Henry VII, King of England, Lord of Ireland, born Henry Tudor, was the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Henry was the only son of Edmund Tudor and Lady Margaret Beaufort (who converted the manor house at Woking into Woking Palace).  His father died two months before he was born, which meant that the young Henry spent much of his life with his uncle, Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford.  When the Yorkist Edward IV returned to the throne in 1471, Henry was forced to flee to Brittany.  By 1483 his mother, despite being the wife of pro-Yorkist Lord Stanley, was actively promoting Henry as an alternative to the unpopular Richard III.

Though outnumbered, Henry's Lancastrian forces decisively defeated the Yorkist army under Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485.  The death of Richard III on Bosworth Field effectively ended the long-running Wars of the Roses between the two houses.