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- Sailing from France,

an invading army is
about to land in Wales.

The leader of this army
was a refugee, a fugitive,

a man who had spent half
of his 28 years on the run

and who had barely a claim
to the throne of England.

His name was Henry Tudor.

And, as King Henry VII,

he would create the dynasty
that bore his name: the Tudors.

But Henry VII remains obscure,

eclipsed by the monarch
he deposed, Richard III,

by the glamour and notoriety

of his wife-killing son, Henry VIII,

and the charisma of his
granddaughter, Elizabeth I.

Yet Henry VII's is possibly

the most extraordinary story of them all.

With a hunger for power
and an iron determination

to hang on to the throne at all costs,

he would rewrite history,
seizing the crown

and rebuilding the
monarchy in his own image.

He would become paranoid,

described later as an
infinitely suspicious ruler,

a dark prince, his reign seen
as a bleak, wintry landscape.

For years, I've explored his murky story

of spies and informers,
intrigue and extortion.

And I've found that the deeper you go,

the more you discover fascinating glimpses

of this manipulative king,

who created one of the
strangest regimes in history.

Magnificent, oppressive and terrifying.

This is the story of Henry
VII, the first Tudor.

(gentle instrumental music)

This is Henry.

It's what remains of his funeral effigy,

which was paraded through
the streets of London

after his death, dressed
in his Parliament robes

and clutching his orb
and scepter of state.

We can see his fine boned features

and the distinctive cast in his left eye.

But this is also a face

emaciated and ravished
by illness and stress.

It's the face of a man who's
never known a moment's peace.

Henry's journey to fulfill
his unlikely destiny

brought him to Milford Haven

on Sunday, the 7th of August, 1485.

His small fleet appeared from the south

and anchored quietly in Mill Bay.

Henry's ships drop anchor
here and his men come ashore,

and we can picture them heaving
munitions onto the beach,

canons, horses, coming through the surf.

(tense instrumental music)

Henry wades ashore and
as he gets to this beach,

to the sand, he sinks to his knees,

raises his eyes to heaven,

clasps his hands in prayer and says,

judge me, oh, Lord, and favor my cause.

Henry would need all
the help he could get.

His army was a rag tag bunch
of political dissidents

and foreign mercenaries,

a mixture of different
accents filled the air.

Henry had deliberately
chosen this windswept

and distant corner of Wales,

he wanted to slip in undetected,

giving him time to raise
support in his Welsh homeland

before facing Richard
III's much larger army.

And so this invasion, really, feels,

more than anything else,

it feels almost not like an invasion,

it feels very kind of furtive and anxious.

He knows the odds are stacked against him.

(gentle instrumental music)

Henry made his way northwards

to the homeland of his
stepfather, Lord Stanley.

The Stanleys, a powerful noble family,

had half-promised Henry their support.

The plan was to make for London.

But Richard's army was
now hot on his heels.

He had no choice but to turn and fight.

On the eve of battle,

Henry knew Richard's army
was only a few miles away

and that it massively outnumbered his own.

It had come down to this.

Tomorrow, he would claim
the throne of England,

or he would die trying.

(tense instrumental music)

Early on the morning of 22nd August, 1485,

Henry advanced from over here

toward Richard's much bigger
army drawn up on the ridge.

Over here was Sir William
Stanley with his men,

watching as the battle unfolded.

Stanley was keeping his options open.

He only wanted to back a winner.

Seeing Henry's army fragmented,

Richard spotted his chance, and charged.

In the carnage, the two
men fought nose to nose,

and Henry's standard bearer was cut down.

And it was at this moment, probably,

as he saw Henry's
standard begin to topple,

that Sir William Stanley
made his fateful decision.

At the crucial moment,

Stanley's army piled in on Henry's side.

Richard, it was said, fought
valiantly, like a true king.

One of Henry's men
reportedly heard him shout,

I will die like a king this day, or win,

and Richard himself was swept away.

Richard III, the King of England,

was viciously battered to death.

By mid-morning, it was all over.

Henry's men moved busily
about the battlefield,

relieving the dead and
dying of their valuables,

piling bodies onto carts.

On a nearby hill,

Lord Stanley placed the dead
king's circlet on Henry's head

to the shouts of
acclamation from his troops.

Against all odds, Henry had
achieved the impossible.

This man, who had been a refugee
and fugitive half his life,

had won the crown of England.

The battle of Bosworth may have been over,

but the real struggle was about to begin.

For over half a century, no monarch

had passed on the crown without turmoil.

Building a dynasty would be a battle

that Henry would fight
for the rest of his life.

