The Penguin History of Britain: New Worlds, Lost Worlds:The Rule of the Tudors 1485-1630 (64 page)

Contemporary chronicles of Henry VII’s reign are:
The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil,
AD
1485–1537
, ed. D. Hay (Camden Society, London, lxxiv, 1950), and
The Great Chronicle of London
, ed. A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (Gloucester, 1983). Francis Bacon’s history is as revealing of his own times as of Henry VII’s:
The History of King Henry the Seventh
, ed. J. Weinberger (New York, 1996). The standard studies of Henry VII and his reign are by R. L. Storey,
The Reign of Henry VII
(London, 1968) and S. B. Chrimes,
Henry VII
(London, 1981). For his exile and passage to Bosworth, see R. A. Griffiths and R. S. Thomas,
The Making of the Tudor Dynasty
(Gloucester, 1985).

The closest observer of the landscape of England and Wales was the great Tudor topographer, John Leland; see
The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535–1543
, ed. L. Toulmin Smith (5 vols., Carbondale, Illinois, 1964). See also M. W. Beresford and J. K. S. St Joseph,
Medieval England: An Aerial Survey
(2nd edn, Cambridge, 1979). The essential work upon rural society is
The Agrarian History of England and Wales
, vol. 4, 1500–1640, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, 1967). Helpful introductions are found in D. C. Coleman,
The Economy of England, 1450–1750
(Oxford, 1977), and D. M. Palliser,
The Age of Elizabeth: England under the later Tudors, 1547–1603
(London, 1983). See also E. Kerridge,
Agrarian Problems in the Sixteenth Century and After
(London, 1969) and J. C. K. Cornwall,
Wealth and Society in Early Sixteenth Century England
(London, 1988). W. G. Hoskins illumines local society for the county where Henry VII seized his throne in
The Midland Peasant: The Economic and Social History of a Leicestershire Village
(London, 1957). His polemical study of English society,
The Age of Plunder: The England of King Henry VIII, 1509–1547
(London, 1976) is important. For London, see G. A. Williams,
Medieval London: From Commune to Capital
(London, 1963).

For the nature of England’s constitution and government, see S. B. Chrimes,
English Constitutional Ideas in the Fifteenth Century
(Cambridge, 1936); G. R. Elton,
The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary
(2nd edn, Cambridge, 1982); S.J. Gunn,
Early Tudor Government, 1485–1558
(Basingstoke, 1995);
The End of the Middle Ages? England in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
, ed. J. L. Watts (Stroud, 1998); P. Williams,
The Tudor Regime
(Oxford, 1979); and G. L. Harris, ‘Political society and the growth of government in late medieval England’,
Past and Present
, 138 (1993).

For ‘Britain’, see R. Davies, ‘The Matter of Britain and the Matter of England’, an inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 29 February 1996 (Oxford, 1996). A revealing comparison between the societies and government of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland is found in R. Frame,
The Political Development of the British Isles, 1100–1400
(Oxford, 1995). For Wales, see G. Williams,
Renewal and Reformation: Wales, c. 1415–1642
(Oxford, 1993); J. Gwynfor Jones, Early Modern Wales, c. 1525–1640(Basingstoke, 1994; and
The Marcher Lordships of South Wales, 1415–1536
, ed. T. B. Pugh (Cardiff, 1963). For Scotland, see R. G. Nicholson,
Scotland: the Later Middle Ages
(Edinburgh, 1974); G. Donaldson,
Scotland: James V to James VII
(Edinburgh, 1965); J. Wormald,
Court, Kirk and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625
(Edinburgh, 1981), and
Lords and Men in Scotland: Bonds of Manrent, 1442–1603
(Edinburgh, 1985). For the North of England, see A. J. Pollard,
North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses: Lay Society, War and Politics
(Oxford, 1990). A pioneering comparative study of the far north of England and the Irish Pale, two border regions, is found in S. G. Ellis,
The Frontiers of Noble Power: The Making of the British State
(Oxford, 1995).

For society and lordship in Gaelic Ireland in the later middle ages, see K. W. Nicholls,
Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland in the Middle Ages
(Dublin, 1972);
Land, Law and Society in Sixteenth-Century Ireland
(Dublin, 1976); and his chapter in
A New History of Ireland
, vol. 2,
Medieval Ireland, 1169–1534
, ed. A. Cosgrove (Oxford, 1987). For Anglo-Irish society, see R. Frame, ‘Power and Society in the Lordship of Ireland, 1272–1377’,
Past and Present
, 76 (1977);
The English in Medieval Ireland
, ed. J. Lydon (Dublin, 1984); C. Lennon,
The Lords of Dublin in the Age of Reformation
(Dublin, 1989); and D. Bryan,
Gerald Fitzgerald the Great Earl of Kildare, 1456–1513
(Dublin and Cork, 1933). For the Church, see J. A. Watt,
The Church in Medieval Ireland
(Cambridge, 1972), and C. Mooney,
The Church in Gaelic Ireland, 13th to 15th Centuries
(Dublin, 1969).

