Henry VII faced an immediate problem when he ascended the throne. He had only one adult male among his immediate family, his uncle Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, shortly to be created duke of Bedford. Henry was unmarried in 1485, and it would therefore be a long time before he had sons to shoulder any of his burdens. He had no surviving brothers to rely on, as Edward IV had in Richard of Gloucester, or Henry V had in the dukes of Bedford, Clarence and Gloucester. While his formidable mother, Margaret Beaufort, was to become influential in parts of the midlands, she was not able to offer genuine regional leadership. This meant that he would have to work closely with the higher nobility if he were to establish order in the regions and raise troops to protect his throne in the first few years after Bosworth. The higher echelons of the peerage were numerous enough in 1485. There were three dukes, those of Bedford, Buckingham and Suffolk; one marquess, Dorset, and a second, Berkeley, was created in 1489; and fifteen earls, Arundel, Derby, Devon, Essex, Huntingdon, Kent, Lincoln, Northumberland, Oxford, Rivers, Shrewsbury, Surrey, Warwick, Westmorland and Wiltshire.