Before the Tudor Age began, England was ruled by Richard III of York. The Tudor family, of the House of Lancaster, wanted to rule the country themselves, and so the two families and their supporters went to war.

The wars lasted for 32 years. The most famous of these wars, the Battle of Bosworth, took place on 22nd August 1485. Here, King Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor, who took the crown and became Henry VII.

When Henry VII died in 1509, his son, also named Henry became King Henry VIII. In 1511, Henry was delighted when his wife, Catherine of Aragon, had a baby boy. Sadly the baby died shortly afterwards. Catherine had 5 more children but only one survived. She was called Mary.

By 1527, Catherine had still not had a son. Henry was very annoyed. He wanted a son who could rule after him, and so decided to divorce Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn.

There was one problem. Only the Pope could give permission for Henry to end his first marriage and he refused. So instead, Henry made himself the head of the Church of England, divorced Catherine and married Anne. In 1533, Anne had a baby; a girl who was named Elizabeth.

In 1536, when Anne had still not provided Henry with a son, he took her to court and accused her of all sorts of terrible things. The court decided that she should be beheaded.

Just 11 days after Anne's death, Henry then married his third wife, Jane Seymour. In 1537, Jane gave birth to a baby boy. Henry was overjoyed and decided to name the child, Edward.

Sadly, Henry's joy was short lived as his wife died shortly afterwards. Henry was very upset. Of all his wives, he loved her the most as she had given him the son he always wanted.

In 1540, to create peace between England and Germany, Henry arranged to marry the German Princess, Anne of Cleves. He comissioned a portrait of himself, asking the artist to make him look young and handsome. He also sent the artist to Germany to paint a portrait of Anne. She was beautiful! However, as we know, portraits do not always tell the truth.

When Henry met Anne, he did not like his new bride at all. He thought she was far too ugly. Six months later, he divorced her.

Henry was now 49, but decided he would like to take another wife. This time he chose a 20 year old girl called Catherine Howard and they married a few months later. But Catherine was not faithful to the King and after only 2 years, he took her to court where she was tried for treason. The punishment for this was execution.

Finally he married Catherine Parr. She was a devoted wife who took care of Henry until he died on January 28th 1547.

On Henry's death, the throne passed to his only son, who became King Edward VI, even though he was just 9 years old. Unfortunately, Edward was not a very healthy child and he died on 6th July 1553 after only 6 years on the throne.

Edward had been a keen Protestant and did not want his Catholic sister, Mary, to become Queen after him. He named Lady Jane Grey as his successor. She reigned for only 9 days, before Mary had her removed from the throne.

Mary then became Queen Mary I of England. She punished all the people who would not become Catholics and had 270 Protestant priests burned at the stake.

To prevent her Protestant sister, Elizabeth, taking the throne after her, Mary decided she must marry and have a child. Although she married Prince Phillip of Spain in 1554, they did not have any children. As a result, when Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth became Queen.

Queen Elizabeth I was a very successful queen, who worked hard to settle the unrest over religion. Unlike her brother and sister, Edward and Mary, who reigned for only a few years, Elizabeth remained on the throne for 45 years.

She died on 24th March 1603. As she never married and had no children to rule after her, she named King James of Scotland as her heir. He was a Stuart, and so, after 118 years, the reign of the House of Tudor ended and the Stuart reign began.