I'm taking off my shoes
because I'm about to tread on

what is one of the most
extraordinary pieces

of medieval art, not just
in England, but in Europe.

(majestic instrumental music)

This is amazing.

It feels astounding to stand here.

Every single English king,
and queen, for that matter,

since 1308, has been crowned
on this spot, precisely here.

And it was here on the
30th of October, 1485

that Henry VII was crowned.

It was a glorious, triumphant occasion,

and Henry must have felt

as though he'd achieved
almost the impossible.

This was an affirmation of
his victory at Bosworth.

It was a vindication of
everything that he'd done,

that he'd prayed for on
the beach at Milford Haven.

But there was perhaps a
sense too of something else.

After all, Henry had seen a
crowned king, Richard III,

killed, despoiled, mutilated,

trussed naked on the back of a donkey

without so much as a rag
to cover his genitals.

And he knew that what had
happened to Richard III

could also happen to him.

Henry's claim to the
throne was precarious.

His mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort,

provided the only trickle of
royal blood in Henry's veins.

The Beauforts were a great

but illegitimate Lancastrian family,

banned from ever claiming the throne.

On the other side of his family,

Henry's grandfather, Owen Tudor,

a fast-talking Welsh servant,

had secretly married
Henry V's widow Catherine

some 50 years previously.

Not exactly the ideal pedigree for a king.

Henry was born a nobleman,
the Earl of Richmond.

But his upbringing in exile had left him

with no experience of governing.

It had made him a sharp observer

and a man who gave nothing away.

For England to believe that
Henry was the rightful king,

he would need to behave like one.

And that is exactly what he did.

Parliament has met at
Westminster for over 800 years.

The official records of its
debates, meetings and acts

stretch back to the Middle Ages.

In early November 1485, Henry
VII's first parliament met.

He would use it to tackle
the inconvenient truth

of Richard III's reign

and to re-work recent
events to suit himself.

And here's the written proof,

the parliamentary record which
shows how he did just that.

In this record, Richard
III is the usurper,

Henry VII is the rightful king,
putting the record straight.

Richard III is referred to as
the late Duke of Gloucester,

and afterwards, indeed and
not of right king of England.

And his legislation is referred to

as the act of false and
malicious imaginations.

But there was one thing in
particular during this parliament

that Henry did which
sent a ripple of unease

through the Commons.

He re-wrote history.

It simply consists of a date, here.

Now, the Battle of Bosworth was fought

on the 22nd of August, 1485,

but here, Henry VII has
dated his reign the 21st,

in Roman numerals, day
of August last past.

That's to say, the day
before the battle was fought.

We might ask, what's in a day?

Well, by backdating his reign

to the day before he beat
Richard III and became king,

Henry was effectively accusing
everybody who had turned out

for Richard III on the
battlefield of treason.

(somber instrumental music)

The Commons was shocked.

But in practice,

there was very little
they could do about it.

Henry had won his battle and he was king,

and here it is, enshrined
in parliamentary record.

With Parliament sewn up,

Henry's next move would
bolster his position further.

A marriage to cement all
his dynastic ambitions.

It was a strategic partnership,

the fulfillment of a pact
made while he was in exile.

The pact on which his
invasion was founded.

The previous 30 years had
seen England torn apart

in what would come to be known
as the Wars of the Roses.

The House of Lancaster,
represented by the red rose,

against the House of York,
represented by the white rose.

Richard III's coming to the throne in 1483

divided the House of York.

He imprisoned his young nephews,
two princes, in the Tower,

and proclaimed himself king.

The princes were never seen again.

Their supporters fled to Brittany

where they found the
young Lancastrian Henry,

a refugee in exile.

They agreed to support Henry's
challenge to the throne,

but only if he would
marry Elizabeth of York,

daughter of the late King Edward IV.

It would be a union

that promised to reconcile
a divided England.

But Henry needed something
to reinforce this union,

something that would link this new dynasty

with the English crown in
the minds of his subjects.

So, he brought in the decorators.

At Westminster, the seat of government,

he plastered his family emblems

across the walls, ceilings and windows.

They included a symbol so
powerful in its simplicity

that we still recognize it to this day.

This, of course, is a Victorian building,

but we can get a sense of
how these badges and emblems

were deployed and used by Henry.

We can still see his mother's badge,

the Beaufort portcullis,
and, alongside it,

the most significant emblem
of all, Henry's red rose.

Henry's revival of a rather
obscure Lancastrian emblem,

the red rose, was a masterstroke.

What it allowed him to do

was to place his own
rather sketchy credentials

on a par with those of his
wife, Elizabeth of York,

the white rose.

