The Quest for Greatness
The Cost of Misunderstanding What Greatness Is

ELIZABETH GEORGE
June 7, 2026

I’ve been thinking about Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, today. I realize this might be, to most people, a rather odd person to be dwelling upon, considering the times in which we live and the country in which I live. But in one of the British magazines to which I subscribe, I recently saw a story entitled “Tudor Power Couples”, and I began to dwell on the Tudor period in England and on what Henry Tudor had in mind when he hid behind his seasoned soldiers to watch them murder King Richard III. In doing so and accepting the crown of England from his step-father, who had betrayed King Richard on the field of battle, Henry Tudor put to an end a dynasty of kings that had ruled England for 331 years. This also also effectively ended 30 years of dynastic conflict between two branches of the Plantagenet family: the House of York and the House of Lancaster.

Henry Tudor would have liked to be considered a Plantagenet, but because he descended from an illegitimate branch of that family, he couldn’t be. This also meant, that—all machinations of his mother aside—he couldn’t and wouldn’t be in line for the throne. The only way he could wear the crown was to take it off the head of the legitimate Plantagenet who happened to be wearing it, Richard III. He wasn’t able to do this himself, of course. There was no way on earth he was personally going to go into battle against a man who’d led the armies of England when he was 19 years old. So he hunkered down behind the line of battle and let his henchmen kill the king, accepting the crown after the deed was done from his traitorous step-dad. Afterwards, he predated the Battle of Bosworth Field (where Richard III was killed), changing it from August 22nd to August 21st. This allowed him to charge with treason every nobleman who fought on the side of his rightful king, Richard. And this allowed Henry Tudor to take everything from them: their lands, their titles, all of their personal property, and their money. In the years that followed, he systematically murdered every living member of the York family save Elizabeth, leaving only one York whom his son Henry murdered when he succeeded his father as king. She was 88 years old at the time.

After the Battle of Bosworth Field, Henry Tudor married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of the king who had preceded Richard III, Richard’s brother Edward IV. This effectively ended the Wars of the Roses. This was also, then, the moment for Henry Tudor to start his own 331 year dynasty.

Things did not go entirely to plan, despite Henry’s effort to make things do so. His heir-to-the-throne—Arthur, Prince of Wales—died at the age of 15, only a few months after he was married to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of the king of Spain. She was 16.

One might presume she would go back home at that point, but when it came to dynastic marriages the “love that binds” had nothing to do with love at all, but rather with money and politics. Part of her dowry had already been paid to the English crown, but part of it remained unpaid. With money and a political alliance at risk, the situation was a delicate one. Obviously, as far as Henry Tudor was concerned, she needed to be kept within the fold of the Tudor family. Negotiations dragged on as negotiations will do, leaving Catherine waiting seven years for her fate to be decided.

Even those knowing only a minute part of English history would be able to tell you that she ended up engaged to Henry Tudor’s second son and heir apparent, although this did not occur until after Henry Tudor’s death when, within weeks, the new king, Henry VIII married her, made her queen of England, and fully expected her to do what women were intended to do: have as many babies as possible during her reproductive years and, if possible, not die during the process.

We all know how that turned out: miscarriages, stillbirths, the death of one living child, and only one survivor of the union: Princess Mary. We also know about the eventual arrival of Anne Boleyn, fresh from the French court where she had spent her formative years.

At the end of it all, through the deaths, the beheadings, the divorces, the failed attempts to have a slew of heirs, subheirs, expectant heirs, and all the rest, the dynasty Henry Tudor wanted was limited to 4 succeeding monarchs, three of them the non-reproducing offspring of Henry VIII. So, three generations of Tudors constituted the entirety of the Tudor dynasty and had two of those generations not been Henry VIII—with his penchant for discarding wives—and Henry’s long-lived daughter Elizabeth I, Henry Tudor himself might well have been a footnote in history.

That’s the thing about leaving one’s mark. One can scheme and manipulate and play life as if it were a game of chess. But how history remembers a person has less to do with the monuments built to him and more to do with the actions he takes during his life.

Henry Tudor was a coward in battle, a liar about the date of that battle, a cheat who robbed men of their rightful titles and belongings, and a murderer of innocent people who had the misfortune of being born into the York family. He may have brought the nobility under control during his reign, he may have stabilized the monarchy for a good length of time, but he was not someone to admire, to point to and to say about, to one’s children, “I hope you grow up to be just like him”. And his immediate descendant was a case-study of self-gratification at the cost of everything else.

Ultimately, people who engage in acts of cowardice, malice, and cruelty are remembered for that. People who cheat, steal, lie, extort, grift, bribe, embezzle, and blackmail are remembered for that. People who persecute the innocent, mock the disabled, taunt the weak, and turn from the poor and the ill are remembered for that. Upon their passing, nothing will be named for them. Monuments will not be built to preserve their memory, their graves will not be visited and looked upon with anything but relief. They know this, at heart, these sorts of people. So to leave their mark, they themselves build the monuments. And they do it while they’re still alive because they know that no one—not a single soul—is going to do it when they’re dead.

Assuming that he engages in self-reflection is a leap, I realize, but should he pause to consider his contributions to the world and to the United States, Donald Trump would have to conclude there will be no monument or memorial to him. Abraham Lincoln saved the union, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington helped create the union, Martin Luther King, Jr. championed civil rights, voting rights, and racial equality, Vietnam Veterans died on foreign soil; Korean veterans did the same. There are memorials to all of these people in Washington DC because they stood for something or did something or created something or saved something. But Donald Trump knows he does not fit into any category of accomplishment, heroism, or patriotism that makes him worthy of permanent acknowledgment.

So he creates his own memorials: his golden ballroom, the banners of his face hanging from government buildings, the new “improved” reflecting pool, the gold-festooned Oval Office, the renamed Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts, the renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace (the irony escaping him). He demands his face be placed on passports and on entrance tickets to National Parks; he wants a gold coin engraved with his visage and a new $250 bill to bear his likeness; he sees himself added to Mt Rushmore as a companion to Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, each of whom was carved into the mountain as a symbol of American history. He’s asked for airports to bear his name. Kennedy has an airport, after all, as has Reagan. So why not he? Schools have been named for Presidents, Universities have been named for Presidents, streets and parks and stadiums have been named for Presidents. So why can something Really Significant not be named for him?

What he fails to see is that the naming has been done by other people, other organizations, other committees. The person memorialized has been selected by city councils and state legislatures and the US Congress and grateful communities, and I doubt very sincerely that the individual honored in this naming suggested himself or herself as deserving of such an honor.

But Donald Trump knows that if he doesn’t order the naming to be done, the honor to be given, the acknowledgment of his greatness to be demonstrated in a concrete way that will outlive him, his children, and his grandchildren, then he will not be memorialized at all other than through the hundreds upon hundreds of books that will be written about him after he’s gone. And those don’t count as memorials, especially since he knows that the books will not see him as the equal of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, or anyone else whose life is honored in Washington D.C.

So Donald Trump continues to scheme and plan for his glorification. He has to do this. For he knows that the moment he finally sheds his mortal coil, he will be—as it has been said—”consigned to the dust bin of history.” He’s eighty years old and he knows it’s coming. He also knows that very few of his current associates will be hanging around long enough to mourn him.

He will, however, by an historic figure, just not the sort of historic figure he deems himself to be.

© 2026 Elizabeth George
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104