Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England

Overall, I found this disappointing. I had really looked forward to this one and really enjoyed the opening quarter or so. (I remember describing it to my brother as almost like a Tudor-era version of a top-notch Cold War thriller.) But then I found it dragging when it went into the meticulous

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detail of how Henry's court, and his totalitarian 'Council Learned' operated. I confess that I lost interest in the various methods of taxation and extortion that the king's courtiers and subjects were controlled and oppressed by. Henry VII (like many of his predecessors and successors) was a cruel and ruthless monarch, but his Machiavellian machinations really set the template for how to be the complete bastard dictator. Perhaps this made him a great king? I'm not sure, but it certainly proved a tough act for Henry VIII to follow. Josef Stalin himself would have learnt a lot from reading this. It takes a certain type of tyrant to establish a royal dynasty in late-medieval Europe.

"In London, the information-gathering and persecution, the arrests and financial penalties continued unabated."

To its credit, the author does an extremely thorough job, and his book is obviously a consummate piece of research, but I have to admit that I found it verging on the boring in long stretches. That said, it is without doubt a fascinating period of English history and there was much here that I did relish. The later chapters on the youthful heir Prince Henry were of particular interest. It was compelling to read of how the King's young son was gradually groomed for his kingly role, and how young Henry saw the world around him come into focus as he matured.

Henry Tudor's entire world from the court rulings to the court gossip, and from every show trial to each and every royal jousting tournament, it is all bought painstakingly to life within the covers of this book. One for the enthusiasts undoubtedly.

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This was an excellent book to bridge the gap between Richard III's downfall and Henry VIII. Of course, to do this it focuses on the reign of Henry VII. The majority of the book is focused on the middle and end of Henry VII's reign; there is not much in depth exploration of how he actually gained

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the throne. This book focuses on how he keeps the throne and how he sets up Henry VIII.

To seal his authority on the throne, there were three things that stood out to me. One was that Henry VII ruthlessly hunted down any other people with royal blood and made sure they were not a threat, either by imprisoning or executing them. Second, he made a ton of money in the buying and selling of alum. Alum had been used for its medicinal properties for some time, but it had recently started being used as a dye-fixer in the textile industry and was in high demand. The money Henry made from buying and selling alum made him the richest King in Europe and money does always help in keeping power. Third, Henry made sure to keep everyone guessing and never feeling secure by using his closest circle to demand money, make arrests, and bring legal charges to people of all ranks, creating something close to a reign of terror.

Henry's reign was interesting to me, but what I found most interesting was the set up of Henry VIII's reign. Of course, Henry was never meant to be King; he had an older brother, Arthur, who was reared to rule. Arthur's sudden death put Henry in place as his father's heir. In this book we see a lot of the familiar faces from Henry VIII's reign get their start - men like Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Charles Brandon, etc. I found all of this fascinating since most of the reading I've done about Henry VIII starts at the end of his marriage to Catherine.

There is a lot more in this book (Henry VII is humanized by his love for his Queen, Elizabeth of York) but those are the main things I took away from this very readable but still scholarly account of Henry VII.

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In his impressive and remarkably assured debut, Thomas Penn tells the story of a largely neglected chapter in British history, the reign of Henry VII, the "winter king" of the title. He takes us through the key stages and events in what is a meticulously researched account of Henry's life, not in

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strict chronological order but ordered into logical themes, such as Henry's youth and upbringing in exile, his fight to protect his admittedly tenuous claim to the throne against a seemingly endless succession of pretenders, the marriage of his first-born son Arthur to Catherine of Aragon and the far-reaching consequences of Arthur's premature death, up to the last years of his reign when his rule descended into a period of intimidation and persecution for his subjects. The last chapter deals with the succession of Henry VIII and his first few months on the throne.

