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500 years ago an 18 year old boy sat on

this chair in Westminster Abbey to be

crowned king of England he would grow up

to become the most infamous monarch in

history

Nov 8 is the only king whose shape you

remember Henry is not simply a

historical figure Henry is a lift

he became when six wives and beheaded

two of them is the best and the

bloodiest royal soap opera of them all

but Henry isn't just soap opera he's

also one of the most important and

original monarchs ever to a sat on the

throne of him Henry and I go back a long

way I've been fascinated by him all my

life

now on the 500th anniversary of henry's

accession it's finally time to write his

biography for the man behind the myth is

a psychological enigma the 18 year old

who was crowned here was a slim

beautiful elegant musical poetical

reasonable charming sweet tempered young

man who'd married for love

how does he turn into the Henry who is

the horror the Henry was the tyrant who

in short was Henry

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genrih the eights of his world are long

gone

at least it can seem that way but hidden

in the world's great libraries a magical

objects that can bring that world

vividly to life once more they are the

books manuscripts plans and letters that

Henry and his contemporaries read

touched a route through them the dead

can speak again never since the death of

my dearest mother as there come to me

more hateful news I will never be

addressed

till I often have letters from you he

was in complete subjection to his father

and his grandmother and never opened his

mouth in public our King does not desire

gold or gems or precious metals but

virtue glory immortality it's in these

original sources I hope to find the real

angry

the very first mention of Henry comes in

this document is very beautiful and very

precious it's one of the great treasures

of the British Library it's Lady

Margaret Beaufort's book of ours Lady

Margaret Beaufort was Henry's

grandmother and this book of ours that

exquisitely Illustrated aid to personal

devotion was already old when she got it

at the back there's a calendar and in it

she notes important dates births

marriages and deaths great events in her

son Henry the seventh life and here in

the margin she's noted in heavily

abbreviated Latin the birth of Henry

but look the date is corrected did she

get 1491 wrong wasn't she sure there it

is entered twice now his own

grandmother's blunder over the date of

Henry's birth

so telling sign of his relative

unimportance for Henry was only the

second son was elder brother offer who

was the heir baby Henry was just the

spare

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the two brothers hardly knew each other

but they had very different upbringings

as was traditional Arthur the Prince of

Wales was sent away with his own

household of qutuz and counselors to

Ludlow castle and the wealth marches to

learn how to be a king but before Henry

stayed close to home in the palace his

parents described as our nursery in the

1930s this lavish country house was

built on the site it's a stunning

example of art deco but down this

corridor and through these doors and you

step back 500 years into Tudor England

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this is the Great Hall at Hampton the

sole surviving building from Henry's

first home

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here's he was brought up alongside his

sisters Margaret Mary and Elizabeth and

I believe that unusually for Royal

Prince his mother Queen Elizabeth of

York played a big part in his childhood

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Netherlands lies here in Henry's

handwriting

Henry's handwriting has always been a

bit of a mystery

the wives with their little baton loop

the AHS which look much more like a Zed

in modern handwriting and the h's are

quite unlike the handwriting of Henry's

known teachers on the other hand it is

rather like this and this is on the very

few surviving specimens of the

handwriting of Henry's mother Elizabeth

of York

this book is mine Elizabeth the king's

daughter it says is only eight words and

39 letters yet its characteristic enough

in weight rhythm and letter forms to

prove conclusively I think that

Elizabeth herself was the first teacher

of her daughter and her second son Henry

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it's a charming picture Henry the little

prince in a loving family of women she

can I think in ways unusual for a 16th

century monarch as King Henry would

eventually come to place love above all

other considerations with explosive

consequences

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but Henry's childhood was also shattered

by death when he was four his youngest

sister Elizabeth died

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little Elizabeth was the first child of

