History of England
With Henry VII's accession to the throne in 1485, the Wars of the Roses came to an end, and Tudors would continue to rule England for 118 years. Traditionally, the Battle of Bosworth Field is considered to mark the end of the Middle Ages in England, although Henry did not introduce any new concept of monarchy, and for most of his reign his hold on power was tenuous. He claimed the throne by conquest and God's judgement in battle. Parliament quickly recognized him as king, but the Yorkists were far from defeated. Nonetheless, he married Edward IV's eldest daughter Elizabeth in January 1486, thereby uniting the houses of York and Lancaster.
Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd
The ascension of the Tudor dynasty to the English throne in 1485 marked the end of the Wars of the Roses and heralded a change in the way Wales was administered. The Tudors were Welsh in origin, and their rule eased hostilities between the Welsh and English. As a result, the Edwardian castles became less important. They were neglected, and in 1538 it was reported that many castles in Wales were "moche ruynous and ferre in decaye for lakke of tymely reparations". Harlech appears not to have been repaired following the 1468 siege, and became completely dilapidated. Conwy was restored by Henry VIII in the 1520s and 1530s, but soon fell into disrepair once again, and was sold off by the Crown in 1627. Complaints about the poor state of Beaumaris mounted, and by 1609 the castle was classed as "utterlie decayed". Caernarfon Castle's walls were intact, but buildings inside were rotten and falling down. In 1610 the cartographer John Speed produced a famous sequence of pictorial maps of the towns of North Wales, including their castles and town defences, which have become iconic images of the sites at the turn of the 17th century.