Kings did not just inherit (or win) crowns; they also acquired assets. In the case of Henry VIII these were enough to cause widespread speculation. A Venetian in London at the time of his accession wrote that the late king ‘had accumulated so much gold that he is supposed to have more than well nigh all the other kings of Christendom’ and the chronicler, Raphael Holinshed, wrote that ‘unto no king at any time before, was left greater or the like riches, as well in ready coin, as in jewels and other moveables’. Henry VII's accumulation of riches had been a matter of interest for some time and as early as 1497, with more than a decade of his reign still to run, the Milanese ambassador wrote that he ‘has upwards of six millions of gold and it is said that he puts by annually more than 500,000 ducats’. The millions in question would have been ducats rather than pounds, equivalent to about ￡1.3 million, but a huge sum even so and more than enough to support Holinshed's assessment.

The ambassador went on to say that this rate of accumulation was easy, ‘for his revenue is great and real […] nor does he spend anything’. It was observations such as this, coupled with Henry's close scrutiny of the royal accounts and his policy of maximising revenues, that led to an early and extraordinarily resilient reputation for parsimony. But ‘nor does he spend anything’ was very far from the truth and when substantial expenditure was called for by a national emergency or by a need to enhance his image as a powerful and wealthy prince, he did not hesitate. The enormous stocks of plate, jewels, cloth of gold and other splendid trappings built up by the first Tudor king were all inherited by his son and enabled him, from the moment of his accession, to bask in epithets such as ‘magnificent’ and ‘descended from heaven’.