Henry the seventh and Elizabeth of York

to die nevertheless they were all too

well aware just how transitory a child's

life could be in the 15th century so it

was the death of children or rather the

unimaginable horror of their murder at

the hands of a close relation that had

paved their own way to the throne to the

world into which Henry was born was

scarred by hatred treason and betrayal

for almost 50 years there'd been two

royal families in England the House of

York of the House of Lancaster and time

and again their rivalry had erupted into

bloody civil war so-called

Wars of the Roses many of the darkest

deeds happened here in the Tower of

London it was here that Henry the sixth

the last Lancastrian King had been

bludgeoned to death with a heavy

instrument here look the Lord

Chamberlain of England was dragged from

a meeting of the council and without any

form of trial at his head packed off on

a log of wood but the blackest crime of

all was disappearance of the princes in

the tower

it has happened just eight years before

Prince Henry was born the princes were

the boy King Edward v and his younger

brother Richard Duke of York

they were the heirs of the House of York

which had seen had won the Wars of the

Roses

but before Edward v could be crowned the

boys were seized by their own uncle they

disappeared into the Tower of London

presumed dead and that uncle took the

throne as Richard the third but Richard

the third had overstepped the mark even

in that age the apparent murder of two

innocent royal children was so shocking

that it led to an unlikely alliance

between disaffected Yorkists and the

last survivor of the House of Lancaster

Henry Tudor who was in exile in France

with the aid of a French army Henry

Tudor invaded England and defeated and

killed Richard the third at the Battle

of Bosworth Field Henry Tudor became

King Henry the seventh and then

proceeded to marry the sister of the

princes in the tower Elizabeth of York

it was a union intended to heal a

devastated and divided country of the

births of first Arthur and then Henry

provided two Prince's in whom flowed the

blood of both rival royal houses but

what would happen to Arthur and Henry if

it turned out that the princes in the

tower the two heirs to the throne were

not dead to all

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November 14 91 Cork in Ireland a

mysterious an expensively dressed

stranger is walking the streets to the

roughly dressed locals

it seems you must be someone important

and that's someone important it was

decided by two Yorkist partisans was

Richard Duke of York the younger of the

two princes invitar who disappeared in

mysterious circumstances only eight

years earlier and shortly after it was

indeed as Richard Duke of York that the

young man turned up here in the

Netherlands in fact his name was Perkin

Warbeck an 18 year old Fleming who'd

gone to Cork took modeled garments for a

Flemish merchant once a mannequin for

soaked finery his backers hoped he could

be turned into a puppet Prince rekindled

the Yorkist calls and reignite the Wars

of the Roses his lodgings were hung with

the royal arms of England with the Latin

inscription the arms of Richard Prince

of Wales and Duke of York son and heir

of Edward the fourth sometime King of

England France and the Lord of Ireland

was all too much for a couple of

Englishmen loyal to Henry the seven but

war Beck was no joke pre soon attracted

the support of several European rulers

hostile to the new - duration end of the

seventh knew he had to take the threat

seriously he was all too aware that with

the backing of a foreign power even the

most obscure claimant could seize the

English throne after all he'd done it

himself so first he would expose Perkin

Warbeck as a counterfeit duke of york by

creating a real one his second son Henry

and the ceremony would begin by making

the boy Knight of the bath even today

the imagination of childhood is fared on

tales of knights and chivalry it was the

same little Henry five hundred years ago

but now the three-and-a-half-year-old

prince would live the fantasy for real

and it would change his life the

elaborate ceremony took place in the

already a truth setting of Westminster

Palace as darkness fell and rejoined his

fellow likes to be in the parliament

chamber where richly decorated barns

have been laid out he was ceremoniously

undressed and placed in his bar then his

father the King entered the Earl of

Oxford read to him the solemn admonition

or undertaking required of a knight

be strong in the faith of the Holy

Church protect all widows and oppressed

maidens and above all earthly things

love the king thy sovereign Lord and his

right defend unto thy power

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the king dipped his hand in the water

