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Polydore Vergil was an Italian historian who came to England on an offer from Henry VII to write a grand English history. No doubt Henry was using this as an opportunity to provide greater legitimacy to the Tudor dynasty by weaving them into the narrative.

The book, “Anglica Historia” was published after Henry’s death. It contains the following description of the Tudor king:

“His body was slender, but well built and strong; his height above the average. His appearance was remarkably attractive and his face was cheerful, especially when speaking; his eyes were small and blue, his teeth few, poor and blackish; his hair was thin and white; his complexion sallow. His spirit was distinguished, wise and prudent; his mind was brave and resolute, and never, even at moments of greater danger, deserted him. He had a most pertinacious memory; he was not devoid of scholarship. In government, he was shrewd and prudent, so that no-one dared to get the better of him through deceit or guile. He was gracious and kind and was as attentive to his visitors as he was easy of access. His hospitality was splendidly generous; he was fond of having foreigners at his court. But those of his subjects who were generous only with promises he treated with harsh severity. He was most fortunate in war, although he was more inclined to peace. He cherished justice above all things. He was the most ardent supporter of our faith and daily participated with great piety in religious services, but all these virtues were obscured latterly by avarice. In a monarch indeed it may be considered the worst vice, since it is harmful to everyone.”

#tudorhistoryquotes #henry vii #my post #xv century #henry vii and thomas cromwell would've been besties!#thomas cromwell #shadow of the tower #recommendations #polydore vergil

Henry VII, far from pushing a ‘propaganda line’ on Richard’s reign or on his own background, did so only very minimally. For any significant detail his tactic was one of obfuscation or concealment rather than propaganda [...] It was not until the early years of Henry VIII that there was an attempt to construct a more coherent narrative of these events, resulting in the well-known accounts by Polydore Vergil and by Thomas More. But even so, there was no rush to publish the results. Vergil did not appear in print until an expensive Latin edition was published at Basel in 1534. More’s work was never completed. Both only became accessible to a wider public when they were plagiarized to form a continuation to The Chronicle of John Hardyng, printed by Richard Grafton in 1543.

— C. S. L. Davies, Information, disinformation and political knowledge under Henry VII and early Henry VIII | Historical Research (2012)

The term ‘Tudor’ is not merely anachronistic but ambivalent [...] the term ‘Tudor tradition’ applied to the sequence of narrators from Vergil to Shakespeare incorrectly suggests sponsorship by the ‘Tudor monarchs’ including Henry VII himself. It will be argued here that neither Henry VII nor Henry VIII, at least in the first half of his reign, was keen to publicize a detailed narrative of the years 1483–5, either in relation to events in England, or to Henry VII’s family antecedents and his activities in exile before his accession.

#henry vii #henry viii #propaganda tag #polydore vergil #thomas more #historian: c. s. l. davies

Polydore Vergil is often derided as a bias chronicler and propagandist for the Tudor monarchy but if you do a quick search on his background, you will find he was anything but that. Polydore had plenty of bad things to say about Richard III because he was eager to please the new dynasty, but as far as chroniclers go, he was fair when it came to the last Plantagenet King. This is what he had to say about Richard III’s last moments: "The report is that king Richerd might have sowght to save himself by flight; for they who wer abowt him, seing the soldiers even from the first stroke to lyft up ther weapons febly and fayntlye, and soome of them to depart the feild pryvyly, suspectyd treason, and exhortyd him to flye, yea and whan the matter began manyfestly to qwaile, they browght him swyft horses; but he, who was not ignorant that the people hatyd him, owt of hope to have any better hap afterward, ys sayd to have awnsweryd, that that very day he wold make end ether of warre of lyfe, suche great fearcenesse and suche huge force of mynd he had: wherfore, knowinge certanely that that day wold ether yeald him a peaceable and quyet realme from thencefurth or els perpetually bereve him the same, he came to the fielde with the crowne uppon his head, that therby he might ether make a beginning or ende of his raigne." This comes from Vergil's mammoth chronicle on English History, Anglia Historia. You can read more on it if you click on this link: http://www.r3.org/.../these-supposed-crimes/polydore-vergil/

#Polydore Vergil #Richard III #Battle of Bosworth #August 1485 #history #wars of the roses #Henry VII

In 1534, the same year that the Act of Supremacy was passed, cementing England’s split from Rome, the Urbino-born humanist Polydore Vergil published his Anglica Historia. It gave a critical reading of British history, shedding doubt on the Brutus foundation myth and considerably downplaying Arthur’s historical significance. This was a risky approach indeed when anti-Italian sentiment and British nationalist feeling were high. The reaction by Arthur’s defenders was immediate and furious, leading to what has since been known since as the ‘Battle of the Books’. Polydore came to represent not only a meddling foreigner, but a ‘Romish’ foreigner meddling in the affairs of an increasingly independent Britain. This is reflected in the backlash against the Anglica Historia, which was sometimes openly xenophobic. John Bale, the ardent protestant polemicist and friend to John Leland, accused Polydore of "polluting our English Chronicles most shamefully with his Romish lies and other Italish beggarys". Others accused Polydore of burning British books which evidenced Arthur or squirrelling them away to Rome.