And together these two roses
would combine to create

the most potent and enduring emblem

in English royal history,
the rose both red and white.

The Tudor rose.

(tense instrumental music)

Henry was stamping his mark on the nation.

But of course, the Tudor rose
could only be truly embodied

by an heir, vital if Henry
was to build a dynasty.

And Henry would not have to wait long.

Named after King Arthur, the
mythical king of Britain,

Prince Arthur was born early

on the rain-lashed morning of
the 20th of September, 1486,

at Winchester, the
legendary seat of Camelot.

This is a wonderful and very rare book.

It's a songbook from Henry VII's court.

And we can see in this songbook

a song celebrating Prince Arthur's birth,

and it says precisely this.

I love the rose both red and white,

it runs, is that your
pure perfect appetite?

To hear talk of them is my delight,

joyed may we be, our prince
to see and roses three.

So, in other words,
Arthur was the embodiment

of the red and the white rose.

He was the Tudor rose incarnate.

Henry and Elizabeth were lucky.

They would have more children,
including another son.

Henry was building a myth
that he and his family

were the true and rightful
royal blood of England.

But there were those
who just didn't buy it.

In fact, they would do their
own re-writing of history

to expose Henry for the usurper he was.

What we have here is a genealogical roll.

These family trees were
owned by kings and noblemen

to describe and sometimes invent
their glorious ancestries.

And it's this part that we're
interested in in particular,

which tells us why Henry
was so very afraid,

and what he was afraid of.

We start here, with Edward III,

the Plantagenet king from
whom both the Yorkists

and the Lancastrians trace
their lines of descent.

We can see here the
Lancastrian line coming down

through Henry IV, Henry
V, victor of Agincourt,

and Henry VI, and then it stops,

because the Lancastrians are exterminated.

And this thick red line is what this roll

believes to be the main
line of royal descent.

And it goes to the Yorkist
king, to Edward IV,

and to his wife, Elizabeth Woodville.

The main line of descent
carries on to Richard III.

But as we can see, the line runs out,

it's actually unfinished.

Henry is notably absent.

In this glorious vision
of English kingship,

Henry VII doesn't fit at all.

He's squashed in here, and
then a thick black line

traces his descent all the way up

and it goes past the Lancastrian line,

it's not connected to it significantly,

and it keeps going and it
keeps going up to here,

not to any king, but simply to Owen Tudor,

a chamber servant.

So this roll was composed for a family

who took a very dim view
of Henry VII's claim

to the throne indeed.

What was more, they
believed that they, not he,

were the rightful kings of England.

The roll belonged to
a great Yorkist family

called the de la Poles.

John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln,

was related to the late King Richard III,

and he claimed that Richard

had named him as his heir to the throne.

John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln,

would in fact instigate
the first serious rebellion

of Henry VII's reign.

In 1487, Lincoln's forces
clashed with Henry's troops

in the East Midlands.

But there would be no dead king

as there had been at Bosworth.

Henry's battle-hardened army
massacred Lincoln's men,

and Lincoln himself was slaughtered.

Henry had won a decisive victory

and removed a genuine Yorkist
contender for the throne.

With this threat eradicated,

he set about consolidating his rule.

He looked for new ways
to drive home the power

and permanence of his reign,

through magnificent architecture,
an opulent household,

and the thing dearest to his heart: money.

- The very first English gold sovereign,

the very first pound as a coin.

- [Thomas] Wow, this is an
extraordinary privilege, really,

to see these.

Barry Cooke looks after the
medieval coin collection

at the British Museum.

- Henry VII is the first person to think,

I will create a pound coin,

and he gives it this very
special name, sovereign.

- And what he's doing with
the word sovereign is to say,

I am sovereign over my land,

part of the whole royal package.

- Yes, this is not a coin anybody
used in their daily lives,

it's a way for the king to
show his power and authority,

to spread his message.
- To put in circulation--

- Literally, to spread the message,

and in some ways, the audience for this

might not have been his own
subjects, but foreign visitors.

- So, when ambassadors were visiting,

Henry would have given them
a kind of royal goody bag,

as it were, and along with them

he would have given
them a number of these,

a takeaway souvenir of Henry's England.

- Absolutely.

You have a huge, stonking gold coin,

and what does that tell
you about the person

who gives it you in a casual way?

- [Thomas] Usually, just the head

of the monarch was featured,

but here Henry sits full
length on a great throne,

orb and scepter in hand and
the imperial crown on his head,

every bit the image of a king.

But the most important part
of the coin is on the reverse.

This is a Tudor rose, isn't it?