and they the sign of the Cross on

Andrews shoulder and kissed it a second

and higher baptism into the sacred role

tonight

then Headley was dressed like a hermit

and kept vigil through the night

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early the next day Henry moved a charger

into the King's presence through the

vast space of Westminster Hall here then

his father dubbed him a knight a night

he had heard the tales told by his nurse

at nights and O's of maidens in distress

of disguises and transformations of

Hermits and king it's the world of

chivalry and romance that he already

inhabited in his imagination and dreams

now he was part of it indeed he had

sworn oath kept the vigil ridden the

horse touched by the sword he was and

like for Tana surely nice and look he's

adding a word

look at the are they are like is ed

princi-pal the ceremony was recorded for

the court herald in this document but we

went to film it at the British Library

we made an astonishing discovery here we

are this is him

yes yeah I guess that's his hand

we think this has been corrected by

Henry okay he seen it's almost as though

he's remembering here it's inserted and

his verge of gold in his hand

years later the adult Henry must have

gone back and added these Corrections

and additions which proves that the

ceremony made an unforgettable

impression on the little boy and all his

life Henry would think of himself

however badly he actually behave as a

chivalrous Knight but soon Prince Henry

had another and much more disagreeable

unforgettable experience there was great

fear in London and cries were made

everyman to harness to harness some ran

to the gates others mounted on the walls

so that no part was undefended Henry

would have heard echoes of these cries

here in the Tower of London his mother

had gathered him up from his nursery

house at Alton and rushed him to London

and the safety of the strong walls of

the tower

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Perkin Warbeck the counterfeit Duke of

York was on the March

threatening to invade from Scotland

whilst an army of Cornishmen would flock

to his cause were closing in on London

from the West there could only be one

Duke of York which would it be Henry or

Warbeck

with the main English forces on their

way north

the Cornish rebels swept across southern

England unopposed but the tens acted as

a giant moat around the Capitol and the

Cornish were on the wrong side of it

meanwhile to the north and with the

seventh shadowed them and gathered his

forces finally were the exhausted

Cornishmen reached Blackheath just a few

miles from the Royal nursery of Elton

King Henry was ready to give them back

on the 17th of June he crushed them with

clinical efficacy it was the beginning

of the end or Warbeck extraordinary

odyssey but in a few months he - within

the tower but he never came out again

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while the counterfeit Duke of York

languished in the tower the real one was

beginning his formal education under the

tutor ship of john skelton poet laureate

turned one of the text books which

Skelton wrote his pupil still survives

here in the British Library called

speculum Incubus or a mirror to Prince's

it's a kind of how to do it guide to

wielding authority the core of the text

consists of a series of short pithy

Maxim's

about proper princely conduct the young

Henry was probably required to memorize

these and recite them by heart first of

all it begins loathe gluttony probably

because it was already clear little

Henry was a greedy boy with the results

that were all too familiar with then it

continues known see sparkles do not be

mean all adopters on Nora medicals

Inara Menace consult philosophers on

suely philosophers Julie Gnostic this an

tectonic away to us

it's easy to smile tall this especially

when Henry is solemnly warned do not

deflower virgins do not violate widows

but it's clear that Henry tended to take

all this rather seriously and summer

Skelton's advice would directly answered

to his own experience especially when

Skelton spoke about the fragility and

the riskiness for the royal position

although you are of a famous family

nonetheless remember that ruin and exile

are no more impossible for you than

similar fates were for your father's the

Skilton was not the only intellectual

influence on the young angry on the

continent they're an essence was in full

flower led by men like the Dutch scholar

Erasmus Erasmus believed that a prince

should be more than chivalrous and pious

he should be a patron of learning and

learned it himself in 1499 Erasmus was

in England visiting his friend Thomas

More the two men decided to drop in on

young Prince Henry's little court at

Elton

when we came to the hall old retinue was

assembled in the midst stood Henry

aged nine already with a certain royal

demeanor I mean a dignity of mind

combined with a remarkable courtesy

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Thomas More then stepped forward to

