There can be virtually no aspect of Henry VIII’s life and reign, as Steven Veerapen puts it, that has not been ‘scrutinised under every available lens’. So ‘why bother writing about Henry VIII?’ Henry was by modern standards an ardent English nationalist, but he was not an isolationist; rather he was an aggressive expansionist. By almost any measure – not least his own – Henry was a failure, with consequences that would echo down the centuries. Could there be a more perfect footnote to a reign that changed Britain in ways that the young Prince Henry could never have dreamed of or planned?