His passion for money and skill in amassing it are the traits most people remember about Henry VII. They came to him more by necessity than by nature.
[…]
But he had the instinct of survival, and he acquired the traits he needed to survive, intensified, in his case, by the parvenu’s haunting sense of insecurity. The years he spent dodging Yorkist assassins affected him less than his years as king. When he first came to the throne, after the bloody scramble of Bosworth, the first things people noticed about him, after his blond good looks, were his generosity and clemency, his fondness for magnificence and for a joke. But the reckless spirit of adventure sank; the caution increased; the humor took a bitter edge. Crowns seemed harder to keep than to win, and the firmer his grasp on his own, the more uneasy he became.
The first pretender who came against him he made a turnspit in his kitchen and finally something of a pet; but he hanged the second, and struck off the head of the inoffensive, half-daft Earl of Warwick for good measure, simply because Warwick was the “White Rose.”
He still loved beautiful things and liked to make a good appearance, but every coin he could lock away in his treasure chests seemed another pledge of security in a tricky world. He was still a fine figure of a man, but the face was beginning to wear a strained look, lines of secrecy and cunning about the mouth, wariness in the eyes.
Source:
Mattingly, Garrett. “Part I: A Spanish Princess (1485-1509); Chapter 2, Section i” Catherine of Aragon. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 26. Print.
Further Reading:
Harri Tudur (Henry VII of England)
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