Succession to the British throne branch of the royal house of Lancaster, the House of Beaufort, assumed the English crown as Henry VII, after defeating Richard III, who was killed at the battle of Bosworth when leading a charge against Henry's standard. Richard was the last king of the House of York, and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. Henry declared himself king retroactively from 21 August 1485, the day before his victory over Richard at Bosworth Field, and caused Richard's "Titulus Regius" to be repealed and expunged from the Rolls of Parliament. After Henry's coronation in London in October that year, his first parliament,
The King Must Die the mother goddess and whose sacred name is Persephone. She tells him he must wrestle her husband, Kerkyon, the year-king, in single combat, since this is the "day when the King must die". He believes that the Eleusinians may kill him if he refuses or the priestess may curse him and in any event he decides that fate has set this battle in his path and that he must trust in the gods. Theseus begins to wrestle Kerkyon; it turns out that Kerkyon is, like Theseus, a good wrestler and is also older and stronger than Theseus. The Queen as