Penns' style is engaging and immediately accessible to the layman, only very occasionally does he succumb to the temptation of using obscure terms that will be unfamiliar to non-academics. He portrays Henry as a complex character, a very private man with a strong personality, an intelligent and shrewd politician and statesman and his own PR consultant, a businessman and accountant, but also someone with a suspicious and controlling mind who became unaccountable to the law and, in effect, a criminal in his insatiable avarice. Penn describes the changing loyalties and power politics at work at court and in international diplomacy, where alliances are forged through marriage and children, especially daughters, are regarded as nothing more than political pawns. He vividly brings to life the internal wranglings for power and influence among courtiers and the conspiracies and plots that haunted Henry's reign. A large portion of the book is dedicated to the last few years of Henry's sovereignty, when politics became intricately linked with finance, with Henry hoping to manipulate foreign heads of state into advantageous alliances by transferring huge amounts of capital abroad; as Penn aptly puts it, "Henry the diplomatic puppet-master, as he saw himself, able to pull the strings of international affairs, of ambassadors and princes". To raise the funds required, Henry introduced a system of extrajudical committees, turning a blind eye to his counsellors' corruption and allowing them free reign to pervert the course of justice and spreading terror; Penn neatly summarizes it, "the dark underbelly of finance and commerce represented an almost limitless opportunity for threats, intimidation and extortion". Always a distant king, Henry now became "a king whose will operated through his counsellors" and even his "relationship with his oldest and closest supporters was measured not in trust but money", including his own mother. When Henry died in April 1509, his death was initially kept secret even from his own family, so that his closest counsellors could "order the succession to their advantage" and thereby "ensure their own survival." Henry VIII, who, until his older brother's death in 1502, had played only second fiddle and had thereafter been groomed as prince of Wales but kept very much on a short lead, was keen to distance himself from his father's reign but ensured that the system of imperial kingship, introduced by his father, remained firmly in place. Court poets described his succession as the spring that followed the winter (hence the title), with the natural order being restored. Little did they know that they were jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

If I have one criticism, it is that in his obvious enthusiasm, and in his attempt to paint as full and complete a picture of the life and times as possible, Thomas Penn introduces a bit too much detail in my opinion. There are simply too many names and characters to keep track of for a first read, and there are short digressions in the form of the humanist philosophy and its main mouthpiece, Erasmus, and the Italian financiers, to name but two. In all, a very worthwhile account of a period in history that I knew virtually nothing about, and the discovery of a new and up-and-coming young author, who promises much for the future. More, please.

(This review was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.)

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This is not a typical biography that commences with a birth, life events in order, finishing with a death. The author does state at the beginning that the latter stages of Henry VII’s life are the book’s focus, which is fair enough, though this way the narrative is less varied.

Having been

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engaged by the intro and the prologue I thought I was onto something riveting here. However, soon after beginning the first chapter my interest wavered. The first part proved too slow-paced and a little too “back and forth” in regards of the chronology for my liking.

Thomas Penn is one of those authors with a writing style that detracts from the content. For example, he uses ten words when one will do, keeping long-winded sentences stretched into infinity with an army of punctuation. There are more colons and semicolons here than in most pre-Victorian novels. It’s as though it hasn’t been copy-edited or if it has then the advised edits have been ignored.

The book does improve in the second of three parts in terms of content but the clunky style remains throughout. However, there were still many paragraphs that I skimmed over because they failed to hold my attention.

I’m not a fan of bios that try to namecheck every other person that the subject – wrong word for a king, I know – encountered during their lifetime. This seems to be the case here. This has a tedious flavour to it, like a novel with too many characters.

I’ve been particularly interested in John, Edmund, and Richard de la Pole for some time, thus I enjoyed the sections about events concerning these brothers. The shipwreck and subsequent events if Philip of Burgundy and his unloved wife Juana was another theme that appealed to me. It’s also interesting to see the future Henry VIII growing up.

I do admire the efforts Mr Penn has gone to in bringing this tome to light. This, plus the positive aspects I’ve picked out, is why I’ve rated “Winter King” three stars instead of two.

Incidentally, I had watched the BBC documentary based on this book before reading it, featuring the author as the programme’s presenter. Mr Penn did a fine job in that role.

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I was disappointed by this – it was decent but I think it was somewhat overhyped. Having seen it pop up in a lot of papers' Books of the Year lists, I think I was expecting something altogether more gripping and dramatic, but in the end I thought the story of Henry VII and the Tudor succession

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was just not an especially thrilling tale. Henry himself was clearly a distant figure who governed through his ministers, but this means that it's quite hard to get much of a sense of his character from the few sources available. Annoyingly, much of the most interesting stuff concerns his son, and whenever Penn comments intelligently on how the events here affected the future Henry VIII's reign I found myself perking up – such as the suggestion that Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth was ‘the kind of marriage that their second son, Prince Henry, would spend his whole life trying to find’. But that's not really what I wanted from a book about Henry VII.

