‘He never drew a peaceful breath’: the tormented life of Henry VII
Have we ever had a more successful yet somehow forgettable king than Henry VII? A century ago, the Dictionary of National Biography could still hail him as the ‘Solomon of England’. But if he is remembered now it is almost solely for the dynasty he founded, with the domestic and international achievements of his own long and prudent reign largely ignored in the country’s bizarre obsession with the later Tudors. There must have been an unusual mix of calculation and audacity to Henry’s character, because calculation alone could never have brought him to the throne. Over the first 30 years of his life, regime change had become the violent norm
