Overlord

An immersive, fascinating history of the life and imperial ambitions of Henry VIII.

Henry VIII is one of history’s most famous personalities and England’s most famous monarch. He is simultaneously the virtuous Renaissance prince gone wrong, the psychopathic, paranoid tyrant, and the much-married glutton.

Yet Henry didn’t see himself as simply king of England. Overlord tells Henry's story as he saw it: the tale of a titan whose dominions embraced Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, and, if he could achieve his grandiose ambitions, swathes of France. Drawing on archival sources from across the United Kingdom, Steven Veerapen reveals how Henry created an image of himself as a law-abiding and benevolent emperor, and thereby a rival to his European counterparts. By fair means and foul—murder plots, marriage negotiations, and military venture—he did all he could to realize a hitherto overlooked expansionist dream.

With this myth-busting narrative on the king—he was not particularly gluttonous and not particularly prudish, for example—the real Henry can emerge: a blustering, self-aggrandizing actor who swaggered about the stage of the British Isles in search of an imperial legacy.