Henry VII: England’s Miracle King
Henry Tudor invoked providence to gain his throne in 1485, but it was skilful use of heraldic and religious imagery, as well as promotion of the cult of Henry VI that ensured he retained it.
The 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the throne in 1509 will inevitably be marked by celebrations of his life of which the old egomaniac himself would heartily have approved. But his father, Henry Tudor (1457-1509), founder of the Tudor Age, whose tenacity enabled his 17-year-old son to come peacefully into his inheritance in April 1509, richly deserves attention at this anniversary moment too.
Cold, materialistic, miserly and rapacious are some of the traditional characteristics associated with this king. The calculating, slightly haunted gaze staring from his 1505 portrait seems to embody Henry's attention to detail in entrapping his subjects with levies and fines, a trait highlighted by biographers from Francis Bacon onwards. Yet this is to overlook another side of Henry, which Bacon also noted: the providential character of Henry's life and times. As David Starkey notes in his recent biography of the young Henry VIII: 'The story of how Henry Tudor survived against the odds, and won his throne and bride against even greater odds, is one of the world's great adventures.'
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