- Yes, again, traditionally
in the Medieval period,

you had a cross on the back of a coin.

But now, we've got the Tudor double rose

and the arms of England
superimposed upon it.

- It's very specifically

associating the coat of arms of England

with the symbols of the Tudor
family, the Tudor dynasty.

The two are interlinked, inextricable.

- Image is reality for power.

That's what these things are.

They are the one way a ruler
can get the message across

to the widest number of people.

Before the advent of the modern world,

they are the only mass media.

So what's on them is very important.

- But while Henry was starting

to convince the international community

that he was here to stay,

at home, old rivalries simmered,

and the after-shocks of
rebellion rippled on.

In early 1493, Henry got
wind of another plot.

Yorkist exiles in Europe
were grooming a young man

named Perkin Warbeck

to impersonate one of
the princes in the Tower,

and were raising an
army to invade England.

For Henry, this was a disaster.

Many had accepted him as king

only because the princes in
the Tower were presumed dead.

Now, with this supposed reappearance,

their loyalties would be torn.

After a decade of battling
to establish his dynasty,

this was a threat that
Henry had to defuse.

Henry spun a web of surveillance.

Outwardly, he was always
calm and inscrutable,

giving nothing away.

But this masked a savage intensity.

He embedded spies in suspects' households,

interviewing their servants and
the chaplains and confessors

to whom they opened their souls.

And he discovered, to his horror,

that the trail of conspiracy

led him very close to home indeed.

In fact, right to the heart
of the royal household,

to his lord chamberlain,

who was responsible for the
king's personal security.

This man was none other
than Sir William Stanley,

whose intervention had won
Henry the Battle of Bosworth.

When Henry's men searched Stanley's house,

they found a Yorkist livery collar

studded with white
roses and 10,000 pounds,

enough money to bankroll an army.

Henry began to feel that
he would never be able

to convince everyone that
he was the rightful king.

He would need to become
even more vigilant,

starting with how he ran his household.

This is the fabulous Great
Hall at Hampton Court.

Henry's royal houses were
destroyed centuries ago,

but Hampton Court is laid out
along much the same lines.

This is the awe-inspiring public face

of the royal household,
and just to get in here

you would have had to have
been one of the many hundreds

of servants who worked
here on a regular basis,

or an accredited visitor.

But the king was rarely seen here.

He resided in the state apartments

which began behind this
heavily guarded door.

And if your name wasn't
down, you weren't coming in.

(somber instrumental music)

This is one of the
great public apartments,

and on the feast days of court

it would have been packed
with noblemen, courtiers,

diplomats, petitioners of all kinds

hoping to catch a glimpse of the king.

But it was this door that people
most wanted to get through,

and behind which very few
indeed were ever admitted.

Behind this door lay the
secret or privy chamber,

the private apartments
where the king worked,

slept, ate, and relaxed.

And it was what happened behind this door

that would become synonymous
with Henry VII's reign.

With the discovery of the Stanley plot,

the privy chamber went into lockdown.

Previously, its workings were transparent,

but with the new security overhaul,

only those who would best
content the king were admitted.

So at the heart of this
glittering household

was an institutional
black hole whose workings

were known only to Henry himself.

Inside the privy chamber,
things were changing.

Henry was obsessed with control,

especially when it came to money.

The remit of his private
chamber treasury was expanding.

These books are chamber accounts.

They're books of payments,

and what's interesting
about these books is that

they represent Henry's very
personal control of finance.

These account books are brought to him,

and he will look down everything

and he will sign it at the bottom.

We have everything from wages
for trumpeters, for barbers.

- [Sean] Queen's minstrels,
the prince's trumpeters,

falcons brought from Hungary.

- Falcons brought from Hungary, brilliant.

- That's quite a journey.
- Brilliant.

Historian Sean Cunningham

has been studying Henry's account books.

This one shows money

coming directly into
Henry's personal coffers,

and these pages are
written by Henry himself.

I love this entry in particular.

We have money delivered
in old weighty crowns.

You can sense him weighing it in his hand.

- That's right, just
seeing what the value is.

- Picking up this weighty
crown, ah, that's good!

And then I like this good crowns.

These are some good crowns we have here.

- There's thousands of
pounds' worth of bullion

going through the king's,

literally, through the king's hands.

- To Henry, money meant
security and control,

and how he used it was key.

There's all sorts of
unofficial activity going on.

You'll have, for example,
quite substantial rewards

of tens or maybe hundreds
of pounds sometimes

being given to strangers in reward,

people from across the sea,

or certain persons riding
on the king's business.

And here, this is an interesting one.

Sean, who's this?

This is...

