Wales in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Histories: Neglect, Rediscovery, and their Implications

Those who read English history in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries encountered significant coverage of Wales. English readers of late fifteenth-century chronicles, however, found little sense of the situation of Wales, even regarding its role in the invasion through Wales of Henry VII, a king with Welsh ancestry. This change suggests there were limits to English fifteenth-century preoccupations with Welsh threats. It also accentuates the significance of the rediscovery of Welsh pasts that took place from the fifteen-thirties, due to the monarchy's Welsh identity and the importance in English historical writing of men with marcher connections like Richard Grafton and Edward Hall.