present Henry with the customary gift

his case some Latin verses that he'd

written but where was a restless gift to

his embarrassment the young Henry teased

your Asmus sending a newt during dinner

challenging him to write something for

three days Erasmus labored to produce

this collection of Latin poetry in

praise of England and its new Tudor

dynasty it was the beginning of a

remarkable relationship between the

scholar and the prince in his covering

letter Erasmus flatters Henry as a

kindred spirit who understands that

worldly wealth and position defeating

and but it is the work scholars and

poets that alone confers immortality

laughs under the magic of Erasmus his

pen the little cuter prints are the

blossom into the complete man essence

man how did Prince Henry the

quick-witted charming little boy turn

into the Henry the eighth's of legend

the blood-stained tyrant the more I

study him the more I'm convinced that

the answer doesn't lie at least to begin

with in the seismic political and

religious conflicts of his reign instead

it came from closer home in the

conflicts in his own heart and family in

the modern world politics is one thing

whilst family life is or is supposed to

be another but for the hereditary rulers

of the sixteenth century politics and

family were pretty much the same thing

resulting fusion is called dynastic ism

in which family relationships of husband

and wife parent and child are also power

relationships whilst the marriage bed is

the most powerful diplomatic instrument

of all

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the whole of Henry's life would turn on

the outcome of just such a dynastic

mound it was arranged before Prince

Henry was even born

in 1489 but English ambassador's came

here to Spain to the court of King

Ferdinand and Queen Isabella Ferdinand

and Isabella were both monarchs in their

own right he of Aragon she of Castile

which is why their Thrones here are of

equal height and dignity their marriage

United the two principal kingdoms of the

Iberian Peninsula making Spain the new

European great power and an attractive

Ally for Henry the seventh of England so

he instructed his ambassadors to

negotiate treaties that would marry

Isabella and Ferdinand youngest daughter

Catherine into the English royal family

the marriage treaty between England and

Spain was signed here a Medina del Campo

but Catherine wasn't intended for Henry

who was as yet unborn

but his elder brother Prince Arthur

purrs Arthur and Catherine were only

three years old

Phil the actual marriage would have to

wait meantime

Ferdinand and Isabella were keen to keep

a close eye on their future in-laws

which means that strangely enough one of

the best places to find out about events

in head of the sentence Court is here in

the Spanish state archives it's in Bank

ass which still hold the dispatches sent

to Ferdinand and Isabella by their

ambassador in England and there is fresh

where they've been written yesterday the

theatres of court life births marriages

and deaths in high places

and above all acute pen portraits that

plumb the psychological deaths at Henry

the seventh and his family the King

looks old for his years but young for

the sorrowful life he has led those who

have reached the greatest favors from

Henry are the most discontented he knows

all that by 1501 Catherine and Arthur

were fifteen and considered old enough

to marry their marriage will be

celebrated by the great spectacle of the

English Court the just

justic was a way for the warrior

aristocracy to show off the martial

skills which were thought to mark out a

true leader

tournaments were held every great

occasion and successive the till job

meant star status even political

influence

since Arthur's marriage cows would be an

international competition and leading

the English team was Edmond de la Pole

Earl Assad suffered personify the

Knightly ideal braved to the point of

recklessness impulsive arrogant says

Henry idolized him and his life

but like most of the best jousters

Suffolk had the blood of the Yorkist

Kings crossing through his veins and he

felt that Henry the seventh of the House

of Lancaster was not treating him with

respect he deserved

shortly before the wedding disaster

struck Suffolk defected abroad and

sought refuge with the Holy Roman

Emperor Maximilian once again Henry the

seventh faced a challenger who claimed

the throne still worth unlike the

Pretender Perkin Warbeck Suffolk had a

genuine hereditary claimed there was

treason in the air

a King Henry who had his spies knew that

there were very few in his kingdom he

could really trust as a remarkable

document in Britain's National Archives

shows here it is

it's an informers report of a series of

conversations amongst high-ranking

officials of the strategically important

English garrisoning Canon I had a

nobleman say that the King's grace is

weak and sickly not likely to be no

long-lived man and some of them spoke of

my lord of Buckingham saying he was a

nobleman and would be a royal ruler

other spoke likewise of the traitor

edmond de la Pole the non of them spoke

of my lord Prince Arthur

these men were vital to the security of

the Tudor regime and yet amongst

themselves they talk cooling of the

probability of the Kings early death and

what would follow it but in the event it

wasn't King Henry who died in November

15:01 Arthur and Catherine of Aragon

were married at last in a lavish

ceremony and some Paul's Cathedral then

they left to lift together as man and

wife at Ludlow castle in the marches of

Wales less than five months later

however Arthur was dead perhaps

tuberculosis perhaps the testicular

cancer end of the seventh was grease

struck at the death of his beloved elder

son in whom invested all his hopes for

the future the King's first thought

recording Herald notes was to call for

the Queen to share his grief

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after she was caning and saw the king

her Lord and that natural painful sorrow

she with great and constant comfortable

words besought His grace that he should

remember that God had lent them yet a

fair goodly Prince and they were both

young enough to have more children

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after that in her own chamber that great