The prose is workmanlike. Penn sometimes overplays his material, ominously building up events which turn out not to be that dramatic after all. ‘Whom’ is only rarely used in this book; ‘who’ usually stands for both subject and object. That's obviously fine in speech, but it meant I had to reread a few of the sentences in here to work out what was exactly was happening.

Penn is strong on writing paragraph-sketches of key figures in the regime, but he has an annoying habit of including so many of them that it becomes a demanding job to keep track of them all. Names are scattered around like confetti. This paragraph is typical (although it does include one of the rare ‘whom’s):

It was very probably the Hertfordshire knight Sir William Say – who as well as being an acquaintance of Archbishop Morton and More's father Sir John, was Mountjoy's father-in-law – who had provided the young More with an introduction to Mountjoy, with whom he became firm friends. The Say family, indeed, joined all the dots: Sir William was half-brother to Elizabeth countess of Surrey, and among the queen's gentlewomen was his sister, Anne.

This is fine at the start of a book, but when he was still introducing dozens of characters by page 300 I started to get a bit annoyed with it. Most are introduced and then dropped two pages later, never to reappear.

The most fascinating parts for me turned out to be the sidebars on 16th-century Europe – the international trade in alum, monopolised by the Pope, smuggled across the continent by Henry, was something I knew nothing about. England's enclave in Calais is also something I'd like to read more on. Financial affairs in particular are very well handled here, and in Penn's retelling at least they were one of Henry's central preoccupations. But overall (and clearly I'm in a minority, since most people seem to have loved this book) I just felt there was a lack of narrative coherence. Most people who study the Tudors tend to start with Henry VIII, and to be honest after this I can see why.

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Henry Tudor: Henry VII, perhaps best known as father of Henry VIII, but Thomas Penn's compelling biography places him not only as the founder of the Tudor dynasty, but of laying the ground rules for those that would follow him. Fear, manipulation and control were the watch words and if this sounds

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like a model for Machiavelli's [The Prince] published in 1513 just four years after Henry's death then it would not be very wide of the mark.

When Henry Tudor by good fortune emerged victorious at the battle of Bosworth field, he grasped the opportunity on behalf of the house of Lancaster to crown himself king. The Yorkist king Richard III had been killed as had the Duke of Norfolk, while his Lancastrian supporter the Duke of Northumberland had fled. Bosworth Field was the final pitched battle of the long running feud between the noble hoses for the crown, but this was by no means a certainty when Henry was crowned king. He had the opportunity to consolidate his reign following the deaths of the leading Yorkists, but he had to come up with different modus operandi to previous rulers. The problem facing him was how to maintain his authority when other nobles still craved to be king. Traditionally a king would buy his support by rewarding his supporters with land and wealth, usually from the spoils of war and when this wasn't enough crack down harshly on any opposition. Henry VII followed this well trod path, but he added another essential ingredient, he hit both friends and enemies where it really hurt, he hit them in their pocket. Gradually he instigated a system of fines and bonds for misdemeanours against the crown: past as well as present, backing this up with intelligence gathering machinery through informants and spies that was unprecedented. He rapidly became very rich, no longer needing parliaments agreement to raise taxes and his opponents became relatively poor, eventually reduced in circumstances to an extent where putting an army in the field against the king would have been extremely difficult. Fifteenth century knights and aristocrats were well used to living in fear of death, but living in fear of not being able to live in the proper style was an added incentive not to cause trouble.

Thomas Penn's well researched biography is written in a style that would be accessible to the more general reader. He has done for the first Tudor King what [[Ian Mortimer]] has done for the Plantagenet's, made a story of their lives that is both exciting to read yet still heaped in period detail and not straying too far from accepted facts. Other historical characters come alive; Catherine of Aragon and the Kings mother Lady Margaret and his wife Elizabeth and the Kings advisers and money men, but also the artists and men of letters that hovered around the periphery of the Kings court; for example Erasmus, Stephen Hawes and John Skelton. Prince Henry who became Henry VIII threatens to take over the biography in the latter chapters, but this provides the incentive that will keep the more general readers interested until the end. I felt entertained and informed while reading and would rate this a four star read.