For a polemical reassessment of Henry VII’s achievement, see Christine Carpenter’s essay in
The Reign of Henry VII
ed. B. Thompson (Stamford, 1995), and her
Locality and Polity: a Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401–1499
(Cambridge, 1992), Ch. 15–16. The first pretender rising is treated in M. J. Bennett,
Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke
(Gloucester, 1987). For Henry’s methods of government and treatment of the nobility, see B. P. Wolffe,
The Royal Demesne in English History: The Crown Estate in the Governance of the Realm from the Conquest to 1509
(London, 1971); G. R. Elton, ‘Henry VII: Rapacity and Remorse’, and ‘Henry VII: A Restatement’ in his
Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government
, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1974); J. P. Cooper, ‘Henry VII’s last years reconsidered’,
Historical Journal
, ii (1959); T. B. Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English Nobility’ in
The Tudor Nobility
, ed. G. W. Bernard (Manchester, 1992); and J. R. Lander,
Crown and Nobility, 1450–1509
(London, 1976). For Perkin Warbeck and the 1497 rising, see I. Arthurson,
The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy, 1491–1499
(Stroud, 1994), and his ‘The Rising of 1497: A revolt of the peasantry?’ in
People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages
, ed. J. T. Rosenthal and C. F. Richmond (Stroud, 1987).

For Henry’s last years, see M. M. Condon, ‘Ruling Elites in the Reign of Henry VIII’ and S. J. Gunn, ‘The Courtiers of Henry VII’ in
The Tudor Monarchy
, ed. J. Guy (London, 1997); D. A. Luckett, ‘Crown Patronage and Political Morality in Early Tudor England: The Case of Giles, Lord Daubeney’,
English Historical Review
, cx (1995); C. J. Harrison, ‘The Petition of Edmund Dudley’,
English Historical Review
, lxxxvii (1972); and S. Anglo, ‘Ill of the Dead: The posthumous reputation of Henry VII’,
Renaissance Studies
, i (1987).

Of the four surviving English mystery play cycles, I have particularly concentrated upon and cited from
The N-Town Play: Cotton MS Vespasian D.8
, ed. S. Spector (Early English Text Society, supplementary series, 11–12, Oxford, 1991). The meaning and purposes of the plays are elucidated in V. A. Kolve,
The Play called Corpus Christi
(Stanford, 1966) and R. Woolf,
The English Mystery Plays
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1972).

Illuminating accounts of the Mass and the Christian community are found in J. Bossy, ‘The Mass as a social institution, 1200–1700’,
Past and Present
, 100 (1983), and
Christianity in the West, 1400–1700
(Oxford, 1985); E. Duffy,
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580
(New Haven and London, 1992), Part 1; Bernard, Lord Manning,
The People’s Faith in the Time of Wyclif
(Cambridge, 1919); and M. Rubin,
Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture
(Cambridge, 1991). See also S. Brigden, ‘Religion and social obligation in sixteenth-century London’,
Past and Present
, 103 (1984).
The Lay Folks Mass Book
, ed. T. F. Simmons (Early English Text Society, original series, 71, London, 1879) is a revealing source.

The place of the dead is discussed in J. le Goff,
The Birth of Purgatory
, trans. A. Goldhammer (Aldershot, 1984); J-C. Schmitt,
Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society
, trans. T. L. Fagan (Chicago and London, 1998); R. Houlbrooke,
Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480–1750
(Oxford, 1998); and
The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
, ed. B. Gordon and P. Marshall (Cambridge, 2000). For the devotion to saints and their images, see
Mirk’s Festial
, ed. T. Erbe (Early English Text Society, extra series, xcvi, 1905); M. Aston,
Faith and Fire: Popular and Unpopular Religion, 1350–1600
(London and Rio Grande, 1993); J. Huizinga,
The Waning of the Middle Ages
(Harmondsworth, 1955); E. Mâle,
Religious Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century
(London, 1949); R. C. Finucane,
Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England
(London, 1977); and J. Sumption,
Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion
(London, 1975).

