Edward dies in 1483, only forty years old.

His eldest son and heir Edward V, aged thirteen, would have succeeded him, but the king's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester declares his marriage to be bigamous and invalid, making all his children illegitimate.

Edward V and his ten-year-old brother Richard are imprisoned in the Tower of London and their uncle makes himself king as Richard III.

The two princes are never seen again and presumably die in the Tower.

It is widely believed that Richard had them murdered, although their exact fate remains a mystery.

Regardless of what really happened, the king is reviled as a treacherous fiend who had murdered his own nephews to gain the throne.

This hatred of Richard obscures his able governance during his brief reign.

In the summer of 1485, Henry Tudor, the last Lancastrian male, lands in England from his exile in France.

He defeats and kills Richard in battle at Bosworth Field on August 22 of this year and becomes king as Henry VII.

Most of the European rulers do not believe Henry will survive long, and are thus willing to shelter claimants against him.

The first plot against him is the Stafford and Lovell Rebellion of 1486, which presents no serious threat, but Richard III's nephew John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, hatches another attempt the following year.

Using a peasant boy named Lambert Simnel, who poses as Edward, Earl of Warwick (the real Warwick is locked up in the Tower of London), he leads an army of two thousand German mercenaries paid for by Margaret of York into England.

They are defeated and de la Pole killed at the difficult Battle of Stoke, where the loyalty of some of the royal troops to Henry had been questionable.

The king, realizing that Simnel had been merely a dupe, employs him in the royal kitchen.

A more serious menace is Perkin Warbeck, a Flemish youth who poses as Edward IV's son Richard.

Again enjoying the support of Margaret of York, he invades England four times from 1495–1497 before he is finally captured and put in the Tower of London.

Both Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick are too dangerous to keep around even in captivity, and Henry has to execute them in 1499 before Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain will allow their daughter Catherine to come to England and marry his son Arthur.

In 1497, Henry defeats Cornish rebels marching on London.

The rest of his Henry VII's reign is relatively peaceful, despite worries concerning succession after the death of his wife Elizabeth of York in 1503.

Edward IV arranges the marriage of his four-year old son Richard, Duke of York, to six-year old Anne de Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk, in 1478, then shepherds an Act through Parliament which states that Anne’s dukedom, should she die before her husband, will pass to Richard and not one of her relatives.

Edward IV of England dies on April 9, 1483, a few weeks short of his forty-first birthday, leaving two young sons.

The twelve-year-old Prince of Wales, brought to London to the protection of his mother, Elizabeth Woodville, succeeds his father as Edward V. His uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, with the support of William, Lord Hastings, and Henry Stafford, second duke of Buckingham—who, though maried to a Woodville, opposes Elizabeth in her attempt to become regent to her son—serves as regent and self-proclaimed Protector of the Realm.

Richard induces the unpopular queen to surrender Edward and his younger brother, Richard, duke of York, and installs them in the Tower of London.

Parliament, at Richard’s instigation, on June 25 declares Edward's marriage to Elizabeth invalid and the boys therefore illegitimate.

Gloucester is on July 25 proclaimed King Richard III, and Edward and his brother disappear soon thereafter: probably murdered, many believe, on the orders of their uncle.

The reports of the alleged murder of the young princes, together with Richard’s lack of a son, weaken his position as king.

Buckingham, although amply rewarded by Richard for his backing, mysteriously rebels against him in October 1483, and, together with other disaffected supporters, throws his support to Henry Tudor, the latest Lancastrian claimant to the English throne.

Floods prevent Buckingham’s army from joining others in the revolt, and Buckingham is forced into hiding.

The fugitive Buckingham, betrayed, is tried and beheaded before the end of 1483.

In the ensuing struggle for power, King Richard III has many more of his opponents—including another onetime ally, Hastings—executed.