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A decent enough book but, it seems to me, a bit more of a "prequel to Henry VIII" than a biography of Henry VII. It jumps much too quickly to the betrothal and marriage of Prince Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, passing only cursorily over the earlier years of Henry VII's reign -- almost entirely

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ignoring his ancestry, his birth, and his pre-regnal life, including his continental exile -- and giving only the skimpiest attention to his return to England via Wales and the subsequent Battle of Bosworth field. And that sense of "prequel to Henry VIII" is found in its excessive attention to Henry VIII's life during Henry VII's own lifetime, not to the extent of ignoring Henry VII's own biography but still creating a jarring dissociation between the subject of the biography and the subject's more famous son.

Whether intentionally or not, the title Winter King brings to mind The Lion in Winter, and while the latter was an appropriately abbreviated dramatization of Henry II later in his reign, a full biography of Henry VII should have included a much fuller presentation of its subject's pre-regnal career and earlier reign.

Penn also has a quirky style of sometimes writing in medias res rather than linearly -- describing some particular event and only then jumping back some period of time to detail the lead-up to that event -- a style which can be confusing and is more appropriate to fiction than to historical literature.

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I've been waiting for a decent popular history book of Henry VII for a long time. The last time I studied the reign in any depth was 8 years ago, and although I enjoyed it then, I was surprised at how much I'd forgotten.

Thomas Penn's book is ultimately, a triumph. I feel that at this point I should

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make it clear that it is a readable, well paced and thoroughly enjoyable book, because there were significant drawbacks that his excellent written style couldn't quite mask. From the point of view of someone who knows the period and has a postgraduate degree in a subject directly linked to the subject matter of the book, I found his scholarship and sourcing to be excellent, and I am intrigued to find out whether he intends on producing any other material about Henry's reign.

I say this, because due to his focus on the events following 1497, Penn has huge scope to take this further. After an introduction which gives a thorough description of the strengths and weaknesses of Henry's claim to the throne, taking the main thrust of the story on by over a decade requires Penn to write in a curiously backwards/forwards style for the first section of the book, as he explains the impact of Henry's victory on his later policies. Although slightly confusing, this allows Penn to identify what he feels to be the vital aspects of Henry's governance without getting bogged down in the detail. However, it does take away from his resolution to concentrate on the later years of the reign. This means that some of the characters and personalities that shaped the reign are sidelined. Jasper Tudor, the uncle who ensured Henry's safety and taught him the martial tactics that probably helped to secure his victory at Bosworth (aside from the Stanley intervention), gets a single mention, on page 4.

The focus of the main body of the work is inevitable. Henry VII is known for one thing, really. Money. The twists and turns of Henry's financial policies as influenced by his family, his insecurities and his health and mapped out exceptionally well, and Penn uses effective imagery to position Henry his own personal centre of European dynastic policy.

Although Penn's focus on the last section of the reign is fascinating and informative, he tends towards assuming that readers will have the same in depth knowledge and awareness of the reign as him, as well as a prodigious memory. For example, when describing the immediate aftermath of Henry VII's death, he states the various individuals that had their roles confirmed by the new regime, without reminding us what those roles were. In terms of an extensive list, I admit I was slightly confused. He also tends towards 'big words'. Without his accompanying contextual description, I admit that I would be at a loss as to how Lady Margaret's "legendary abstemiousness" contributed to her decline.

Overall though, as I stressed, the book is highly enjoyable, and highly recommended for any reader who wishes to learn more about either Henry VII himself or the stresses and early life of Henry VIII and how they may have shaped his reign from a non-Starkey perspective. A fresh look at the processes of Henry VII's economic policies has been long overdue, particularly in reference to the sad cases of Empson and Dudley. Penn, from this point of view, has written a wonderful piece. I just wish he'd written the first half of the book as well.