For the power of religion in the lives of the people, and the authority of the Church and priesthood, see J. J. Scarisbrick,
The Reformation and the English People
(Oxford, 1984); R. Swanson,
Catholic England: Faith, Religion and Observance before the Reformation
(Manchester, 1993); P. Marshall,
The Catholic Priesthood and the English Reformation
(Oxford, 1994); K. V. Thomas,
Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England
(London, 1971); and T. N. Tentler,
Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation
(Princeton, 1977). Illuminating contemporary accounts of Catholic morality are Richard Whitford,
A Werke for Housholders, or for them that have the gydynge or gouernaunce of ony company
(London, 1530); W. Harrington,
In thys boke are conteyned the comendations of matrimony
(London,
c
. 1517); and
The Tree of Commonwealth: A treatise written by Edmund Dudley
, ed. D. M. Brodie (Cambridge, 1948).

For English society generally, see K. Wrightson,
English Society, 1580–1680
(London, 1982); J. A. Sharpe,
Early Modern England: A Social History, 1550–
1760
(London, 1987); P. Laslett,
The World we have Lost: Further Explored
(London, 1983); and J. Youings,
Sixteenth-century England
(Harmondsworth, 1984). For the English family and life cycle, see D. Cressy,
Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England
(Oxford, 1997); R. Houlbrooke,
The English Family, 1450–1700
(Harlow, 1984); B. Hanawalt,
The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England
(Oxford, 1986); P. Laslett,
Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations: Essays in Historical Sociology
(Cambridge, 1977); and
Household and Family in Past Time
, ed. P. Laslett and R. Wall (Cambridge, 1972). For an intimate portrait of one family, see
The Lisle Letters
, ed. M. St C. Byrne, (6 vols., Chicago and London, 1981). See also
The Plumpton Letters and Papers
, ed. J. Kirby (Camden Society, 5th series, viii, 1996);
Memorials of the Holles Family, 1493–1656, by Gervase Holles
, ed. A. C. Wood (Camden Society, 3rd series, lv, London, 1937); B. Winchester,
Tudor Family Portrait
(London, 1955); and L. E. Pearson,
Elizabethans at Home
(Stanford, 1957).

On population, the pioneering and authoritative study is E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield,
The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction
(London, 1981). See also J. Hatcher,
Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348–1530
(Basingstoke, 1977).

For childhood and youth, see P. Ariès,
Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life
, trans. R. Baldick (London, 1962); I. Pinchbeck and M. Hewitt,
Children in English Society: From Tudor Times to the Eighteenth Century
(London, 1969); K. V. Thomas, ‘Age and Authority in Early Modern England’,
Proceedings of the British Academy
, lxii (1976); S. Brigden, ‘Youth and the English Reformation’,
Past and Present
, 95 (1982); and I. K. Ben Amos,
Adolescence and Youth in Early Modern England
(New Haven, 1994).

Marriage, and the making of marriage, are discussed in R. B. Outhwaite,
Clandestine Marriage in England, 1500–1850
(London, 1995); M. Ingram,
Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570–1640
(Cambridge, 1987); R. H. Helmholz,
Marriage Litigation in Medieval England
(Cambridge, 1974);
Marriage and Society: Studies in the social history of marriage
, ed. R. B. Outhwaite (London, 1981); and A. Macfarlane,
Marriage and Love in England: Modes of Reproduction, 1300–1840
(Oxford 1986).

The last things and the art of dying well are explained in St Thomas More,
English Poems, Life of Pico and The Last Things
, ed. A. S. G. Edwards, K. G. Rodgers and C. H. Miller in
The Complete Works of St Thomas More
, vol. 1 (New Haven and London, 1997); R. Whitford,
A Dayly Exercyse and Experyence of Death
, ed. J. Hogg, Salzburg Studies in English Literature (1979); N. L. Beaty,
The Craft of Dying: The Literary Tradition of Ars Moriendi in England
(New Haven and London, 1970). For funerals, see
The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, from
AD
1550 to
AD
1563
, ed. J. G. Nichols (Camden Society, original series, xlii, 1848); and C. Gittings,
Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England
(London, 1984). For chantries and prayers for the dead, see J. T. Rosenthal,
The Purchase of Paradise
(London, 1972); and K. L. Wood-Legh,
Perpetual Chantries in Britain
(Cambridge, 1965).

