The Original Tudor

I've been listening - on repeat - to Horrible Histories' magisterial Glam Rock pastiche for Henry VII, the original Tudor. Here it is. 

Obviously, you like best the HH songs that match your preferred genre. This certainly matches mine. Visually and musically, it echoes the early 1970s Glam Top of the Pops performances perfectly. It is therefore amazing. Here are all the things I love about it:

Sound...

• The semi-spoken intro makes the same point about Shakespeare's plays that Thomas Penn did in his outstanding Winter King (2011),  
• It sounds primarily like The Sweet and Jean Genie era Bowie (the title is of course another Bowie nod). 
• Specifically, it voicechecks Steve Priest's falsetto from The Sweet  to give emphasis to the following rhyming couplet: 'The only way to end war and avert further disaster, there's got to be a way to unite York and Lancaster.' I have failed to explain successfully to the children why this is so amusing.
• The Sparks reference (at 1m56s. This town ain't big enough for both of us = this crown ain't big enough... for The Perkin Warbeck / Lambet Simnel)
• The Slade reference (at 2mins exactly, for slayed)
• The Mud reference ('That's right, that's right' is straight out of Tiger Feet - it's at 0m57s)

...and Vision 

• The whole blurred lit up 'graphics' can be pretty specifically dated to the early 70s and look like a) the stone age and b) The Sweet's 1973 Blockbuster Top of the Pops performance 
• The cutaway shots to the drummer and the driving guitars are both staples of performance shots from the same era, I just can't find them. 
• In fact the commitment to the 70s aesthetics is absurdly detailed. Even the audience of girls dancing is much shot for shot of era Top of the Pops.

And, most importantly, it's right. Henry VII is vastly underrated in popular history. Henry VIII, who in my view is a fat, sexually incontinent buffoon, captures much of the real estate of the popular imagination, and much of the rest is taken by the contrarian revisionist faction that supports Richard III (who doesn't deserve condemnation for his political murders, but does deserve it for failing to hold the realm together). Henry VII, with far less of a claim than Richard, succeeds. His political murders work. He's 'the man who closes the Wars of the Roses.' 

Far more of a risk taker than his glamorous son; far more ruthless than even that other master of political murder, Henry I; just as decisive on the battlefield as William I (if less epochally significant); one of a handful of English kings to really grasp royal administration. He's absolutely the best Tudor, and probably my favourite English King, not least because he - and I love this line above, is the one 'returning power to the State.' He is not the one you would want to drink with, but he is definitely the one you would put in charge of, well, anything.