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Although I think the detail of names and relationships occasionally obscures the larger picture and confuses the reader, overall Winter King is a wonderful depiction of a seminal historical figure who is often overlooked due to the extraordinary exploits of his son and granddaughter. Henry Tudor

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lived in fear of his life for most of his formative years. Henry's father, Edmund Tudor, was half-brother to Lancastrian King Henry VI. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a descendant of John of Gaunt, but her family had been removed from the succession by act of Parliament. Young Henry Tudor had a rickety claim to the throne at best, and a mother devoted to seeing him crowned. Said mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, made a deal with Edward IV's widow, Elizabeth Woodville, to unite York and Lancaster by marrying her Henry to Elizabeth of York, daughter of E. Woodville and Edward IV. The only problem was that , in order to claim his wife and the throne, Henry had to depose the Plantagenet, Yorkist Richard III and put a stop the to civil war dividing England. And in the meantime, to wait in exile for his moment to strike while dodging assassination attempts. Improbably, Henry managed to land in England, attract a following, and kill the King. The rest of his life he spent protecting his unlikely regime from challenges, building his treasury, and ensuring that his son would succeed him. Henry was successful in stabilizing England and cleverly kept out of the ruinous wars that swept Europe by transferring incredible amounts of money to various spendthrift monarchs, becoming a power on the Continent without joining in their ruinous wars. Henry and his low-born counsellors micromanaged the kingdom, imposed financial obligations on the nobility and the merchants, and used ceremonials to make his reign seem inevitable and to make his son's succession seem pre-ordained. Henry's methods were extreme and terrorized the populace and the nobility. When he died, the nation breathed a sigh of relief, little knowing that his son, Henry VIII would be as obsessed as the father, although attached to a different motive. The father sought money; the son, love. Each would see himself an absolute monarch and violate the letter and the spirit of the Magna Carta. Although at first Henry VIII seemed the embodiment of chivalric generosity and humanist learning, a giant of a man with a girl's complexion and a talent for music and martial arts, it gradually became clear that his appetites and neediness would bring the kingdom to grief. It's a fascinating story, told very well by Thomas Penn.

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During my days at LaSalle University in Philly back in the 60s, I took a bunch of history classes, because I was always fascinated with the subject. I reveled in a couple on the ancient Greeks and Romans, but my heart fell in a class on Tudor England.

Since then, I have been consumed with the Tudor

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dynasty, which began in 1485 after Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field, thus ending the War of the Roses between the Royal Houses of Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose). The family reign ended with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603.

Over the years, I have collected biographies of every major figure in the Tudor family – all the kings and queens, all six of Henry VIII’s wives, and a number of other peripheral figures around the court. However, I lacked one important piece of the puzzle – King Henry VII, the founder of the dynasty. Late last year, I discovered a new biography of Henry by Thomas Penn, who holds a PhD in early Tudor history from Cambridge University.

One of the fascinations I have with history revolves around the amazing discovery that history repeats itself over and over. Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England amply proves the truth of that statement once again.

Following the defeat of Richard at Bosworth Field, Henry became King of England. Many people in England resented his crown, and numerous plots to dethrone him popped up over the next 20 years. Numerous factions, especially those with connections to the defeated York family, complained that Henry illegitimately claimed the crown.

The corruption, back-stabbing, spying, treachery, and extortion, which were the hallmarks of the Tudor family throughout its existence leaves me gasping in fascination. In the “Introduction,” Penn quotes Francis Bacon, who wrote, “Henry VII was ‘infinitely suspicious’ and he was right to be so, for his times were ‘full of secret conspiracies and troubles’. Perhaps the most telling verdict of all,” Penn writes, “is that Shakespeare, omits Henry VII altogether from his sequence of history plays – not for want of material, but, one suspects, because the reign was simply too uncomfortable to deal with” ( xxv-xxvi).

Penn tells us, the idea of Henry VII as a “time of transition, one in which the violent feuds of the previous decades gave way to a glorious age of renaissance and reformation … was a myth the Tudors themselves built” (xxv). Most scholars now see him as “the unifier of a war-torn land, a wise king who brought justice and stability, and who set the crown on a sound financial footing. Nonetheless they were unable to eradicate the lingering sense of a reign that degenerated into oppression, extortion and a kind of terror, at its core a Machiavellian king who inspired not love but fear” (xxv). Bacon, his first biographer, referred to Henry as a “dark prince” (xxv).