loss smote her so sorrowful to the heart

that those that were about her were fain

to send for the King to comfort her but

there would be no comfort attempting to

replace her lost son the 37 year old

Elizabeth died in childbirth later that

year

Henry was not yet 14 he had grown up

close to his mother what was the effect

on him

of her death for once the sources are

silent but we can guess

sometime in the summer of 1504 the 13

year old Prince Henry now heir to the

throne left his childhood home of Elton

and came to court that vast travelling

circus of six hundred quarters and their

servants which continually move between

the royal residences of the Thames

Valley Richmond Westminster Greenwich

sadly these great palaces are all long

gone

instead the place that best gives an

idea of these vanished length is no

again here there is still the park and

second the hugeness of scare the texture

a brick and stone and the labyrinthine

complexity of the palaces of Henry's

boyhood Thunder youth

at the heart this labyrinth may the

king's private apartment

the secret of privy chamber except that

in our sense the pivot chamber wasn't

really private at all Kings led their

lives in public constantly attended by

quarters even in their bedchamber but

Henry the seventh fearful of the Yorkist

reason which struck into the center of

this court gave the privy chamber its

own small confidential staff and barred

its door to everyone else now it was

secret indeed and here the aging King

sat with his account books of memoranda

these bags of coin a spider at the heart

of a golden web of power

the King Henry the seventh had finally

found a novel way to keep his rebellious

nobility check financial way terror the

law was used as a pretext to levy

ruinous fires which instead of being

collected in fall for held over the

heads of Henry's subjects I'm looking at

one of the account books of the King's

Chamber at the top is the King's

signature and here is the list of those

who in 1499 to 1500 are going to be done

everybody from a bishop to a lord mayor

to a Duke to leading lawyers to

important barons going right through the

royal household

everybody is bound an obligation one

that really leaks out is a certain Sir

Edward brough who is a great Lincoln

true I think it is at night on the

margins of the nobility

who's got into trouble and he's been

sent to the fleet jail this was in the

tourist unpleasant prison so Sir Edward

escaped he broke out whereupon he is

fine

three thousand marks in other words two

thousand pounds but not only is he find

his jailer is fine for letting him out

for five hundred pounds these are

enormous sums the income of a baron is

three four hundred ohms have a thousand

to two thousand pounds a year

these are vast sums millions in modern

money

I think there was a sense of a

government that was becoming more and

more fundamentally unjust the king is

taking a profound risk in cutting into

the natural support for dynasty the

natural support for any government

prince henry ii seems to be kept firmly

under his father's from at least

according to the spanish ambassador

he was in complete subjection to his

father and his grandmother and never

opened his mouth in public except to

answer a question from one of them but

was Henery silence obedience or solemn

resentment

then the storm at sea brought another

King to his father's court he was Philip

the fair arch Duke of Burgundy driven

ashore on his way to claim the Spanish

throne he just inherited through his

wife Philip made the greatest possible

contrast to his hosts ten of the seven

with young charming and a keen jouster

here was a very different kind of King

for Prince Henry to admire and that

marsillett Henry did enough facility to

be the recipient of Henry's first letter

or at least the first one to survive

most high most excellent and most

powerful Prince begins and then it

continues rather touchingly I think by

asking Philip whenever he found the

opportunity to let Henry know of his