For the sense of kinship and lineage among the nobility and gentry, L. Stone,
The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641
(Oxford, 1965), J. Hughes,
Pastors and Visionaries: Religion and Secular Life in Late Medieval Yorkshire
(Woodbridge, 1988), and C. Carpenter,
Locality and Polity
(Cambridge, 1992) are indispensable. See also M. E. James,
Family, Lineage and Civil Society: A Study of Society, Politics and Mentality in the Durham Region, 1500–1640
(Oxford, 1974); and J. P. Rosenthal,
Patriarchy and Families of Privilege in Fifteenth-Century England
. The ‘surnames’ of the far north of England are described in G. MacDonald Fraser,
The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers
(London, paperback edn, 1995); and R. Robson,
The Rise and Fall of the English Highland Clans: Tudor Responses to a Medieval Problem
(Edinburgh, 1989). For kinship in Ireland, see K. Nicholls,
Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland
(Dublin, 1972). See also
Land, Kinship and Life-Cycle
, ed. R. M. Smith (Cambridge, 1984); D. Cressy, ‘Kinship and Kin Interaction in Early Modern England’,
Past and Present
, 113 (1986); and
Migration and Society in Early Modern England
, ed. P. Clark and D. Souden (London, 1987).

The character of gentry and noble households is described in D. Starkey, ‘The Age of the Household: Politics, society and the arts,
c
. 1350–c.1550’ in
The Later Middle Ages
, ed. S. Medcalf (London, 1981); K. Mertes,
The English Noble Household, 1250–1600: Good Governance and Politic Rule
(Oxford, 1988);.F. Heal,
Hospitality in Early Modern England
(Oxford, 1990); and K. Simms, ‘Guesting and Feasting in Gaelic Ireland’,
Journal of The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
, 108 (1978). For the education of the sons of the nobility, see N. Orme,
From Childhood to Chivalry: the Education of English Kings and Aristocracy, 1066–1530
(London, 1984).

The families and households of merchants and the lower orders are studied in M. Spufford,
Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(Cambridge, 1974); M. K. McIntosh,
A Community Transformed: The Manor and Liberty of Havering, 1500–1620
(Cambridge, 1991); M. Pelling,
The Common Lot: Sickness, Medical Occupations and the Urban Poor in Early Modern England
(Harlow, 1998); and A. Kussmaul,
Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England
(Cambridge, 1981).

A compelling contemporary account of a city is
A Survey of London by John Stow
, ed. C. L. Kingsford (2 vols., Oxford, 1908). The best studies of life in English cities and towns are found in S. L. Thrupp,
The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300–1500
(Ann Arbor, 1976 edn); C. Phythian-Adams,
Desolation of a City: Coventry and the Urban Crisis of the Late Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 1979); S. Rappaport,
Worlds within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-Century London
(Cambridge, 1989); D. M. Palliser,
Tudor York
(Oxford, 1979); and G. Rosser,
Medieval Westminster, 1200–1540
(Oxford, 1989). For Ireland, see C. Lennon,
The Lords of Dublin in the Age of Reformation
(Dublin, 1989).

Parish, neighbourhood and fraternity are considered in I. Archer,
The Pursuit of Stability: Social Relations in Elizabethan London
(Cambridge, 1991); S. J. Wright,
Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, 1350–1750
(London, 1988);
Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West
, ed. J. Bossy (Cambridge, 1983); and A. G. Rosser, ‘Parochial Conformity and Popular Religion in Late Medieval England’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
, 6th series, i (1991). For parish fraternities, see H. F. Westlake,
The Parish Gilds of Medieval England
(London, 1919);
Parish Fraternity Register: Fraternity of the Holy Trinity and SS. Fabian and Sebastian in the Parish of St Botolph without Aldersgate
, ed. P. Basing (London Record Society, London, 1982); and C. Barron, ‘The parish fraternities of medieval London’, in
The Church in pre-Reformation Society
, ed. C. Barron and C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1985). The classic work upon the English religious houses is D. Knowles,
The Religious Orders in England
(3 vols., Cambridge, 1959). See also L. Butler and C. Given Wilson,
Medieval Monasteries of Great Britain
(London, 1979). For Ireland, see A. Gwynn and R. N. Hadcock,
Medieval Religious Houses in Ireland
(London, 1970); and B. Bradshaw,
The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in Ireland under Henry VIII
(Cambridge, 1974).

For the poor and outcast, and attempts to aid or control them, see P. Slack,
Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England
(London, 1988) and A. L. Beier,
Masterless Men: The Vagrancy Problem in England, 1560–1640
(London, 1985). On crime, see J. A. Sharpe,
Crime in Early Modern England, 1550–1750
(London, 1984) and
Crime in England, 1550–1800
, ed. J. S. Cockburn (London, 1977). On suicide, see M. MacDonald and T. R. Murphy,
Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England
(Oxford, 1990).