A splendid biography for anyone interested in the history of one of the most famous – and infamous – families in English history. 5 stars

--Jim, 10/26/12

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With a somewhat tenuous claim and having defeated the previous incumbent in a fight, how would you consolidate your gains and ensure continuation of those gains for the benefit of your successors?

This was the position facing Henry, earl of Richmond, in 1485 and this book is a very readable account

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of how he consolidated his hold on the crown as Henry VII and founded a royal dynasty.

Although this otherwise excellent books is let down in places by an element of disjointedness, it does not detract from the book's compelling insight into one of the presently less fashionable and often overlooked periods in English history; considered by many to mark the transition from medieval to modern.

Many would know the basic facts that Henry claimed the English throne and defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485, but just how tenuous was Henry's claim, the uncertain loyalties, inherent instability and continuing threats, perceived and real, throughout Henry's reign are possibly not so well known. Penn's chronological narrative leads one through the whole process from Henry's initial uncertainties, his judicious marriage, to the succession and beyond of his second son, Henry VIII.

Of greater significance, however, is Penn's account of how Henry achieved his objectives. Sidelining the aristocracy and patronising more lowly subjects to act as his henchmen, Henry recognised the power and influence available to those with wealth. His very modern approach was therefore to eschew control through bloody conflict, but to pursue the law to its limits, and arguably beyond, impose swinging financial constraints on potential adversaries, and ruthlessly work the system to his advantage.

Penn relates a fascinating lesson in medieval manipulation, exploitation and control and creates a memorable picture of medieval life from the domestic to the political. It's lessons would not be out of place in present day politics.

Overall this is a book to be recommended

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An intriguing biography of a relatively little-known king who has been somewhat overshadowed by his son Henry VIII and granddaughter Elizabeth I in the popular reckoning of history.
Thomas Penn has certainly been comprehensive in his research, and goes to considerable lengths to capture and convey

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the enduringly cautious and suspicious nature of Henry's reign. And he had much to be cautious and suspicious about! His title to the crown was tenuous at best - while he could claim descent from Edward III, there were plenty of others who had a stronger claim. Politically astute, he made some adept moves, including the dating of his reign from 21 August 1485. That was the day before the Battle of Bosworth in which he, narrowly, defeated Richard III; by backdating his ascension to the throne, everyone who actually fought against him at Bosworth was guilty of treason and consequently liable to execution if they failed to toe Henry's line.
However, this did not prevent the proliferation of rival claims, including campaigns in support of two "pretenders": Lambert Simnel, a young and innocent puppet who was heralded as the Earl of Warwick, nephew of Edward IV, and, more threateningly, Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York (the younger of the two Princes in the Tower). Even after Warbeck's campaign was finally quashed, Henry remained convinced of a plethora of conspiracies against him.
Generally viewed as an ascetic man, he did, through dexterous taxation policies (including "Morton's Fork", the campaign of his Chancellor Morton which served to wring out every last penny from the beleaguered nobility) establish a phenomenal wealth, and became the last monarch to die leaving a crown surplus.
The book covers Henry's management of foreign and domestic policy in intricate, perhaps even over-elaborate, detail - indeed, I felt rather overburdened by much of it, and could have coped quite easily with a more cursory treatment in many areas.
Still, overall this was an enjoyable and informative addition to the Tudor history canon,and I can see why it won so many critical plaudits .

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This is a very well written account of the reign of King Henry VII, covering especially the last decade or so after the Perkin Warbeck rebellion and the tragically early death of Prince Arthur. Henry comes across as a distant figure, obsessed with establishing his dynastic legacy and preventing a

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return to the chaotic days of civil war in the Wars of the Roses. His obsessive means of raising money might be partly justified by the no doubt weak state of finances after those decades of war; but the unscrupulous and extra judicial methods he authorised, overseeing the conduct of the likes of Bray, Empson and Dudley leave a very nasty taste in the mouth. There are some appalling examples, e.g. the case of Thomas Sunnyff and his wife (pp275-7), falsely accused of murdering a baby and imprisoned for not paying an extortionate amount to be excused of the supposed offence. The atmosphere of fear and terror that was engendered, especially in the last three or four years of the reign, is well described. Once can quite understand how the accession of the "perfect Renaissance prince" Henry VIII in 1509 was greeted with acclamation and relief, including, ironically in view of later events, by Thomas More in terms of what now seem fairly extreme sycophancy. The book, or perhaps another one, could perhaps go further into how Henry VII's experiences of exile in Brittany formed his later character. A fascinating look at a time of transition between Medieval and modern England. 5/5

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Occasionally brilliant - occasionally frustrating. Straddles a line between dry academic and popular history writing. The long lists of courtiers and their backgrounds does drag a bit, but I learned a lot about a period of history that's often overshadowed by the preceding and subsequent years. The

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stuff about Henry's control through debt finance was fascinating.

