Detail from Presentation page from the Vaux Passional, Peniarth MS 482D, f. 9r, c. 1503-04, National Library of Wales
King Henry VII of England (1457-1509) was the first of the Tudor dynasty. His claim to the English throne came in part from his link to the Plantagenet family (from which came kings beginning with Henry II through Richard III): Henry’s mother was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, an English prince who founded the Lancastrian branch of the House of Plantagenet. However, John of Gaunt’s heirs had to be legitimized (they were born out of wedlock) and so were specifically barred from the throne, hence the tenuous claim to the throne. However, Henry also claimed the throne by right of conquest, winning against Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth (1485).
Henry spent much of his youth in exile in Brittany. After challenging Richard and ascending the throne, he married Elizabeth of York, daughter of King Edward IV (Richard’s predecessor); their children included the future Henry VIII as well as Margaret and Mary (and of course their firstborn, Arthur, who died before ascending the throne). Henry was primarily known for bringing economic and political stability to England, although his reputation lives on as a miser for various tax raises and frauds that happened under his reign.
There are multiple appearances of Henry on screen that I can’t find images for:
- Eric Maxon in Richard III (1911)
- James Keane in Richard III (1912)
- Ralph Forbes in Tower of London (1939)
- Hennie Scott & Jerome Willis in An Age of Kings (1960)
- Heinz Blau in König Richard III (1964)
- András Kozák in III. Richárd (1973)
- Brian Deacon in BBC Shakespeare: “The Tragedy of Richard the Third” (1983)
- Adam Woodroffe in Historyonics: “Richard III” (2004)
Otherwise, here’s Henry VII in film and TV!
Stanley Baker in Richard III (1955)
THE feature film Shakespeare adaptation about Henry’s predecessor, with Laurence Olivier as Richard.
John Woodnutt in The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970)
The BBC bio-miniseries about Henry VII’s son’s wives.
James Maxwell in Tower of London: The Innocent (1969) & The Shadow of the Tower (1972)
Tower of London was a one-off British TV movie about Henry VII and the execution of the Earl of Warwick; Shadow of the Tower was a BBC miniseries about the reign of Henry VII.
Peter Benson in The Black Adder (1983)
The famous comedy TV series set in an alternate timeline in which Richard III defeats Henry VII (then Henry Tudor) and moves forward from there.
Tim Fuke in BBC Shakespeare: “Henry VI, Part 3” (1983)
Part of a Shakespeare play adaptations from the BBC.
Dominic West in Richard III (1995)
A feature film adaptation of the Shakespeare play, reset in a fascist 1930s England.
Aidan Quinn in Looking for Richard (1996)
A “free-form exploration of the character and the [Shakespeare] play” (Wikipedia).
Joss Ackland in Henry VIII (2003)
The REALLY NOT GOOD British miniseries that purports to be the life of Henry VII’s son. Henry senior only shows up in his deathbed.
Paul Hilton in Princes in the Tower (2005)
Per Wikipedia, a TV movie “about the interrogation of [pretender] Perkin Warbeck, in which Warbeck almost convinces Henry VII that he really is Richard, Duke of York.”
Mathew Baynton & Adam Riches in Horrible Histories (2009-24)
The children’s comedy musical TV series has to include all the royals!
Luke Treadaway in The Hollow Crown (2012-16)
The BBC’s recent gritty adaptation of various Shakespeare plays.
Michael Marcus in The White Queen (2013)
Starz’s TV miniseries adaptation of the Philippa Fucking Gregory novel about Elizabeth Woodville, wife of King Edward IV (Richard III’s predecessor).
Jacob Collins-Levy in The White Princess (2017)
Starz’s TV miniseries adaptation of the Philippa Fucking Gregory novel about Elizabeth of York, Henry VII’s queen.
Elliot Cowan in The Spanish Princess (2019-20)
Starz’s TV miniseries adaptation of the Philippa Fucking Gregory novel about Henry VII’s daughter-in-law, Catherine of Aragon.
Who’s your favorite Henry VII on screen?
Blackadder’s Henry Tudor doesn’t die! He instead goes down in history as one of history’s great liars, along with Copernicus, Goebbels and St Ralph the Liar after Edmund unwittingly helps him to escape from his (ahistorical) defeat at Bosworth 😊
To be fair, Dominic West doesn’t have a lot of screen time in Richard III; I seem to recall him being at the party in the beginning, and then he goes away for a good long while. :)
Henry VII was actually pretty loving and considerate of Elizabeth of York, and their marriage was a happy one, by most historical accounts. But PFG loves to ignore actaul history in favor of the historical rumor mill that she parades as fact! Thanks, I hate it!
I like James Maxwell’s portrayal of Henry. I do wish they had had more money to spend on the series. It’s a nuanced characterization showing his shrewdness and fears of being deposed, but also his piety and clemency and his interest in things like exploration (with John Cabot). We see how he and Elizabeth came to love each other in the course of their marriage. He was devastated by her death, following so soon after Arthur’s death. Many feel this was the trigger which changed his personality into more of the “grasping miser” which became the caricature of what he was like. He led a fascinating life and I’d love to see a good series covering him, but not one influenced by Philippa F**ing Gregory and her rumors and distortions.
And why on earth is he shown with a beard!!
I agree about James Maxwell as Henry. Being a Ricardian, I am not an H7 fan, but he was a good king in some ways: kept the peace, built up a huge treasury for H8 to spend on his whims. I also agree about the beard. And P Fucking Gregory.
AMEN and agreed with all of this! I loved James Maxwell’s portrayal in Shadow of the Tower. He didn’t feel either idealized or vilified but like a believable picture of what H7 might have been like. We really do need a good modern depiction which actually respects the history (and maybe has a bit more of a budget than 70s BBC had, so we can get prettier production values)
Oh, goddess, yes–no more pasted-on plastic jewels.
Weird to see Stanley Baker as Henry in the Olivier Richard III, as he’s now remembered mostly for playing tough working-class guys, on either side of the law, in gritty noirish crime dramas or gritty war films.
The “tax-raising grasping miser” part wasn’t just motivated by love of money or economic policy, one of Henry’s main objectives as king was to prevent anything like the Wars of the Roses from happening again by financially bankrupting and breaking the political power of the regional noble “magnates”, so that they would no longer be able to raise armies in their own right to fight (over or against) the monarchy.
I wonder if Stanley Baker was chosen because he is Welsh? He certainly has a Welsh accent in Richard III.
Elliot Cowan needs to put that cope back in whatever cathedral he found it. (Do you folks keep an eye out for repurposed ecclesiastical vestments the way you do for sari fabric etc? It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a lot out there.)
As a good Stratfordian, one believes that I am by law & good custom bound to cry “Huzzah!” when His Late Majesty King Henry VII is in view (Also, his sensible decision to marry his daughter into Scotland is a key reason for the Union of the Crowns, so there’s also that to recommend him).
Mind you, it’s slightly scary how meteoric the Tudor dynasty’s rise & fall were: I was reading an Urban Fantasy novel where it suggested (As a mere aside) that the House of Plantagenet took a major tumble due to Richard III ticking off a vampire, but it struck me that the Tudor dynasty (Which came from next to nothing to seize the crown, raised it to new heights of power, then went extinct within a century – and extinct in the male line even more quickly) would have made a far more logical pick for some sort of ‘Deal With The Devil’ scenario.
Anyway, you can tell that King Henry VII has suffered some serious neglect by dramatists, because almost his whole Life Story (Especially leading up to Bosworth Field) has ‘Insert a young Timothy Dalton HERE’ written all over it, but all he gets is a supporting role and the odd epilogue.