Thomas Penn

Thomas Penn is a British historian and editor who specialises in the political history of late medieval and early Tudor England. He holds a doctorate in medieval history from Clare College, Cambridge, and has written for publications including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the London Review of Books. Penn is also a publishing director at Penguin Books UK. His work concentrates on monarchy, dynastic rivalry, court politics and the often ruthless methods by which English rulers secured and maintained power.

His first book, Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England, examines the founder of the Tudor dynasty as an intelligent but increasingly suspicious ruler who used spies, financial penalties and political intimidation to control the kingdom he had won at Bosworth. Penn later wrote The Brothers York, a study of Edward IV, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard III, tracing how rivalry, mistrust and ambition destroyed the Yorkist dynasty during the Wars of the Roses. Together, the books provide a closely connected account of England’s transition from Yorkist civil conflict to the establishment of Tudor government.