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Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII (full title: Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII: preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum, and elsewhere in England; often abbreviated in citations as L&P) is a multi-volume edition of documents from the reign of Henry VIII of England. The series was edited by J. S. Brewer, James Gairdner and R. H. Brodie, and originally published between 1862 and 1932. It remains a key resource for historians of the period, and is now freely available online as part of British History Online.
Surviving documents from the Public Record Office (now The National Archives), the British Museum (now the British Library), other archives, and reliable older publications, are presented in date order. The texts are calendared: that is to say, they are slightly summarised and edited, the language modernised, and some explanatory footnotes added; but all substantive content is retained. Undated documents are printed at the end of the assumed month or year. Grants and payments from accounts are also inserted at the end of their respective months.
The earlier State Papers of Henry VIII, published by the Royal Commission for State Papers in 11 volumes between 1830 and 1852, is not wholly superseded because the editors of that series sought to reproduce the original phrasing and orthography of the selected letters.
The first volume, edited by Brewer and covering the years 1509 to 1514, was published in 1862. Brewer also edited the next three volumes, covering the years 1515 to 1530, published in a total of eight parts between 1864 and 1876. Following Brewer's death in 1879, Gairdner edited the next nine volumes (5–13), covering the years 1531 to 1538, which appeared in a total of eleven parts between 1880 and 1893. Gairdner and Brodie jointly edited the next eight volumes (14–21), covering the years 1539 to 1547, published in a total of thirteen parts between 1894 and 1910.
This brought the series down to the end of the reign of Henry VIII, but by this date a number of new documents had been discovered, and the first volume in particular was felt to be defective. A second, greatly expanded, edition of Volume 1 was therefore published in three parts (two volumes of text and an index) in 1920. Two further volumes of Addenda were published in 1929 and 1932. A full set of the series therefore amounts to 21 nominal volumes, plus two volumes of Addenda; but in physical terms (with Volume 1 represented by the second edition) it amounts to a total of 37 volumes.
A full reprint of the series was issued by the Kraus Reprint Co. in 1965.
The full text is also available online as part of British History Online.
A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters.
Postmaster General of the United Kingdom was a Cabinet ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the postal system, the Telegraph Act 1868 established the Postmaster General's right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs. This would subsequently extend to telecommunications and broadcasting.
James Gairdner was a British historian. He specialised in 15th-century and early Tudor history, and among other tasks edited the Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII series.
John Sherren Brewer, Jr. was an English clergyman, historian and scholar. He was a brother of E. Cobham Brewer, compiler of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable.
The Paston Letters is a collection of correspondence between members of the Paston family of Norfolk gentry and others connected with them in England between the years 1422 and 1509. The collection also includes state papers and other important documents.
Bullarium is a term commonly applied to a collection of papal bulls and other analogous documents, whether the scope of the collection be general in character, or limited to the bulls connected to any particular order, or institution, or locality.
The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, widely known as the Rolls Series, is a major collection of British and Irish historical materials and primary sources published as 99 works in 253 volumes between 1858 and 1911. Almost all the great medieval English chronicles were included: most existing editions, published by scholars of the 17th and 18th centuries, were considered to be unsatisfactory. The scope was also extended to include legendary, folklore and hagiographical materials, and archival records and legal tracts.
The patent rolls are a series of administrative records compiled in the English, British and United Kingdom Chancery, running from 1201 to the present day.
The Close Rolls are an administrative record created in medieval England, Wales, Ireland and the Channel Islands by the royal chancery, in order to preserve a central record of all letters close issued by the chancery in the name of the Crown.
The Lisle Papers are the correspondence received in Calais between 1533 and 1540 by Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (c.1480-1542), Lord Deputy of Calais, an illegitimate son of King Edward IV and an uncle of King Henry VIII, and by his wife, Honor Plantagenet, Viscountess Lisle, from several servants, courtiers, royal officials, friends, children and other relatives. They are an important source of information on domestic life in the Tudor age and of life at the court of Henry VIII.
Sir George Blagge was an English courtier, politician, soldier and a minor poet. He was the Member of Parliament for Bedford from 1545 to 1547, and Westminster from 1547 to 1551, during the reign of Edward VI. His trial and condemnation for heresy in 1546 earned him a place in Protestant martyrology. His family surname was frequently rendered Blage by contemporaries, while another variant was Blake.
Sir Brian Tuke was the secretary of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey. He served as the first Governor of the King's Posts from 1517 to 1545.
Chacombe Priory was a priory of Augustinian canons at Chacombe, Northamptonshire, England.
Dr Richard Gwent was a senior ecclesiastical jurist, pluralist cleric and administrator through the period of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. Of south Welsh origins, as a Doctor of both laws in the University of Oxford he rose swiftly to become Dean of the Arches and Archdeacon of London and of Brecon, and later of Huntingdon. He became an important figure in the operations of Thomas Cromwell, was a witness to Thomas Cranmer's private protestation on becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, and was Cranmer's Commissary and legal draftsman. He was an advocate on behalf of Katherine of Aragon in the proceedings against her, and helped to deliver the decree of annulment against Anne of Cleves.
Henry Man was an English clergyman who served as the Bishop of Sodor and Man in the 16th century.
Sir Ralph Hopton, of Witham, Somerset, was an English courtier and politician. He was the son of a member of the Hopton family and Agnes Haines.
A calendar is, in the context of archival science, textual scholarship, and archival publication, a descriptive list of documents. The verb to calendar means to compile or edit such a list. The word is used differently in Britain and North America with regard to the amount of detail expected: in Britain, it implies a detailed summary which may be used as a substitute for the full text; whereas in North America it implies a more basic inventory.
Sir James Leyburn, also Laybourne, Labourn, etc., was a senior representative of one of the powerful families within the Barony of Kendal. He was at different times a Justice of the Peace for Westmorland, Escheator for Cumberland and Westmorland, and Commissioner for the survey of the monasteries of Lancashire. He was caught up in the troubles at Kendal during the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536-1537). As an assistant to Sir Thomas Wharton, Deputy Warden of the West March, he took an important part in the Battle of Solway Moss (1542). He was one of the two MPs for Westmorland in 1542 and 1545.
Sir Arthur Hopton of Cockfield Hall in Yoxford, Suffolk was an English knight, landowner, magistrate, and Member of Parliament.
William Popley, was an English mercer and land owner, whose association with Thomas Cromwell, enabled him to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the dissolution of the monasteries to secure extensive landed estates.