- Probably Sir Charles Somerset.

- [Thomas] Who was one

of the king's masters of intelligence.

- For a man of Flanders.
- A man of Flanders.

Up to something or other
on official business.

- Lack of full detail, isn't
it, which is a bit frustrating.

- Well, it's always a
giveaway, though, isn't it?

If you haven't got the detail,

you have a sense that he's on
his majesty's secret service.

Henry was building up a dense
network of spies and informers

whose reach would extend into the furthest

and darkest corners of the realm.

He would map the political
loyalties of his subjects,

putting under surveillance

those who looked likely to cause trouble.

In 1497, Warbeck, the Yorkist pretender

who had caused Henry such
anxiety over the years

was captured and eventually executed.

(anxious instrumental music)

As the new century began,

Henry VII had been on
the throne for 15 years.

Only now did he feel truly safe.

Things seemed good.

Henry completed his magnificent
new house on the Thames,

west of London, and named it
after his earldom, Richmond.

Here, in his maze of rooms,
Henry could control his allies

and keep a close eye on his enemies.

The Spanish ambassador
was clearly impressed

by the state of the nation.

England, he said, was remarkably tranquil.

Previously, he wrote, there
had always been a number

of competing claims for the throne,

but now there remained only the true blood

of Henry VII, Queen Elizabeth,

and their first-born son
and heir, Prince Arthur.

There remained not a drop
of doubtful royal blood

left in the kingdom.

The stage was now set for
the most significant moment

of Henry's reign so far,

a royal marriage that had
taken a decade to broker.

His eldest son, Prince Arthur,

was to marry a great Spanish
princess, Catherine of Aragon.

For Henry, it would be the
culmination of everything

he had fought for,

setting the seal on
his dynastic ambitions.

And the celebrations would be glorious.

On the early afternoon of Friday
the 12th of November, 1501,

Catherine's procession rode into the city

across London Bridge.

It was a dank, gray, drizzly afternoon,

but what awaited her was spectacular.

It was the first stage in
the fortnight-long series

of wedding celebrations

that would be Henry's ultimate PR event,

and it would showcase his chief source

of political capital, his sons.

London was in a carnival mood.

The heaving streets were a riot of color.

Accompanying Catherine of
Aragon on her procession

through London was the king's younger son.

The 10-year-old Prince
Henry loved the limelight.

Already, he was a boy
with the popular touch.

But one thing was clear to everybody,

and to Catherine in particular.

She was about to become part

of something very special indeed.

But for one onlooker, this
lavish occasion provoked unease.

Among the masses that lined the route,

craning to catch a glimpse of the princess

was a young legal student
called Thomas More.

More later described the procession.

He'd been enraptured by Catherine.

She was so beautiful, he said,

that words couldn't do her justice.

But he ended on a slightly hesitant note.

I do hope, he said,

that these celebrations
will prove a happy omen.

It was as if, in their
splendor and magnificence,

that the festivities were
somehow tempting fate.

The wedding was a triumph.

The Tudor myth was turning into reality.

But as Arthur and Catherine left London

to start their married life,

it wouldn't be long
before Thomas More's words

would be fulfilled.

Late on the 4th of April, 1502,
a boat docked at Greenwich

where the king and
queen were in residence.

Aboard was a messenger
who brought terrible news.

Prince Arthur had caught the
virulent sweating sickness,

and was dead.

Henry was devastated.

(gentle instrumental music)

On St George's day, Prince
Arthur was laid to rest here

at Worcester Cathedral,
far away from Westminster

and the glare of international attention.

It was a funeral befitting a prince,

reflecting the scale of the tragedy.

As a requiem mass was sung,

through this door, the west door,

and through crowds of mourners,
rode a man on horseback

wearing Arthur's own plate armor

and gripping a poleaxe, blade downwards.

The man-at-arms rode a
black caparisoned warhorse

up the nave and into the choir.

Arthur's coat of arms,
his sword and shield,

the symbols of his earthly
roles, were offered up,

and his coffined body was
lowered into its grave.

To have seen the weepings
when the offering was done,

wrote one herald, he had a
hard heart that wept not.

This is Arthur's chapel,
his final resting place.

The political impact of
Arthur's death was immense.

The Tudor dynasty now hung by a thread.

The dynasty's future now
rested on the shoulders

of Arthur's younger brother, Prince Henry,

the king's only surviving son.

But Elizabeth reassured the king

that they were still young
enough to have more children.

And sure enough, within
months, she was pregnant.

The royal household
moved here, to the Tower,

where Elizabeth was to give birth.

She went into confinement,

surrounded by her ladies and gentlewomen.

