crystallised into practical weapons of absolute government.

Few kings have attained a greater measure of permanent success than the first of the Tudors; it was he who laid the unseen foundations upon which Henry VIII.
erected the imposing edifice of his personal authority.

An orphan from birth and an exile from childhood, he stood near enough to the throne to invite Yorkist proscription, but too far off to unite in his favour Lancastrian support.

He owed his elevation to the mistakes of his enemies and to the cool, calculating craft which enabled him to use those mistakes without making mistakes of his own.

He ran the great risk of his life in his invasion of England, but henceforth he left nothing to chance.