Mary Bateman, ‘“The Native Place of that Great Arthur”: Foreignness and Nativity in Sixteenth-Century Defences of Arthur” in Arthurian Literature XXXV (2020)

#oh england #never change #polydore vergil #king arthur #arthurian literature

— Nigel Saul, The Three Richards: Richard I, Richard II and Richard III

It was taken up and developed by the early-Tudor historian Polydore Vergil in his English History; made more accessible in Edward Hall's Union of the Houses of Lancaster and York, a mid-century celebration of the success of the Tudor dynasty; employed with a flourish by Sir Thomas Smith; and completed in Shakespeare's great cycle of history plays. By 1600 there could have been scarcely anyone in England who did not know about the Wars of the Roses.

— A. J. Pollard, The Wars of the Roses

#polydore vergil #richard iii #wars of the roses #edward hall #sir thomas smith #shakespeare #historian: nigel saul #historian: a. j. pollard

In the twenty years [sic] since she wrote, Hanham's conclusions have been broadly accepted by other scholars in the field. It is now virtually impossible for anyone to maintain that Richard's evil reputation was entirely the fabrication of the Tudor historians. As our understanding of the historiographical development has deepened, so it has become clearer that 'Black Richard' was a perception of some at least of the king's contemporaries.

— Nigel Saul, The Three Richards: Richard I, Richard II and Richard III (2005)

#richard iii #polydore vergil #thomas more #historian: nigel saul #historian: alison hanham #the three richards

— Nigel Saul, The Three Richards: Richard I, Richard II and Richard III (2005)

#'these were writers with minds of their own'!!#finally some good fucking food #henry vii #polydore vergil #thomas more #etc #historian: nigel saul #the three richards

Although [Polydore] Vergil’s text also displays this superficially unambiguous movement toward the accession of Henry VII, Hall’s use of additional source material and his adaptations of Vergil to suit his evangelical emphasis lead to self-contradiction within the text. Drawing on the pervasive association between women and political instability, he places queens and aristocratic ladies firmly at the center of conflicts, embedding them into narratives that focus on their own illegitimate desires—adulterous love affairs, inappropriate marriages, and royal ambitions—as fuel for larger factional quarrels. For instance, Hall includes an episode in the life of Humphrey of Gloucester that Vergil deliberately ignores because it does not support his wholly positive portrayal of Gloucester: his affair with and second marriage to Eleanor Cobham, whose imprisonment for witchcraft and treason formed part of his downfall in the 1440s. In fact, John Foxe notes this omission in the 1570 edition of Actes and Monuments though he comes to the opposite conclusion, that Vergil preferred Cardinal Beaufort to Gloucester. Hall contextualizes Gloucester’s unfortunate end as punishment for abandoning his first wife, Jacqueline of Holland, on account of “wanton affeccion” for Eleanor; that “he began his mariage with evill, and ended it with worse.” However, when relating Eleanor’s trial, he does not return to this theme; rather, he frames the accusations as a plot against “noble” Gloucester, who “toke all these thynges paciently, and saied litle.” Of Eleanor herself, he says little, and whether or not she is guilty of the crimes of which she was accused remains ambiguous. It is clear that she is being used here to signify Gloucester’s innocence—which is important in the larger sense that his eventual death will be invoked to punish his murderers—rather than on her own merits. In a sense, Eleanor’s own agency has been subsumed by the men using her to destroy Gloucester, but the fact that her story persists beyond Hall’s attempts to contain it—most notably in the ballad and de casibus traditions that come together in A Mirror for Magistrates— demonstrates the basic problem with that containment.

Kavita Mudan Finn, The Last Plantagenet Consorts: Gender, Genre, and Historiography, 1440-1627 (Palgrave Macmillan 2012)

#eleanor cobham #humphrey duke of gloucester #polydore vergil #hall's chronicles #historian: kavita mudan finn #historiography #reputation and representation