King of England (1485–1509), the son of Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort. Through his mother he was an illegitimate descendant of John of Gaunt and so had a tenuous claim to the throne, but rivals’ deaths in the Wars of the Roses strengthened his position as the Lancastrian claimant and enabled him to oust Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He established the Tudor dynasty on firm foundations. The children of his marriage to Elizabeth of York were married to foreign royalty (his son Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, and his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland), while he built up the crown’s financial resources so that he was not dependent on Parliament and was able to leave a considerable fortune to his son, Henry VIII.