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leader. By the age of sixteen he was in command of his own army. He earned his nickname when he was central commander in the Third Crusade (1189– 1192), an attempt to reconquer the Holy Land taken by Muslim forces some ten to twenty years earlier. The rival houses of Lancaster and York succeeded the Plantagenets, although all carried the male bloodline from Henry II. Their rivalry led to the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), so named because the heraldic badge for each included a rose: a red one for the Lancasters and a white for the Yorks. The monarchy changed from Lancastrian to Yorkist, back to Lancaster, and then to York again. This long line of monarchs came to an end in 1485 when Richard III was defeated in the Battle of Bosworth by Henry VII, a Tudor. The Tudors, including the famous Henry VIII, were a Welsh-English family, reign- ing for nearly 120 years.

Henry VIII is best known for having six wives in the thirty-eight years of his reign. In his quest to father a male heir, he fell out with the Catholic Church over his plans to marry his second wife, Anne Boleyn. When he was excommunicated by the pope in 1533, he appointed himself supreme head of the Church of England. Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, ruled for forty-five years, during which time Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world; the English defeated the Spanish Armada, a fleet of 130 warships attempting to overthrow the queen; William Shakespeare’s first play was performed; and the East India Company, Britain’s first involvement with India, was established. After she died childless, her cousin James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne as James I of England.

Portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, oil on canvas (ca. 1537).

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CHAPTER ONE: HISTORY, RELIGION, AND TRADITION