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A history book which is the opposite of The Pursuit of Glory. Here one detailed period, the latter part of the reign of Henry VII, is covered in fascinating fashion. I suppose the author could have written a biography but we know so little about Henry apart from his papers and official acts that it

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is far more useful and interesting to follow the court and the administration where we mostly know what was going on. Penn first sets Henry in his period and gives a reasonable detailed summary of his background, early life, conquest of the throne and early reign. This establishes several factors straightaway. Firstly he had a very poor claim to the throne, he won almost by luck and it was a very rickety seat for all of his reign. Even Henry VIII felt the need to dispose of those who might lay claim to a more direct descent from earlier kings. And yet Henry (VII) was not a bloodthirsty monarch. He seems to have been almost chronically reluctant to actually kill rivals - sometimes at considerable risk. He does seem to have been more trusting in his early reign than he was later. Secondly he was initially short of money - desperately short. Military preparedness and bribing continental rulers to curtail the activities of pretenders (men as he had once been) were expensive. Having to rely on the military and other support of magnates in England was risky so he needed to build up his own power base. And of course he needed money to run the court and administration. Thirdly he was determined to pass on what he had won to a son who was solidly established - hence the wedding and other plans. In his personal life he was lucky. For dynastic and political reasons he married Elizabeth of York but it seems to have become a love match. He was devastated when she died as he was when his eldest son Arthur died. But his other son did succeed him with no great problem and the Tudor dynasty survived despite later problems with only female claimants and questions of legitimacy.
The book covers court events, royal personal life, wedding plans ad nauseam and the minutiae of everyday court life - often fascinating. What becomes more and more important is the getting of money till it seems to almost overtake everything - except the wedding plans of course. Not wanting to rely on parliamentary funding which was erratic and unreliable Henry employed assistants/ministers who used the royal prerogative in judicial proceedings to squeeze overmighty subjects. At first it seems to have been a tactic for locking in potentially unreliable local potentates. They became emmeshed, through the often ingenious use of guarantees of loyalty and oaths, into theoretically owing the king' larger and larger sums. Properties they thought they owned became doubtful. Unless they showed exemplary loyalty they could find themselves becoming very minor figures in what had once been their little fiefdom. Much of the Wars of the Roses, which didn't come to an end until the early years of Henry's reign, featured locally powerful lords raising armies of retainers - men they had a claim on - and then supporting one side or the other, or switching, sometimes repeatedly. Henry put an end to this gradually but did not find it easy (his own supporters were as likely to start mini-wars as his opponents) and his most powerful tool turned out to be the law. You had x hundred men in livery and didn't have a licence for them. You are therefore fined something preposterous - a sum was taken on account and the rest could hang over the plaintiff for the rest of his life unless he kept a very low profile. In the end, however, it just became a squeeze. Henry became one of the richest monarchs in Europe and even seems to have been involved in trade (in alum among other things) which was very profitable. Henry's ministers became personally richer and richer as they squeezed more and more. So the end of his life is overshadowed by this financial pressure which, while it looks tawdry, did enrich the monarchy. A lot of it was quasi-legal, extra-legal or even plain illegal but when his son came to the throne to huge popular acclaim one of his first parliament's first acts was to legitimise all these methods of raising money and razing powerful subjects. But Henry VIII was young, charismatic and the legitimate heir!
So was the end of his father's reign a dark period of terror and oppression? Hardly. A small number of his more powerful subjects were effectively taxed while the country as a whole benefited from years of peace and the end of banditry. Unlike his son, he never got over his reluctance to just kill off the opposition and he seldom resorted to it. Instead he made money and was loved by few except his family. And then his son came to the throne, chopped off a few heads and spent all the money accumulated by his father in pretty fast order and was loved, initially, by all.

