Josef Stalin himself would have learnt a lot from reading this. Perhaps this made him a great king? I'm not sure, but it certainly proved a tough act for Henry VIII to follow. Henry VII (like many of his predecessors and successors) was a cruel and ruthless monarch, but his Machiavellian machinations really set the template for how to be the complete bastard dictator. I confess that I lost interest in the various methods of taxation and extortion that the king's courtiers and subjects were controlled and oppressed by. (I remember describing it to my brother as almost like a Tudor-era version of a top-notch Cold War thriller.) But then I found it dragging when it went into the meticulous detail of how Henry's court, and his totalitarian 'Council Learned' operated. I had really looked forward to this one and really enjoyed the opening quarter or so. Rich with drama and insight, Winter King is an astonishing story of pageantry, treachery, intrigue, and incident-and the fraught, dangerous birth of Tudor England. But Henry’s plans for his son would not happen-and waiting in the wings was the impetuous younger brother, the future Henry VIII. On a cold November day sixteen-year-old Catherine of Aragon arrived in London for a wedding that would mark a triumphal moment in Henry’s reign. Now their older son, Arthur, was about to marry a Spanish princess. His marriage to Queen Elizabeth united the houses of Lancaster and York, the warring parties that had fought the bloody century-long Wars of the Roses. Through luck, guile, and ruthlessness, Henry VII, the first of the Tudor kings, emerged as ruler-but as a fugitive with a flimsy claim to England’s throne, he remained a usurper and false king to many, and his hold on power was precarious.īut Henry had a crucial asset: his queen and their children, the living embodiment of his hoped-for dynasty.
In 1501, England had been ravaged for decades by conspiracy, coups, and violence. A fresh look at the endlessly fascinating Tudors-the dramatic and overlooked story of Henry VII and his founding of the Tudor Dynasty-filled with spies, plots, counterplots, and an uneasy royal succession to Henry VIII.
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