Henry VII is such an unfamiliar historical figure that it is easy to mistake him for a misprint: Oh, they must mean Henry the Eighth. A little basic research establishes his separate identity as Henry Tudor, founder of the Tudor dynasty and father of Henry VIII, but he still doesn’t ring a bell. His individuality ought to shine forth in the story that he was the last English king to lead his troops on the battlefield, but he is upstaged there by the hysterical Richard III staggering around on foot screaming, “My kingdom for a horse!” And if we search for an actual description of him, we are chronologically jolted by Sir Francis Bacon’s déjà-vu-ish assessment: “He were a dark prince, and infinitely suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and troubles.” Upstaged yet again, this time by Richard Nixon.
His identity crisis is over. This long-colorless ruler gets a thorough makeover in British author Thomas Penn’s superb new book. Henry Tudor ascended the throne as Henry VII after the Wars of the Roses, the romantic name for the dynastic struggle between the house of Lancaster, whose badge was the red rose, and the house of York, symbolized by the white. Both had a valid claim to the crown as direct descendents of Edward III (1327–77): the Lancasters through his third son, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and the Yorkists through his fourth son, Edmund of Langley, duke of York.
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