Henry VII was born at Pembroke Castle in the west of Wales on 28 January 1457. His father was Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond and his mother was Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby. Henry's paternal grandfather, Owen Tudor, originally from the Tudors of Penmynydd, Isle of Anglesey in Wales, had been a page in the court of Henry V. He rose to become one of the "Squires to the Body to the King" after military service at Agincourt. Owen is said to have secretly married the widow of Henry V, Catherine of Valois. One of their sons was Edmund Tudor, father of Henry VII. Edmund was created Earl of Richmond in 1452, and "formally declared legitimate by Parliament".[4] Henry's claim to the throne, however, derived from his mother through the House of Beaufort. Henry's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III, and his third wife Katherine Swynford. Katherine was Gaunt's mistress for about 25 years; when they married in 1396, they already had four children, including Henry's great-grandfather John Beaufort. Thus Henry's claim was somewhat tenuous: it was from a woman, and by illegitimate descent. In theory, the Portuguese and Spanish royal families had a better claim as descendants of Catherine of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt and his second wife Constance of Castile.

By 1483, his mother, despite being married to a Yorkist (Lord Stanley), was actively promoting Henry as an alternative to Richard III. At Rennes Cathedral on Christmas Day 1483, Henry pledged to marry Edward IV's eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, who was also Edward's heir since the presumed death of her brothers, the Princes in the Tower (King Edward V and his brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York). Henry then received the homage of his supporters. With money and supplies borrowed from his host Francis II, Duke of Brittany, Henry tried to land in England, but his conspiracy unravelled, resulting in the execution of his primary co-conspirator, the Duke of Buckingham.[17] Now supported by Francis II's prime-minister Pierre Landais, Richard III attempted to extradite Henry from Brittany, but Henry escaped to France.[18] He was welcomed by the French, who readily supplied him with troops and equipment for a second invasion. Having gained the support of the Woodvilles, in-laws of the late Edward IV, he sailed with a small French and Scottish force. Henry landed in Mill Bay, Pembrokeshire, close to his birthplace. He marched towards England accompanied by his uncle Jasper and the Earl of Oxford. Wales was traditionally a Lancastrian stronghold, and Henry owed the support he gathered to his Welsh birth and ancestry, being directly descended, through his father, from Rhys ap Gruffydd.[19] He amassed an army of around 5,000 soldiers.[20][21] Henry was aware that his best chance to seize the throne was to engage Richard quickly and defeat him immediately, as Richard had reinforcements in Nottingham and Leicester. Richard only needed to avoid being killed in order to keep his throne. Though outnumbered, Henry's Lancastrian forces decisively defeated Richard's Yorkist army at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485. Several of Richard's key allies, such as the Earl of Northumberland and William and Thomas Stanley, crucially switched sides or left the battlefield. Richard III's death at Bosworth Field effectively ended the Wars of the Roses, although it was not the last battle Henry had to fight.

In 1502, Henry VII's first son and heir, Arthur Tudor, died suddenly at Ludlow Castle, very likely from a viral respiratory illness known, at the time, as the "English sweating sickness".[35] This made Henry, Duke of York (Henry VIII) heir to the throne. Henry VII wanted to maintain the Spanish alliance. He therefore arranged a Papal dispensation from Pope Julius II for Prince Henry to marry his brother's widow Catherine, a relationship that would have otherwise precluded marriage in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1503, Henry's queen, Elizabeth of York, died in childbirth, so Henry had the dispensation also permit him to marry Catherine himself. After obtaining the dispensation, Henry had second thoughts about the marriage of his son and Catherine. Catherine's mother Isabel of Castile had died and Catherine's sister Juana of Castile had become Queen with her husband, who named himself king as Philip I of Castile; Catherine was therefore only the daughter of the King of Aragon (and no longer the daughter of the Queen of Castile) and so less desirable as a spouse for Henry VII's heir. The marriage did not take place during his lifetime. Henry made half-hearted plans to remarry and beget more heirs, but these never came to anything. In 1505 he was sufficiently interested in a potential marriage to Joan, the recently widowed Queen of Naples, that he sent ambassadors to Naples to report on the 27-year old's physical suitability.[36] Henry VII died at Richmond Palace on 21 April 1509 of tuberculosis and was buried at Westminster Abbey. [37] He was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII (reign 1509–47).