HENRY VII CONTEMPORARY
André, Bernard, De Vita atque gestis Henrici Septimi, and Annales Henrici Septimi (to be found in Gairdner's Memorials, infra). André was the court historiographer, and was blind. Honest, but not altogether trustworthy, or adequate.
Fabyan, Robert, New Chronicles of England and France, (supplement), ed. Ellis: and London Chronicle: both, in their present form, probably summaries from the original record compiled by Fabyan as the events took place; upon which original it would seem that both Hall and Stow largely based their Chronicles of the reign.
Hall, Edward, Chronicle: compiled chiefly from Polydore Vergil, and
Fabyan for this reign. For Henry VIII., he is literally a contemporary.
Italian Relation, An, (Author unknown: ed. Camden Society), by an Italian visitor to England.
Letters and Papers, Richard III. and Henry VII., ed. Gairdner.
Letters and Papers Henry VIII., (vols. i. and ii.) ed. Brewer.
Letters, Despatches and State Papers, from Simancas, ed. Bergenroth. Spanish relations.
Lyndsay of Pitscottie, Historie of Scotland: picturesque but not too trustworthy.
Macchiavelli, N., The Prince. An interesting contrast to the political philosophy of the Utopia.
Memorials of Henry VII., ed. Gairdner: contemporary records.
More, Sir T., Utopia, first book (illustrating social and economic conditions).
Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner; correspondence of the Paston family.
Polydore Vergil, Historiae Anglicae Libri. P. V. was an Italian who came to England in 1502. For the earlier years of Henry VII. he had access to good sources of information; for the latter years he was a witness, but with the inevitable limitations of a foreign observer.
INTERMEDIATE
Bacon, Francis, History of the Reign of King Henry VII. This has been the basis of all the popular histories, for the reign. It is often referred to as "contemporary". But Bacon was not born till fifty years after Henry's death, and did not write the history till he was over fifty himself. His work contains much that is merely rhetorical amplification of above named contemporary authorities, with occasional imaginative variations and misreadings: nor does he appear to have had additional sources of information.
Ware, De Hibernia; a supplement to which contains annals of Irish
History in the reign of Henry VII.; written in the time of Charles I.
MODERN
Busch, Wilhelm, England under the Tudors, vol. i., Henry VII.
Translated by A. M. Todd. The one complete and thorough account of the
reign, with an exhaustive examination of the authorities: and notes by
J. Gairdner.
Gairdner, J., Henry VII. (Twelve English Statesmen series), an admirable study but with less detail; written before Busch's work was published.
Seebohm, F., The Oxford Reformers, Colet, Erasmus and More: an illuminating study.
HENRY VIII
CONTEMPORARY: A. DOCUMENTARY
Calendar of State Papers
(1) State Papers, Henry VIII. A series of eleven volumes edited before the commencement of the series next named. These are referred to in this work as "S. P."; and the next series mentioned, as "L. & P."
(2) Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII. Vols. i.-iv. ed. Brewer, vols. v. ff. ed. J. Gairdner and others. Dr. Brewer carried his work down to the fall of Wolsey, arranging all available documents so far as possible chronologically, but without other classification. His introductions have been edited as two solid volumes (v. infra) by Dr. Gairdner. The subsequent editors were restricted as to the length of introduction permitted but the same system of arrangement is followed. Throughout, all documents of any importance are transcribed with fulness.
(3) State Papers, Venetian, (4) State Papers, Ireland, (5) (State Papers, Spanish;_ all official collections throwing some light on (various aspects of the history. [2, 3, and 5 belong to the Rolls series.]
Hamilton Papers (Scotland) 2 vols.: full transcriptions of the Hamilton collection of Papers.
Letters of Thomas Cromwell, ed. Merriman, a complete collection of all the available letters of Cromwell, with a historical survey.