Henry: Virtuous Prince, By David Starkey

The most colourful study yet of young Henry Tudor

Nobody who knows anything about David Starkey will read this title and ask "Which Henry"? It has to be Henry VIII, the English king whose reign has formed the basis both for Dr Starkey's academic career and for his subsequent one as a media star. In most respects it could be called Henry: Apprenticeship, to mimic his best-selling earlier book on the youth of the other most famous Tudor, Queen Elizabeth I. It is likewise concerned entirely with how a celebrated monarch was prepared for, and first established, his or her rule, though in this case intended as the first volume of a full-length biography of Henry, to crown Starkey's work as a historian.

Unsurprisingly, it displays all the features that have made that work so popular hitherto. It has the same racy style, with the trademark detached punch lines that infuse passages with drama or irony. It is filled with Dr Starkey's enduring fascination with royal courts, which has always manifested in two ways. One is his taste for unravelling the backbiting and fixing that was an endemic part of a courtier's life: he is expert in suggesting why some individuals got royal favour at particular moments and others lost it. The other is his innate love of theatre, and especially that of royalty, so that this book, even more than its predecessors, is packed with pageantry and ceremony. It swishes with satin, velvet and cloth of gold, and shimmers with gems, precious metals, weaponry and armour. This is the sort of stuff for which many ordinary readers open history books, and, as usual, Starkey shows why it mattered to a world in which display, symbolism and ritual were central to political life.

It has, therefore, an immense amount to offer the general reader: what does it have to give the historian? Here the book suffers slightly from the length and intensity of the author's existing work on the subject, on page and screen, in that some of the discoveries that he contributes to it have been aired before. Long ago he established the political importance of hitherto neglected court offices such as the staff of the privy chamber, and more recently he has drawn attention to the most unusual quality of young Henry's childhood, in that he was brought up mostly among women, his mother and sisters. This, he plausibly suggests, made the king more cultured, pampered and poised than most elite males of the time. None the less, there are several little gems of brand new information in the book, such as the importance of Lord Mountjoy in introducing young Henry to cutting-edge humanist thought, and of Sir Henry Marney, as his first favourite and political go-between on becoming king. It is proved that Henry was not, as had been thought, allowed to risk his life jousting before he had established himself on the throne, and that he played a personal part in destroying some of his father's henchmen when he succeeded. The book adds much helpful detail to a story which is in outline that which experts already know.

In brief, David Starkey has produced the most careful as well as the most colourful study of the young Henry for a long time, and perhaps of all time. His research has been thorough, and a number of new or undervalued pieces of source material unearthed. It is easy to wish for more. The book is caught awkwardly at times between its dual aspects as a popular and a scholarly work, being unwilling to devote space to some issues of academic interest. For example, it draws attention to an exquisite terracotta bust of a young boy by Guido Mazzoni, thought to be of Henry, but cannot make the time to explain exactly why this identification has been made. It suggests that Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, was the most dangerous of the pretenders to challenge Henry's father, King Henry VII. As Suffolk handed himself in without having managed to raise a single soldier, whereas his predecessors invaded with armies, this seems odd; it would be interesting to hear the argument, but none is offered.

Another basic difficulty – and a more important one – is a lack of sound information, for all Starkey's patient trowelling. Too much about the young Henry's life must be based on supposition, conjecture or a privileging of one unreliable witness after another. In the last analysis, the evidence to answer the fundamental question about it – of how and why he turned out to be such an extraordinary king – just isn't there. The fact that David Starkey does so much with what survives is a further credit to his powers, and can only make readers long for his next book, on the mature Henry.