, through his father Richard of Conisburgh and his mother Anne Mortimer. He served as the king's lieutenant in France and in Ireland and twice as Lord Protector during the incapacity of Henry VI, pressing his case against the court party led by Queen Margaret of Anjou. In October 1460 parliament recognised him as heir to the throne in place of the king's son, but he died at the Battle of Wakefield that December. Through his granddaughter Elizabeth of York his blood passed into the Tudor line.

Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, was an English noblewoman remembered as the matriarch of the House of York, mother of two kings and great-grandmother of Henry VIII. Born at Raby Castle in County Durham in 1415, the youngest daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, and Joan Beaufort, she married Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and bore him at least twelve children, among them Edward IV, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard III. Widowed in 1460, she outlived her husband by thirty-five years and most of her children, living in careful devotional retirement at Berkhamsted Castle with a household routine modelled on a religious rule. She died in 1495, having seen her granddaughter Elizabeth of York crowned queen to the first Tudor king.

Edward IV was king of England from 1461 to 1470 and again from 1471 to 1483, the first monarch of the House of York and the maternal grandfather of Henry VIII. Born at Rouen in 1442, the eldest surviving son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, he took the throne as a teenager after his father's death in the Wars of the Roses and won decisive victories at Towton, Barnet and Tewkesbury. His secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 alienated his chief ally, the Earl of Warwick, and drove him briefly into exile. His second reign brought England relative peace, a revived royal revenue and a fashionable court. He died in 1483, and three years later his eldest daughter Elizabeth of York married Henry VII.

George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, was an English prince of the House of York, a younger brother of Edward IV and Richard III and the father of Margaret Pole. Born at Dublin Castle in 1449 while his father served as the king's lieutenant in Ireland, he was created Duke of Clarence at his brother's coronation in 1461. In 1469 he married Isabel Neville, elder daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and joined his father-in-law's rebellion against the king before changing sides again and being reconciled. Relations with Edward IV broke down once more after Isabel's death, and he was attainted by parliament and died in the Tower of London in February 1478. His daughter Margaret carried the Plantagenet bloodline into the Tudor century.

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, was an English noblewoman and one of the last of the House of Plantagenet, a first cousin of Elizabeth of York and for many years a trusted figure at the court of Henry VIII. Born in 1473 to George, Duke of Clarence, and Isabel Neville, she was married to Sir Richard Pole, a loyal servant of Henry VII, and bore five children, among them Cardinal Reginald Pole. Henry VIII restored her to the earldom of Salisbury in her own right in 1513, a rare distinction for a woman, and appointed her governess to Princess Mary, to whom she remained devoted through the years of Mary's disgrace. Her family's opposition to the king's religious policy brought her attainder in 1539 and her death at the Tower of London in 1541.

Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen of England in July 1553 and held the throne for nine days, the shortest reign in English history. Born at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire in 1537, the eldest daughter of Henry Grey and Frances Brandon and a great-granddaughter of Henry VII, she was among the best-educated women of her generation, reading Latin and Greek and corresponding with continental reformers; the scholar Roger Ascham left a famous account of finding her reading Plato while her family hunted. In May 1553 she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, and on the death of Edward VI she was named queen under his device for the succession. Support collapsed within days in favour of Mary I. She died at the Tower of London in February 1554, aged about seventeen.

Lady Catherine Grey was an English noblewoman whose claim to the English succession turned her marriage into a matter of state. Born in 1540, the second daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and Frances Brandon, she was a great-granddaughter of Henry VII and, after the death of her elder sister Lady Jane Grey, the senior heir to the throne under the will of Henry VIII. Her first marriage, to Lord Herbert, was annulled after the failure of her sister's claim in 1553. In 1560 she married Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, in secret and without the queen's consent; when her pregnancy revealed the match, Elizabeth I had both imprisoned in the Tower of London and the marriage declared invalid. She had two sons and died in custody at Cockfield Hall in Suffolk in 1568.

Mary, Queen of Scots, was queen of Scotland from 1542 to 1567 and the mother of James VI and I, who joined the Scottish and English crowns. Born at Linlithgow Palace in December 1542, the daughter of James V and Mary of Guise, she became queen at six days old and was brought up at the French court, marrying the dauphin, later Francis II, in 1558. Widowed at eighteen, she returned to a Scotland transformed by the Reformation. Her marriage to her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, produced a son but collapsed in bitterness, and after her subsequent marriage to the Earl of Bothwell she was forced to abdicate in 1567. She fled to England, where her claim to the English throne made her the focus of plots against Elizabeth I. She was tried and executed at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.

Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the father of James VI and I. Born at Temple Newsam in Yorkshire in December 1545 to Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, and Lady Margaret Douglas, he was a great-grandson of Henry VII through both of his parents and so carried a claim to the English throne in his own right. Tall, well educated and ambitious, he married Mary at Holyrood in July 1565 and was styled king of Scots, though the queen refused him the crown matrimonial. Their son, the future James VI, was born in June 1566. His part in the killing of the queen's secretary David Rizzio destroyed the marriage, and he died at Kirk o' Field in Edinburgh in February 1567.

James VI and I was king of Scots from 1567 and king of England and Ireland from 1603, the first monarch to rule both kingdoms and the successor who followed the last of the Tudors. Born at Edinburgh Castle in June 1566 to Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lord Darnley, he became king of Scotland at thirteen months after his mother's abdication and was brought up by regents and tutors, among them the scholar George Buchanan. Descended from Henry VII through both of his parents, he succeeded Elizabeth I in March 1603 in the peaceful transfer known as the Union of the Crowns. A prolific author on kingship and witchcraft, he commissioned the Authorised King James Version of the Bible. He died at Theobalds House in 1625.

Elizabeth Blount, known to her contemporaries as Bessie Blount, was an English gentlewoman of the court of Henry VIII and the mother of the king's acknowledged son, Henry FitzRoy. Born around 1500 into the Blount family of Kinlet in Shropshire, she came to court as a young woman and served as a maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon, admired for her singing and dancing at the court entertainments of the 1510s. Her son by the king was born in 1519 and was created Duke of Richmond and Somerset. She afterwards married Gilbert Tailboys, later Baron Tailboys of Kyme, and had three children by him, and married secondly Edward Fiennes de Clinton, later Earl of Lincoln. She died in the late 1530s.