King Henry VII

Book Categories: Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Family, Pretenders, Other, Fiction, Yorkists, Princes in the Tower, Wars of the Roses

Biographies

Henry VII by Sean Cunningham. This biography focuses on how Henry ran his government, and the nature of the country he ruled.

Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn. The story of the tragic, magnetic Henry VII -- a controlling, paranoid monarch -- and the birth of the Tudor era.

Henry VII by Gladys Temperley provides an unusually human portrait of Henry.

Henry VII by Roger Lockyer and Andrew Thrush. This study reassesses the policies of the founder of the Tudor dynasty and shows how Henry worked within existing traditions.

Henry VII: The First Tudor King by Bryan Bevan. A modern biography.

The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh by Francis Bacon and Jerry Weinberger. The author lived during the reign of Henry VII's granddaughter, Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth of York

Elizabeth of York by Arlene Naylor Okerlund. Biography of the queen whose marriage to King Henry VII ended England's Wars of the Roses and inaugurated the 118-year Tudor dynasty.

Family Members

The King's Mother by Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood is a biography of Henry VII's strong-willed mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, countess of Richmond and Derby.

Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty by Elizabeth Norton. Born during the Wars of the Roses, Margaret Beaufort married four times and endured imprisonment before passing her claim to the crown of England to her son, Henry VII.

The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother by Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin, and Michael Jones. An illustrated look at the lives of three women during the Wars of the Roses: Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford; Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV; and Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII.

The Sisters of Henry VIII by Maria Perry. The fascinating lives of Henry VII's daughters Margaret, who became the queen of Scotland, and Mary, who became the queen of France (and later defied Henry by marrying his best friend).

The French Queen's Letters: Mary Tudor Brandon and the Politics of Marriage in Sixteenth-Century Europe by Erin A. Sadlack. Biography of Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII, who first married King Louis XII of France and later eloped with Henry's best friend, Charles Brandon.

Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: Life, Death and Commemoration edited by Steven Gunn and Linda Monckton. Prince Arthur (1486-1502), son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, was the great hope of early Tudor England. This book's richly illustrated essays investigate his short life and posthumous commemoration from every angle.

Books About the Tudors & Their Era
Books About Henry VIII and His Wives
Books About Edward VI
Books About Lady Jane Grey
Books About Mary I
Books About Elizabeth I

Lambert Simnel & Perkin Warbeck

Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke by Michael John Bennett. Lambert Simnel appeared in Ireland in 1476, claiming to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, the Yorkist claimant to the English throne. (Warwick was actually confined in the Tower of London.) In 1487, after being crowned King Edward VI in Dublin, Simnel invaded England and was defeated by Henry VII's forces. He is said to have ended up as a servant in the royal kitchen!

The Perfect Prince: The Mystery of Perkin Warbeck and His Quest for the Throne of England by Ann Wroe. Biography of one of the most intriguing and ambitious pretenders in history.

The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy, 1491-1499 by Ian Arthurson. Warbeck allowed Henry VII's enemies to convince him that he was actually Edward IV's long lost son Richard, Duke of York. He convinced many royals that his story was true and even married into the Scottish royal family. Like Simnel, he invaded England and was defeated; unlike Simnel, he was executed.

Other Topics

Richard III & The Princes in the Tower
Wars of the Roses
More English Royal History

Fiction

The Red Queen: A Novel by Philippa Gregory. Heiress to the red rose of Lancaster, Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, never surrenders her belief that her house should rule England.

The Tudor Rose by Margaret Campbell Barnes. Novel about Elizabeth of York set against the background of 15th century England. Thrust into the drama of the War of the Roses, she must unite a kingdom torn apart.

To Hold the Crown by Jean Plaidy. The story of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. First book in Plaidy's Tudor Saga, first published in 1982 under the title "Uneasy Lies the Head."

The King's Grace by Anne Easter Smith. Novel in which Grace Plantagenet, illegitimate daughter of Edward IV, tries to learn the truth about Perkin Warbeck, who claims to be her missing half-brother Richard, Duke of York.

The King's Daughter: A Novel of the First Tudor Queen by Sandra Worth. After her father's death, Elizabeth of York experiences one devastation after another. A forbidden love gives her the courage to marry Henry VII and become Queen.

Pale Rose of England: A Novel of the Tudors by Sandra Worth. Novel about the wife of Perkin Warbeck, who challenged Henry VII's claim to the English throne by claiming to be Edward IV's lost son Richard, Duke of York.

The Shadow Prince by Terence Morgan. Novel about English royal pretender Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be one of the lost Princes in the Tower. Published in the UK; available from AbeBooks.