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.
Henry VIII was King of England from 1509 until his death in 1547. He was the second Tudor monarch, succeeding his father Henry VII. Henry is best known for his six marriages, in particular his efforts to have his first marriage annulled. His disagreement with the Pope on the question of such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was excommunicated. Henry is also known as "the father of the Royal Navy"; he invested heavily in the Navy, increasing its size greatly from a few to more than 50 ships.
John Sherren Brewer was an English clergyman, historian and scholar. He was a brother of E. Cobham Brewer, compiler of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable.
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.
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 Public Record Office, Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was merged with the Historical Manuscripts Commission to form The National Archives, based at Kew. It was under the control of the Master of the Rolls, a senior judge. The Public Record Office still exists as a legal entity, as the enabling legislation has not been modified.
The National Archives is a non-ministerial government department. Its parent department is the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is the official archive of the UK government and for England and Wales; and "guardian of some of the nation's most iconic documents, dating back more than 1,000 years." There are separate national archives for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom, is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection of some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence, having been widely sourced during the era of the British Empire. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. It was the first public national museum in the world.
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.
Publication history
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.
British History Online is a digital library of primary and secondary sources on medieval and modern history of Great Britain and Ireland. It was created and is managed as a cooperative venture by the Institute of Historical Research, University of London and the History of Parliament Trust. Access to the majority of the content is free, but other content is available only to paying subscribers.
A Postmaster General, in many countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, responsible for oversight over all other Postmasters. The practice of having a government official responsible for overseeing the delivery of mail throughout the nation originated in England, where a Master of the Posts is mentioned in the King's Book of Payments, with a payment of £100 being authorised for Tuke as master of the posts in February 1512. Belatedly, in 1517, he was officially appointed to the office of Governor of the King's Posts, a precursor to the office of Postmaster General of the United Kingdom, by Henry VIII. In 1609 it was decreed that letters could only be carried and delivered by persons authorised by the Postmaster General.
The Postmaster General of the United Kingdom was a Cabinet-level ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the postal system, the Telegraph Act of 1868 established the Postmaster General's right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs. This would subsequently extend to telecommunications and broadcasting.
The Paston Letters are 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 Jesuit Relations, also known as Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France, are chronicles of the Jesuit missions in New France. The works were written annually and printed beginning in 1632 and ending in 1673. Written as reports for their Order and for helping raise funds for the mission, the Relations were so thorough in descriptions of First Nations and their cultures that these reports are considered among the first ethnographic documents.
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 series was government-funded, and takes its unofficial name from the fact that its volumes were published "by the authority of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls", who was the official custodian of the records of the Court of Chancery and other courts, and nominal head of the Public Record Office.
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 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.
The WashingtonPapers, also known as The Papers of George Washington, is a project dedicated to the publication of comprehensive letterpress and digital editions of George and Martha Washington’s papers. Founded at the University of Virginia in 1968 as the Papers of George Washington, the Washington Papers is an expansive project that includes the papers and documents of George Washington as well as of individuals close to him. The Washington Papers aims to place Washington in a larger context and to bring individuals, such as Martha Washington and Washington family members, into sharper focus. The project is currently headed by editor in chief and director Jennifer E. Steenshorne, and is the largest collection of its type. The project is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Packard Humanities Institute, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, the University of Virginia, the Florence Gould Foundation, and other private donors.
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 became treasurer of the household.
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.
The Papers of James Madison project was established in 1956 to collect and publish in a comprehensive letterpress edition the correspondence and other writings of James Madison, the Virginia statesman best remembered for his public service as "Father of the Constitution" and fourth president of the United States.
Edmund Steward otherwise Stewart or Stewarde was an English lawyer and clergyman who served as Chancellor and later Dean of Winchester Cathedral until his removal in 1559.
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson is a multi-volume scholarly edition devoted to the publication of the public and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The project, established at Princeton University, is the definitive edition of documents written by or to Jefferson. Work on the series began in 1944 and was undertaken solely at Princeton until 1998, when responsibility for editing documents from Jefferson's post-presidential retirement years, 1809 until 1826, shifted to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello. This enabled work to progress simultaneously on two different periods of Jefferson's life and thereby doubled the production of volumes without compromising the high standards set for the project.
The Historical Records of Australia (HRA) were collected and published by the Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, to create a series of accurate publications on the history of Australia. The records begin shortly before 1788, the year that the first British settlement was established in Australia.
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