But it was a traumatic
and premature labor.

With a raging temperature,

she slipped in and out of consciousness.

Henry was beside himself.

Messengers rode through the
night to summon specialists,

but nothing worked.

On the 11th of February, 1503,

her 37th birthday, Elizabeth died.

Their marriage had been
one of genuine love,

and Henry was shattered by her loss.

But of course, their marriage

had represented something else as well:

the union of Lancaster and York,

the reuniting of England
after decades of civil war.

Many had accepted Henry
as king out of loyalty

to Elizabeth's Yorkist family.

Now, her death threatened

to tear the country apart all over again.

Perhaps nothing summed
up better the situation

that Henry now found
himself in than a poem

that Thomas More wrote on the
occasion of Elizabeth's death.

Where are our castles
now, More's poem read,

where are our towers?

Goodly Richmond, soon
art thou gone from me.

At Westminster that costly work of ours,

mine own dear lord.

Now I shall never see.

More was referring to the new
chapel Henry VII was building

at Westminster Abbey.

Adorned with all the familiar
symbols of his kingship,

the Beaufort portcullis
and the Tudor rose,

the chapel was intended
to be yet another monument

to the splendor of Henry's dynasty.

Thomas More's poem struck
at the heart of the matter.

Henry could build all the
magnificent buildings he wanted,

but without his wife,

the very foundations of
his reign were shaken.

Usually so inscrutable,

Henry's reaction to Elizabeth's death

was one of complete physical collapse.

Retreating into the depths of Richmond,

he came close to death.

But when he emerged six weeks later,

the mask was back in place,

and his drive for control
was even more remorseless.

(gentle instrumental music)

The cornerstones of his reign,
his wife and heir, were gone,

and Henry's crown was
more at risk than ever.

Old enemies had resurfaced.

John de la Pole,

who had instigated the first
rebellion against Henry,

had died 15 years before,

but his younger brother, the
Earl of Suffolk, was now a man,

and at large on the
continent raising an army.

Increasingly ill, suspicious
and unable to trust people,

Henry saw conspiracy at every turn.

But his resolve was unshakeable.

He would hang on to the
crown, whatever the cost.

If his subjects would not love him,

they would be made to fear him.

Henry was perfecting a very
effective system of repression.

His counselors were experts in extortion.

They forced people into
bonds and debts to the king

to guarantee their good behavior,

and fined people vast,
unpayable sums of money.

For everyone, from nobles to merchants,

it was like being on permanent bail.

Anybody who broke the
conditions of these bonds

faced financial ruin.

Now, betraying the king
was not just unthinkable,

it was unaffordable.

This terrifying system was
enforced by a shadowy tribunal

known as the Council Learned in the Law.

It would become the most
notorious expression

of Henry's rule,

and the minutes of its meetings

are recorded here in this book.

It wasn't legally constituted,
it wasn't a court of record,

but it consisted of a number

of Henry's most powerful legal advisors.

And this council answered
directly, and only, to the king.

It relied on information
supplied by the regime's network

of informers and spies,
who provided details

about offenses committed,

or potential debts owing to the king.

And what's interesting
about the Council Learned

is that it overrode a lot
of the normal processes

of government and of law.

It might, for example,
interrupt normal legal processes

that were going on and pluck
them out of the process,

pluck them out of the system,

and haul them in front of
this group of counselors.

It acts with complete impunity.

It is totally unaccountable.

This was a process that struck
fear and rage and frustration

into those people who were
caught up in its dealings.

Of all the men associated
with the Council Learned,

perhaps the most infamous and potent

was a silver-tongued
lawyer named Edmund Dudley.

Dudley had spent six years
working in the City of London,

networking and becoming
intimately familiar

with its corridors of
power, its major players,

and the intricate web of
rivalry, opportunism and distrust

that linked the guilds and companies.

And he saw first-hand the dodgy dealings

and corrupt transactions of
the bankers and merchants

that made the City tick.

When in autumn 1503 Dudley
resigned from his post,

he was given a golden
handshake by a grateful City,

but what the City did not expect

was that Dudley was going
to work for the king.

Dudley was a poacher turned gamekeeper.

Fast-tracking him into royal service,

Henry handed him an unprecedented role.

Dudley's expertise lay in defining

and enforcing the king's legal rights.

Sifting through pages and
pages of financial paperwork,

he used long-forgotten laws

to inflict crushing financial
penalties on Henry's subjects.

Dudley described the
brief he had been given.

Henry, he said, wanted
many persons in danger

at his pleasure, bound to His
Grace for great sums of money.

