Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII

This collection, published 1861-3 in the Rolls Series, contains documents from the period 1483 to 1509, when the House of York was replaced by the Tudor dynasty. It was one of many selections of source material on the period 1450-1550 compiled by James Gairdner (1828-1912), a long-serving archivist at the Public Record Office, whose work laid the foundations for much subsequent scholarship in British history. Volume 1 includes a contemporary description of the funeral of Edward IV, almost thirty letters from a previously unpublished manuscript assembled by the Chancellor of England during the short reign of Richard III, and sixty-nine items from the reign of Henry VII, together with an editorial introduction and a chronological summary of its contents. The correspondents, from across Europe, write in many different languages, on topics ranging from international peace talks and commercial treaties to the arrangements for Catherine of Aragon’s arrival in England.