Published in 1889. The English historian Gairdner’s valuable and painstaking contributions to English history relate chiefly to the reigns of Richard III, Henry VII and Henry VIII. He begins his biography of Henry VII: Never was king so thoroughly disciplined by adversity before he came to the throne as was King Henry VII. Without a father even from his birth, driven abroad in his childhood owing to the attainder of his family, more than once nearly delivered up to his enemies, and owing life and liberty to his own and his friends’ astuteness, his ultimate conquest of the Crown was scarcely so much a triumph of ambition as the achievement of personal safety. Contents of this work are: Early Life ; Attainment of the Crown ; Settlement in the Kingdom ; Rebellion of Lambert Simnel ; The War in Brittainy ; The War with France ; Perkin Warbeck and His Friends ; Ireland ; Henry’s Foreign Policy ; Domestic History ; Prosperity and Alliances ; and Henry VII and Castile .