What Dudley was doing
was technically legal,

but it was stretching the
law to its absolute limits.

It was, he said, extraordinary justice.

And nowhere was this extraordinary justice

applied more thoroughly

than in Dudley's own stamping
ground, the City of London.

But as time passed,

the charges brought against people

didn't just stem from obscure laws,

sometimes they were entirely fabricated.

Perhaps nothing sums up the atmosphere

of confusion and terror
in the City at this time

more than an appalling case of extortion

involving the prosperous
London haberdasher

Thomas Sunnyff and his wife Alice.

Dudley falsely accused the Sunnyffs

of murdering a newborn child

and dumping the body in the Thames.

The phony charges were
designed to make it seem

that the Sunnyffs had
broken an existing bond

for good behavior.

The fine for doing so was 500
pounds, a huge sum of money.

Sunnyff refused to pay.

Instead, he was carted off to prison

where he stayed for three months.

When his case finally came to
court, the jury was rigged,

and the judges, intimidated
by the king's lawyers,

found him guilty.

With no prospect of release,

and fearing that he may have died in jail,

Thomas Sunnyff finally broke and paid up.

In his account book, Dudley
entered Sunnyff's fine

of 500 pounds for a pardon for
the murdering of the child.

As his men tightened
their grip on the City,

Henry had an incredible stroke of luck.

He received an unexpected guest at court.

In January 1506, Philip of Burgundy,

the man sheltering the Earl
of Suffolk on the continent,

was shipwrecked on the coast of England.

Seizing the opportunity, Henry
welcomed this powerful prince

with lavish hospitality,

but it was clear that Philip was trapped.

Henry would release him

only if he agreed to hand Suffolk over.

And so, in mid-March, a ship
carrying the fugitive earl

docked at the port of London.

A heavily-armed reception committee

marched him to the Tower.

He would never emerge.

The threat of Suffolk was finally gone.

But two decades spent
fending off rebellion, plot,

and conspiracy had left their mark.

This perpetual state of emergency

had hardened into a way of rule

and England was now in
the grip of a system

that people found both
disorientating and terrifying.

Henry's subjects were scared,
and they were resentful.

But they knew that Henry
could not go on for ever.

Closeted away at Richmond,

his health had been failing for years.

All eyes were on Prince Henry,

and what sort of king he was going to be.

Ever since Prince Arthur's death,

the king had wrapped Prince
Henry in cotton wool,

keeping him confined
in the royal household.

By 1507, Prince Henry was growing

into a brilliant, handsome
and athletic teenager,

but his father's control
had begun to chafe.

The king, increasingly
ill, was only too happy

to show off his son.

He allowed Prince Henry to
organize the spring tournament.

The prince would be shown off,

but not in the way his father anticipated.

Tournaments were spectacular
events lasting for days,

and at their center were
the chivalric superheroes

of the age: armored knights,
jousting on horseback.

But although he was proving
a brilliant jouster,

Prince Henry was not allowed to fight.

His father had already lost one son,

and wasn't about to lose another.

Toby Capwell is the Curator of Arms

at the Wallace Collection,

and has first-hand
experience of the joust.

- There's always risk in anything
that's worth doing, right?

And jousting would be pointless
if it was completely safe.

When you look at what
they're fighting with,

this is a safe one, this is the safe kind!

You have three prongs on the head,

and that prevents the lance
from penetrating too much.

But still, if you can imagine
being struck by one of these

in your face at a closing speed
of 40 miles an hour or more,

in a collision that is in all respects

very much like a car crash,

the danger is what makes it meaningful.

- Right.

Strong bonds were formed
in the jousting arena

between knights, their
loyalties forged in combat

like brothers-in-arms on a battlefield.

So while Henry VII commanded loyalty

through financial control,

his son Prince Henry would
form his bonds in the tiltyard.

He's clearly built
physically very differently

from his father,

but also he thinks
differently from him as well.

- It's really just a matter of Henry VII

being perfectly aware of the importance

of chivalry and chivalric display,

but he just wasn't willing to back that up

with his own body,

whereas his son couldn't wait
to get involved personally.

- Right.

Prince Henry's friends put on
a thrillingly violent display

of jousting, pushing the
sport to its boundaries

in a brash disregard for the rulebook.

It was a performance

that the king and his
counselors found alarming.

But Prince Henry loved it.

Caught up in the occasion,

he eagerly chatted with
gentlemen of low degree,

his openness a sharp contrast

with his father's remote detachment.

So people started to see Prince Henry,

even at the tender age of 15,

as someone who would be a return

to a traditional kind of king,

valuing honor and glory over money.

