Sean Cunningham is Head of Collections for medieval, early modern and legal records at the National Archives, UK. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has published widely on late medieval and early Tudor England. His books include, most recently, a historical biography of Henry VII and a study of the short life of Henry’s eldest son, Arthur.

A scholarly and highly readable account of the king who traditionally has been overshadowed by the dynasty that he founded. Henry VII emerges as a wily, skilful and often ruthless monarch who secured a precarious throne for his Tudor successors