A Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors

Charles WriothesleyA contemporary record from about 1520 to 1559

The London chronicle of Charles Wriothesley, Windsor Herald. For the years from about 1520 it is a contemporary’s record, often dated to the day, of executions, proclamations, sermons and changes in worship under Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary.

Wriothesley was Windsor Herald, an officer of arms in London. His editor shows that the chronicle down to the eleventh year of Henry VIII is copied from an older London chronicle and that from then on it is original, the events being set down as they happened, usually with the day of the month and the day of the week.

It is cited here for dates and public events: the trials and deaths of John Fisher and Thomas More, the fall of Thomas Cromwell, the death of Henry VIII, the coming of the new service books. He records the changes in religion with approval, calling the Acts of the Parliament of 1549 “godly”, and his notes on those who died for refusing them should be read in that light. The footnotes in the printed edition are the Victorian editor’s and are not cited.

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