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I listened to this book as an audiobook. I've been fascinated by the Tudors ever since I took English history in school. Recently the books by Philippa Gregory about the War of the Roses have caught my interest and when I saw this book was narrated by Simon Vance, one of the preeminent narrators of

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audio books, I knew I had to listen to it.

This book didn't spend much time on the years before Henry VII took the throne and that was okay with me because of Philippa Gregory's books that have explored that time quite well. However, there is some and probably enough to give the background for the meat of the book which concerned Henry VII's reign. It seems that Henry was a very religious man but he certainly didn't let that stop him from accumulating great wealth by taxing and fining the citizens of England. He was helped in this by various men but he micromanaged all aspects of accruing money. So he was certainly aware that he was not popular. His son and heir, Henry VIII, appeared to be his exact opposite when he came to the throne and the populace responded to him with enthusiasm. However, many of the father's advisors were kept on by Henry VIII. Everyone knows the story of Henry the VIII's numerous marriages and break with the Catholic church. A king who was brought up in the belief that the sovereign could do anything he wished would easily accept the doctrine of the divine right of kings.

Very interesting material and well read by Simon Vance.

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This is the prequel to the whole Henry VIII story we all know so well. It really does explain so much, and by the end you are all excited and ready for the prince to become king. Even though we know how it will work out.

Thomas Penn's biography of Henry VII, the first Tudor king, is well researched and competent, if not very exciting. Much of it focuses on his efforts to stabilize and consolidate his power and to rout out possible enemies at court. A pious and sickly man whose early life was dominated by his

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mother, the single-minded Margaret Beaufort, Henry's main contribution seems to have been bringing together two warring factions by defeating Richard III and marrying the daughter of the Yorkist King Edward IV and producing four children whose marriages united the Tudors to the crowns of Spain,m France, and Scotland. He was also known (and hated) for his stinginess and his continual efforts to raise revenues, usually by levying more taxes on an already overtaxed citizenry. Overall, a stolid but rather dull king; no wonder the kingdom celebrated the succession of his heir, Henry VIII.

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While I feel I know a fair amount about British history, I was not very familiar with this period. That said, I definitely wanted a readable history that focused on facts, not speculation. Penn manages to create a compelling narrative that also critically examines the evidence for various theories

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about what actually happened at various points. I was fascinated by the fact that due to conflicting accounts at many points, there are many events about which we will never have the "whole" story. Excellent book.

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This is more of a 3.5 star book, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and plumped for 4.

It covers the reign of Henry VII, from just after his battle with Richard, to his successful passing of the crown to his son Henry VIII, and the creation of the Tudor dynasty.

It is very comprehensive,

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covering all manner of details about the court of Henry VII, and the way he went about establishing his reign. It looks at the way he sidelined or eliminated his rivals, the way that he tried to build alignments with European monarchs.
Henry tried to raise capital by illegal smuggling of alum into the UK and Europe, which had been a source of income for the Vatican. Penn writes with incredible detail of the plotting and intrigue of court life, and writes of the tragedy that befell him, losing his wife and eldest son Arthur. The rise of his second son, Henry, is well documented as well.

Whilst it was well written, there is so much detail that you cannot always keep up with the characters in the narrative, and that is why I cannot give it 5 stars.

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Winter King is an interesting look into Henry VII and how he ruled. I was really worried that I would get bored with this book, but found it to be quite fascinating. I won this from Goodreads and I highly recommend it.

Excellent profile of the first Tudor and his machiavellian methods of ensuring the establishment and continuance of the Tudor dynasty.

This is an interesting and well constructed history of Henry VII. He tends to get defined in relation to the events before and after his reign, rather than his reign itself. So the beginning of his reign is all bout bringing an end to the Wars of the Roses, marrying Elizabeth of York and overcoming

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the usurper Richard III. All spring and new beginnings. The end of his reign is the coming of the glorious Henry VIII and the end of the miser, he's moved from Spring to Winter in the intervening years. This looks at how he came to take the crown and what he did with it when he got it. Lots of detail to bring the thing to life, lots of characters and bit players, some of whom play greater roles in the near future as well.
Very well done.

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Wonderful and interesting non-fiction.