Thomas Penn on Henry VII

He was the Machiavelli of English kings – a chancer and usurper with a highly dubious claim to the throne. But Henry VII ruled for 25 years and founded a dynasty. His biographer tells us how he did it

So many people have written books about Henry VIII and studied that period – what makes you so interested in the lesser-known early Tudor period?

Henry VII ruled from 1485-1509. He was, of course, the founder of the dynasty – and father to Henry VIII – but he was also one of the most unlikely kings England has had. He was a usurper and a chancer with a highly dubious claim to the throne. He also knew very little at first-hand about the country he ended up ruling, as he had spent much of his early life as a refugee in Brittany and France. He was very charming but inscrutable, controlling and ruthless – the Machiavelli of English kings.

One of the interesting things for me about this period is that it links two epochs. The Middle Ages is generally seen as ending in 1485 – and Henry’s accession is also popularly seen as the endpoint of the Wars of the Roses, the destructive civil wars that flare intermittently in the three decades before that. The early modern period in England, on the other hand, is seen as starting in 1509 when Henry VIII came to the throne as a 17 year old. That quarter-century in between is Henry VII’s reign.

The late 15th and early 16th centuries is a distinctive age in its own right. It’s a world in which England is still part of Christendom, owing allegiance to the Pope. England is still a feudal kingdom, one that’s recognisably medieval – but at the same time you have the emergence of what we think of as the early modern world – the discovery of America, new Renaissance ideas about politics and government, and the widespread appearance of print culture which in terms of communicating these ideas is absolutely crucial.

So this is a volatile world, a world in flux. In a sense Henry VII is typical of this age. He’s somebody who seems to come out of nowhere, seizes power and makes the throne his own.

And hangs on to it for dear life.

Yes, and this is a crucial thing about his reign. One of the things my book does is to show Henry’s reign as a 25-year-long state of emergency. He’s never able to shake off the spectre of civil war.

The King’s Mother

By Michael K Jones and Malcolm G Underwood

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Your first book is Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood’s The King’s Mother, which shows what a crucial figure Margaret Beaufort was in helping Henry VII achieve his goals.

Lady Margaret Beaufort was Henry VII’s mother. She gave birth to him in January 1457 when she was just 14 years old – pretty early even by the standards of the time. The Beauforts are descended from the House of Lancaster, one of the sides contesting the Wars of the Roses – the other, of course, being the House of York.

Lady Margaret Beaufort has a claim to the throne but the Beauforts, although descended from Edward III’s son, John of Gaunt, were his illegitimate offspring, so they were banned by an Act of Parliament from ever laying claim to the throne. Lady Margaret is a great political operator, and has a huge influence on events which lead her son to the throne, and subsequently throughout his reign.

The book is a fantastic piece of scholarship, based on meticulous archival work, and paints a wonderfully rich picture of Lady Margaret’s world, from the day-to-day running of her huge household to how she negotiates and at times dominates the politics of the age.

How did she manage to get Henry VII into power and keep him there?

In April 1483 the Yorkist King Edward IV dies and leaves two young sons – Edward V, the heir to the throne, and Richard, Duke of York – by his wife Elizabeth Woodville. The boys’ uncle, Richard of Gloucester, puts the boys in the Tower of London – they are, of course, the Princes in the Tower – and they’re never seen again. Richard then claims the crown for himself and becomes Richard III. It’s at this point, with resistance to Richard III looking for a figurehead, that people start to think of Henry, Earl of Richmond, the man who will become Henry VII. And what prompts his emergence is, to a great extent, secret and ongoing negotiation between Elizabeth Woodville and Lady Margaret Beaufort.

Between them, these two powerful women decide that Lady Margaret’s son – who will become Henry VII and who, of course, has Lancastrian blood – will marry Elizabeth Woodville’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, the older sister of the Princes in the Tower. This marriage will create a new dynasty, uniting the houses of Lancaster and York, and carry England into a glorious new future. The interesting thing is that this pact is as much a stitch-up between the houses of Beaufort and Woodville as it is about any genuine union between the houses of Lancaster and York.

How was it that women managed to have so much power in those days?

Well, of course, most of the time they didn’t. Kingship was seen as a male preserve, and the crown is passed on down a male line of inheritance. But much of the time the male heir is either too young to govern or – most notoriously, in the case of the later Tudors – dies. In this situation, royal women end up effectively wielding sovereign power, even though in theory they’re not meant to. Incidentally, this is something that Helen Castor’s book She-Wolves explores quite brilliantly. But Lady Margaret’s case is especially interesting, because she’s one of Henry VII’s very few surviving close blood relatives – he’s an only child and his father’s dead – so she ends up having a massive and very influential power base.

Perkin

By Ann Wroe

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Next up we continue with the idea of the various usurpers around at the time. Perkin: A Story of Deception by Ann Wroe is all about Perkin Warbeck who tried to pass himself off as Richard, Duke of York in order to steal Henry VII’s throne.

Perkin Warbeck claims to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower who went missing in 1483. The two princes, of course, were the Yorkist heirs to the throne. The fact that they disappear – and are presumed to be dead – is crucial to Henry VII being able to claim the throne. But the great problem for Henry is that he can’t prove that the princes ever died. Just the possibility, then, of Richard, Duke of York’s existence serves to cast fundamental doubt on Henry’s right to the throne.

Perkin Warbeck appears in the early 1490s. His performance as Richard, Duke of York is so convincing – and so many people want to believe that he is who he says he is – that he manages to destabilise, and at one point almost bring down, Henry VII’s reign for a decade.

Which just shows how unstable Henry’s reign really was.

Yes, it does. And Ann Wroe’s book is a wonderful evocation of the uncertainty of the age, as encapsulated in the shadowy figure of Perkin Warbeck.