Royal sobriquets are often colourful, grandiose or emotive – Ivan the Terrible, Bloody Mary, Good Queen Bess, the Sun King or Suleiman the Magnificent. Some are obscure – William the Silent, the Universal Spider (for Louis XI of France) or John Soft-Sword. But few are as dull as Henry VII – the accountant king. It is true that the founder of the Tudor dynasty earned some […]
The Winter King
In Thomas Penn’s ‘The Winter King’, Henry VII is depicted as neurotically protecting his precarious grasp on the English throne. On page 20, Penn describes the security measures the new monarch puts in place: “One of his first acts was to create a new French-style security force, three hundred strong: the yeoman of the guard.” The Yeoman of the Guard? French? This was enough to pique […]