Part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a collectible format

'A scholarly and highly readable account of the king who traditionally has been overshadowed by the dynasty that he founded. Henry VII emerges as a wily, skilful and often ruthless monarch who secured a precarious throne for his Tudor successors' - Tracy Borman

Henry VII was one of England's unlikeliest monarchs. An exile and outsider with barely a claim to the throne, his victory over Richard III at Bosworth Field seemed to many in 1485 only the latest in the sequence of violent convulsions among England's nobility that would come to be known as the Wars of the Roses – with little to suggest that the obscure Henry would last any longer than his predecessor. To break the cycle of division, usurpation, deposition and murder, he had both to maintain a grip on power and to convince England that his rule was both rightful and effective. Here, Sean Cunningham explores how, in his ruthless and controlling kingship, Henry VII did so, in the process founding the Tudor dynasty.

A scholarly and highly readable account of the king who traditionally has been overshadowed by the dynasty that he founded. Henry VII emerges as a wily, skilful and often ruthless monarch who secured a precarious throne for his Tudor successors -- Tracy Borman

Sean Cunningham is Head of Collections for medieval, early modern and legal records at the National Archives, UK. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has published widely on late medieval and early Tudor England. His books include, most recently, a historical biography of Henry VII and a study of the short life of Henry’s eldest son, Arthur.