However, the Prince died the following year, and a marriage was arranged with the widowed Princess of Wales and Arthur's younger brother, Prince Henry. Their eldest son and heir, Arthur, married the Spanish infanta Catherine of Aragon in 1501 as part of an Anglo-Spanish alliance. The union eventually grew into a loving relationship, producing several children. He married Princess Elizabeth to strengthen his claim to the throne, for Henry was only truly king by right of conquest. Henry Tudor invaded England with an army, killed King Richard III, and became King of England as Henry VII. Since the Princes in the Tower disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the rightful Yorkist heir was their sister, Princess Elizabeth. Though the Beauforts were later legitimized, they were barred from the succession by Henry IV. His descent from the Plantagenets was through a woman, and the line through which he descended from was illegitimate. With the male line of the House of Lancaster extinct, the Lancastrian claim was inherited by Henry Tudor, whose claim was rather tentative.

His son, the boy-king Edward V, was imprisoned alongside his younger brother on the orders of their uncle, Edward's brother Richard, who promptly seized the throne and declared his nieces and nephews illegitimate by an Act of Parliament.

Like Henry VI, Edward IV was patrilineally descended from Edward III, but his claim to the throne was based on a line that allowed female succession. The king's militaristic failures in France combined with his later mental instability led to his cousin, Edward of York, seizing the throne.

His son, Henry V, was popular for his successful military campaigns in France, but died unexpectedly, leaving the throne to his infant son, Henry VI. Civil disorder under the reign of Richard II saw the crown's seizure by his cousin, Henry of Lancaster, who was also a male-line Plantagenet. The Wars of the Roses were the conflicts between the Houses of Lancaster and York, two cadet branches of the Plantagenet dynasty, over the English throne.

Henry VIII by Alison Weir