Tudor, the surname of a line of English sovereigns, consisting of Henry VII., 1485-1509; Henry VIII., 1509-'47; Edward VI., 1547-'53; Mary L, 1553-'8; and Elizabeth, 1558-1603. The family descended from a Welsh gentleman, Owen ap Tudor, who married Catharine of Valois, widow of Henry V. One of their sons, Edmund, earl of Richmond, married Margaret, daughter and heiress of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset, whose father was an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt by Catharine Swynford. The offspring of this connection Were afterward legitimated, but excluded from the succession. The only son of Richmond and the heiress of Somerset, Henry, duke of Richmond, on the extinction of the direct male line of John of Gaunt, was accepted by the Lancastrian party as their chief. He was invited over from France to deliver the country from the tyranny of Richard III., whom he overthrew at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, and became king. His marriage with Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV., in 1486, united the claims of the houses of York and Lancaster. The Tudors were bold, energetic sovereigns, and often despotic; and under them England was prosperous and powerful. - See "A Chronicle of England during the Reign of the Tudors, from 1485 to 1559," by Charles Wriothesley (vol. i., London, 1875).