good health and prosperity meanwhile

Henry promised for his part but every

could find a suitable messenger he'd do

the same to Philip and let him know how

he was getting off now the terms of

course are full and princely but it's

almost as though the 14 year old Henry

were asking the 27 year old king

Archduke cellent to be his pen pal

while the motherless teenager lonely he

seems to have been genuinely upset when

six months later he learned that Philip

had died of typhoid fever accordance pay

as he wrote to Erasmus never since the

death of my dearest mother as there come

to me more hateful news it was about

this time that Henry took up Philips

favorite sport justing he wasn't allowed

to compete himself that was far too

dangerous but every day Henry was out in

the tiltyard practicing the exercise

known as running the ring spearing a

ring with the Lance whilst riding a

bully to

but pretenders companions of the tooth

were the very people who miss father

distrusted most the Yorkist warrior

nobility men who were also the resentful

victims of the Kings fiscal tyranny

but they turn the son against the father

then just after Christmas 1508 the king

took ill and to his chamber by the 23rd

of April 1509 the King hadn't been seen

in public for weeks but then it seemed

he was on the mend

as the Archbishop of Canterbury was

called in to speak to him

you

but behind the closed doors of the privy

chamber King Henry the seventh is

already communing with a higher

authority than the archbishop

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fact he died the day before but his son

Prince Henry had not yet been declared

king it was what the Yorkist

conspirators have long hoped for coup

d'etat on the death of the old king but

Henry wasn't one of the victims he was

one of the conspirators instead the plot

was aimed at those members of the old

King's Council who were most closely

identified with his policy of fiscal

terrorism kept in the dark about the

Kings death for 48 crucial hours they

were outmaneuvered arrested and sent to

the tower Henry VIII sevens death is now

public knowledge because Henry the

Eighth has proclaimed a general party he

has released many prisoners and arrested

all those responsible for the bribery

and tyranny of his father's reign the

people are very happy and few tears are

being shed for Henry d7 instead people

are as joyful as if they had been

released from prison

long threatened york is rebellion never

materialised

instead prince henry succession was

remarkably smooth

first bloodless transfer of car in

England since the death of Henry the

fifth nearly a century before for why

should the Yorkist nobility rebound

Henry had been brought up by his mother

Elizabeth of York he looked like his

grandfather Edward the fourth of York

and as a teenager it helm around the

tilt yard with the star Yorkist justice

in short unlike his viscerally

Lancastrian father henry was one of them

the Wars of the Roses were finally over

and it was Henry who'd ended them for 18

year old that was no mean achievement a

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few weeks later Erasmus received a

letter for one of his favorite pupils

William Blount Lord Mountjoy who

described the mood in England the

heavens and the earth exalts and all

things are full of milk of honey and

nectar avarice has expelled the country

liberality scatters wealth of bounteous

hand our king does not desire gold or

gems or precious metals but virtue glory

immortality virtue glory immortality

it's easy to smile or perhaps bearing in

mind what was to happen to cry but

either reaction I think would be

mistaken the multi I didn't get Henry is

wrong as all that

Henry's youthful innocence is burning

desire to be good like fade almost as

quickly as a summer flower but the

ambition the determination to be great

to make a mark in the world the word to

be famous never altered and in that at

least Henry succeeded

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