[Music] hello I'm Natalie Dorma and this is 21st century London London's Rich history can be traced back 2,000 years but there was one significant event that took place 500 years ago that led to the transformation of England and the world we live in today Henry VII was crowned King of England to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Henry's coronation Britain put out all the stops with special events and exhibitions around a king who transformed England to one of the most powerful nations in Europe so come with me and let's take a look is my duty to escort you to the Tower here we are at the infamous Tower of London primarily a tourist attraction today the Tower of London dates back to 1078 when William the Conqueror started building the White Tower behind me the primary functions of the tower were as a fortress a royal palace and a prison particularly for high-profile prisoners such as Henry VII's second wife an bin and his fifth wife Katherine Howard who were both executed on Tower green so it is here that we fittingly will find an exhibition called Henry VII dress to kill joining me is Bridget Clifford curator of Royal armories at the Tower of London so Bridget to start at the beginning far from the overweight monstrous Henry that people commonly think of here we have a very thin virile athletic young man how old is Henry when he's wearing this he's in his early 20s is probably about 23 and he would wear it for the tournament and he would have been riding against another opponent similarly armed both of them equipped with a lance and the idea was to shatter the Lance on your [Applause] opponent it's quite a dangerous sport really isn't it is yes and an age before antibiotics splintering pieces of wood coming at you can be very dangerous were there any accidents with Henry yes uh we know two major ones that he had one where he forgot to put his visor down the king's forgotten his visor he was also knocked from his horse and was unconscious for a number of hours move move we also think that he had a leg injury which Poss possibly was a sporting injury and that leg injury is what goes on to incapacitate him as he gets older what in the name of God so what do we have here we have the armor for the foot combat and this is what Henry thought that he was going to take to the field of cloth of gold and compete in and famously wrestled an equal Francis the first is that accurate did that actually happen yes um if you wrestle somebody is going to come out on top hen is supremely confident it would be him unfortunately it wasn't but then of course you can accuse the other side of cheating afterwards oh the French definitely cheated I always knew it wasn't my [Music] fault this is deadly true Warfare we have in front of us absolutely this is Cutting Edge technology gunpowder's been around for a while but now this is coming into to what we recognize as guns and Henry's very interested in their development we shall be Invincible how could the French withstand US Post Reformation Henry's dealing with the Pope encouraging the Catholic powers of France and Spain to invade England Henry's crimes against us and against our faith are too profound to forgive so this sort of technology is very much on Henry's mind presumably he's looking into what can be done he's opened suggestion and he's prepared to back them and see where it's going you will find guns and ordinance at Hungerford but don't T there I will do all your majesty commands and more it's hard to believe that this suit of armor belonged to the same man who wore the first suit of armor that we saw today Henry certainly put on the pounds in this one from the front you still have the illusion of the young man he's still quite a good shape but it's when you go around the side and the back and you suddenly realize that his majesty is indeed greater than he was so the great thing about this suit is it comes with accessories simply by bolting on the additional pieces Henry can go to the ja he can go to the battlefield in this armor foran so what date is this particular piece well we're fortunate every curator's dream that the artist actually Incorporated the date in the decoration so it's 1540 and at that point I think Henry's life is taking a change who's that [Music] girl that is Catherine Howard so it's a a Renaissance in energy he's feeling young again he is truly becoming a Renaissance King now rather than Prince this time yes I feel almost like a new man Charles you are very fortunate [Music]