S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII (1972)
Autumn 1977 and I am in a band in Hull and we are wondering whether to become punks. I am reading this for History A level: in one sense the ultimate provincial lad makes good biography, in another the extraordinary story of the intimacy of medieval government. Henry rounding up friends and relatives and members of the Yorkist regime who he can perhaps trust, to help run a country. The "king" spending long hours going through the books, surrounded by potential enemies, weighing up the risks. As I got older I respected the research as well. Chrimes went through mountains of faded hand written documents to tell you about the original court of Star Chamber or how Henry spent his evenings and what he had for dinner. Much later I learnt that Stanley Chrimes taught History at Glasgow University for seventeen years, so it has local resonances as well.
