In the fourteenth century one of England’s kings, Edward III, reigned from 1327 to 1377, an extraordinarily long time. His eldest son and heir apparent, Edward, known as the ‘Black Prince’, died before his father, and thus when Edward III died there was no clear successor to the throne. Parliament solved this problem by declaring the Black Prince’s twelve-year-old son as King Richard II. But this move was disputed by other members of Edward III’s family. Thus between 1377 and the succession of Henry VII in 1485 the line of royal descent was often under dispute, and the right to the throne was claimed by various candidates who were in the line of one or another of Edward III’s four sons.
After some twenty years on the throne, Richard II had become exceedingly unpopular and was deposed by his cousin Henry of the House of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt, Edward III’s third son. The crown then remained in the hands of the Lancasters for three generations of kings—Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI. But in 1461, after a long period of strife, Edward of the House of York, a descendant of Edward III’s fourth son Edmund, seized the throne and was crowned Edward IV. For twenty-four years after this there were periods of bloody civil war, fought mainly by the nobles and their armed knights. These are popularly known as the ‘Wars of the Roses’: the emblem of the House of Lancaster was a red rose, and the emblem of the House of York was a white rose. Eight out of ten of Shakespeare’s English historical plays deal with the dramatic events of this troubled period between 1377 and 1485.
Finally, Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, a Lancastrian who had descended through a daughter of John of Gaunt, ended this tragic conflict by slaying the Yorkist usurper, Richard III, at the Battle of Bosworth Field. As Henry VII he began a long period of peace and prosperity and was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII. It is not difficult for anyone to understand how Henry VIII, being thoroughly familiar with the history of his own succession, would view with the greatest alarm the possibility of his dying without a male heir and plunging England once again into a period of disputed succession.