Examine the ways in which Henry VII responded to the problem of his consolidation of power in the years 1485 to 1490, and whether or not he was successful.

In order the understand Henry's technique in consolidating his power along with his level of success it must first be understood why this was such a big issue for him by considering the problems he faced. Even though he had been victorious at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, it was clear to Henry from the start of his reign that his claim to the throne of England was weak. This was due to a number of reasons. Significantly, his reign began in the context of the War of the Roses between the houses of York and Lancaster, which had provided a huge, dragged-out period of instability for the English monarchy for the past hundred years or so. Since he was from the House of Lancaster, Henry knew that there was always the possibility of a member of the House of York to try to overthrow him. He articulately responded to this by immediately imprisoning the two people who could cause the most trouble for him - the Earl of Warwick, for his reputation as the 'kingmaker', and Elizabeth of York. In 1486, the second year of his reign, his consolidation technique was exceeded when he married Elizabeth. This significantly meant that he had effectively ended the War of the Roses by uniting the two houses. This would result in their children being the personification of this unification as, should one separately track the family trees of Lancaster and York, both sides of this would end up in their sons, Arthur and Henry. Despite his efforts however, Henry still suffered from potential threats to his claim and pretenders to the throne throughout his reign - such as Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel - which were significantly supported by Margaret of Burgundy, a remaining member of the House of York. Despite this, his marriage to Elizabeth continued to be an extremely clever move of Henry's as, since the House of York was now essentially synonymous with the House of Lancaster, anyone from the House of York who would decide to overthrow his claim despite this unification would immediately make their campaign come across as futile since they would be technically opposing their own house.Furthermore, another issue that Henry faced which further caused him to worry about his claim was the fact that his claim descended from a female line in the royal family, which naturally weakened any official, familial claim to the throne. On top of this, he had spent most of his life growing up in Brittany, a duchy of France, only returning to England to overthrow Richard III at the battle of Bosworth. This meant that the population of England, most significantly the nobility, would potentially not view him as their rightful monarch since he had not spent much time in the country he claimed to rule, as well as the idea that he could not connect with the culture of the people. Henry responded to this throughout his whole reign by significantly elevating the monarchy from the nobility, in order to show them that he was above them thus did not answer to them. He had many techniques of controlling the nobility throughout his reign, such as through 138 Acts of Attainders his imposed. He was successful in controlling the nobility from the very beginning of his reign though. He initially did this by dating his reign to the 21st of August, even though he actually won the Battle of Bosworth on the 22nd of August. This meant that, even though he hadn't actually won the battle yet at that date, officially and legally anybody who fought in Richard III's army was fighting against the king thus committing treason. He did not aim to wipe out the nobility with this technicality, because it would not be as useful to him in consolidating his power to simply wipe them out. Instead, he used this technicality to control them however he pleased - however was useful to him - by reminding them that, due to their acts of treason against the king, he had the right to punish them however he pleased and even threaten them with execution should they step out of line. Additionally, Henry had a habit of cleverly articulating official and legal technicalities by having his coronation before Parliament got the chance to meet. Traditionally, Parliament would meet in order to allow the coronation to happen - even though Parliament did not have much power at the time, this was traditional protocol that was to be followed. By having is coronation before Parliament could approve of it, Henry was successful in emphasising to the nobility and the rest of the country that he did not need anybody's approval to be king. He was not king simply because Parliament allowed it, but because he had won the battle so must clearly be God's choice thus everyone would have to accept his claim and victory.