He were a dark prince, and infinitely suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and troubles. (Sir Francis Bacon). In his remarkable debut, Penn vividly recreates the dark and turbulent reign of Henry VII. He traces the transformation of a young, vulnerable boy, Prince Henry, into the aggressive teenager who would become Henry VIII, and of Catherine of Aragon, his future queen. And at the book's heart is the tragic, magnetic figure of Henry VII — controlling, paranoid, avaricious, with a Machiavellian charm and will to power.