He would privilege noblemen
above lawyers and accountants,

an entirely different proposition

to his calculating and distant father.

Imperceptibly, allegiances
were starting to shift.

In January 1509, Henry VII
shut himself away at Richmond.

His health was failing yet again,

only this time, there
would be no recovering.

At 11 o'clock at night,

on Saturday the 21st of
April, 1509, Henry VII died.

He had brought the kingdom

to the brink of dynastic succession,

almost, but not quite.

This is a pen-and-ink drawing of the scene

around Henry's bed, in his privy chamber,

at the moment of his death.

Here we can see one of the
king's gentleman ushers

closing Henry's eyes at
the moment of his death,

and we can see here doctors
holding urine flasks.

Among those present

were some of Henry's oldest
and closest servants.

In the past century,

the deaths of kings had brought violence

and instability to England.

And they were determined
to make sure the same thing

did not happen this time.

Now, the 14 people in this
picture were the only people

who knew that Henry VII had died.

They had a unique opportunity

to order events to their own advantage,

and this is precisely what they did.

They agreed to keep the king's
death a secret for two days,

until the court gathered
for the Feast of the Garter

on St George's Day.

But in order to smooth the path

of Prince Henry's succession,

there would need to be scapegoats,

people to take the rap

for the wrongs that had been
done in his father's name.

The new regime had to send
out an emphatic statement

that it would not be like the old.

One of those not at
court on St George's Day

was Edmund Dudley.

He was away in the City.

Dudley had failed to understand
how resented and isolated

his rapidly acquired power had made him,

and, consequently, he
failed to watch his back.

He had become the unacceptable
face of the old regime.

He was thrown into the
Tower on trumped-up charges

of treason and finally executed.

As the 17-year-old Henry
VIII was proclaimed king,

he worked with a populist
touch, issuing a general pardon

which promised reforms, justice,

and the redressing of wrongs.

Thomas More's coronation
poem celebrated the coming

of the spectacular new young king,

and contrasted the reign to come

with the dark days that had just passed.

This day is the end of our slavery,

the beginning of our freedom,

the end of sadness, the source of joy.

Now, he said, there were
no thieves with their sly,

clutching hands, and no longer does fear

hiss whispered secrets in one's ear.

This king is loved.

More also said that the
crowning of the new king

was like the coming of a new season.

But this reference to the
seasons also said something else.

In fact, it underscored a contrast

that More emphasized throughout his poem.

If there was to be a new
spring of joy and freedom,

it had to follow a winter
of repression and fear.

If Henry VIII was the spring,

Henry VII had been the winter.

Henry VII's funeral cortege

processed through London's streets,

his effigy displayed on a carriage

drawn by five horses
draped in black velvet.

But for all the criticism of his reign,

Henry VII had still achieved
what he had set out to do.

He had passed on the crown of England.

Westminster Abbey is a national shrine,

the burial place of kings,

politicians, poets and playwrights.

And this is where Henry
VII was laid to rest,

in the chapel he had been
building for the past six years.

It was one of the architectural
wonders of the age.

(dramatic instrumental music)

It was described in the 16th century as

(speaks in foreign language)

the wonder of the entire world,

and it really is a staggering building.

This spectacular mausoleum
is Henry's ultimate statement

to the world,

not what we might expect
from a wintry miser king.

(gentle instrumental music)

So, here they are.

Henry, buried according to
his last will and testament,

alongside his dearest wife, Elizabeth.

These are idealized portraits
of Henry and Elizabeth

as they were in their prime.

They're intended to be eternal figures

of kingship and queenship.

More than 500 years after his death,

Henry's chapel remains at the heart

of British political life.

It stands as testament to his
extraordinary determination

and will to power,

to everything he aimed
for and wanted to be.

From an isolated beach in Wales,

where he landed with
little claim to the throne

and even less hope, he fought
and he won his battles.

He unified a kingdom,

he accrued immense wealth,

but his greatest legacy would
only become clear over time.

Running around the tomb is an inscription.

Henry, it says, was the most
rich, the most intelligent,

the most dignified, the
most glorious of kings,

and Elizabeth his wife
was the most beautiful,

the most chaste and the most fruitful.

Not only had their
marriage been a happy one,

but, crucially, it had
also produced children.

The inscription concludes by
saying that the land of England

should count itself particularly lucky

in the foremost of those offspring,

the current king, Henry VIII.

Lucky old England.

Henry VIII's reign would be
turbulent in the extreme.

Yet it was also his father's
greatest achievement.

Henry VII had created our most famous,

most notorious dynasty: the Tudors.

(gentle instrumental music)