The Wars of the Roses is one of the most important events in English history and led to the creation of one of history's most famous dynasties, the Tudors. I've been looking around on line for any ways the Wars of the Roses impacted political life during the Tudor era and I've yet to find much, which surprised me. The easiest link I figured might exist between the two of them would be that Henry VIII sought a male heir so bad as a way to avoid another Wars of the Roses type conflict after his reign. Is there any proof of this or would such an assumption merely be speculation?
Dan Jones persuasively argues in The Hollow Crown (The Wars of the Roses in the US) that the Wars of the Roses did not as is commonly believed end at Bosworth. The Wars of the Roses continued with Henry VII have to deal with pretenders to the throne. Henry VIII's coronation was presented as the end of the Wars of the Roses, as Henry VIII was by blood York and Lancaster.
But the shadow of the Wars of the Roses, the specter of rival claimants, still would haunt Henry VIII. Early in his reign he would execute the other Plantagenet descendants Richard de la Pole and the Duke of Buckingham. When you consider when Henry VIII turned on the Pole family, his cousins who were mostly loyal to Henry, he had no son and was now reaching the period of old age for the Renaissance. Clearly, Henry VIII is desperate to maintain the Tudor Dynasty on the throne.
It has never been outright stated that fear of another Wars of the Roses drove him to seek a male heir. But it is clear from the mildest of speculation that the Wars of the Roses always weighed on Henry's mind for the need to secure. Henry was never expected to be King until he was 10, and when he was, he was under heavy guard from his father to ensure that Henry survived. Henry had a clear chip on his shoulder to continue his father's dynasty.