1485–1574 · both · 1 photos · page 1 of 4
Doors Opening: England, France, and the River
Bold = direct familyPurple = clickable(Parentheses) = maiden nameFamous in chapter: Henry VIII, Henry VII, Martin Luther, Jacques Cartier
The story does not begin with our people. It begins with the doors they would later walk through — kingdoms arguing over God, kings needing money, and a cold river in a country no Englishman yet called home.
In 1485, on a Leicestershire field at Bosworth, the last Plantagenet king fell and a Welsh-born Tudor lifted a crown from the mud. Henry VII meant to end the Wars of the Roses; what he really did was hand his teenage son a restless island that would spend the next century tearing at its own faith.
That son became Henry VIII in 1509 — eighteen years old, gifted, vain, and hungry for a male heir. England was still Catholic then, still Latin in its liturgy, still paying its conscience to Rome. Within a generation all of that would crack.
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