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The Lost History of Wyatt's Rebellion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

William H. Wiatt
William H. Wiatt*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

MY interest in Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger, who rebelled against Queen Mary in January-February 1554, led me to The historie of Wyates rebellion (December 1554) by John Proctor, a Kentish schoolmaster who was an eyewitness of many of the events he describes. But Proctor himself admitted that his Historie was not the first printed account of Wyatt's rebellion. In his dedicatory epistle to Queen Mary he refers to ‘a printed book late[ly] set forth at Canterbury', from Which either of haste or of purpose [important matters] were omitted'. Proctor's modern editor, unable to identify the earlier book, gave to the page bearing Proctor's epistle the running title ‘The Lost History of Wyatt's Rebellion'. It was from this point that I began my search for the lost history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Summer 1962 , pp. 129 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1962

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References

1. Proctor, John, The History of Wyat's Rebellion, reprinted in modern spelling in Tudor Tracts, ed. Pollard, A. F. (New York, n.d.), pp. 199–257 Google Scholar. The quotation is from p. 203.

2. Gordon Duff, E., English Provincial Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders to 1557 (London, 1912), pp. 117–119 Google Scholar.

3. Ibid., p.119.

4. See Harte, W. J., Handbook of British Chronology (London, 1939), pp. 375–376 Google Scholar.

5. The Diary of Henry Machyn, ed. Nichols, John Gough, Camden Society, No. XLII (London, 1848), pp. 52–57 Google Scholar; The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary, ed. Nichols, John Gough, Camden Society, No. XLVIII (London, 1850), pp. 36–64 Google Scholar; and Writhosley, Charles, A Chronicle of England, ed. Hamilton, William Douglas, Camden Society New Series Nos. XI and XX (London, 1875-77), II, 107–113.Google Scholar

6. Writhosley's Chronicle, II, 113; Machyn's Diary, p. 57; and Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 63.

7. See Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 65: ‘About this tyme [Sondaie the xxvth of Februarye Was the first bruit that the queene wolde kepe the terme and parliament at Oxforde.

8. Ed. John Gough Nichols, Camden Society, No. LIII (London, 1852).

9. Read, Conyers, Bibliography of British History, Tudor Period, Second Edition (Oxford, 1959) p. 26 Google Scholar

10. The Grey Friars’ chronicler may have found Mychell's account of the rebellion ‘ one of the six later editions (1555 to 1560-61, STC nos. 9971-76) of the Breuiat Cronicle each of which reprints, with minor errors, the original narrative by Mychell. One Such error, followed by every subsequent edition, was introduced in the next edition after Mychell's, by J. Kynge (London, 1555), sig. 03: ‘Thys yeare, the .xv. [for'.xxv.’] daye of January, syr Thomas Wyat… began a rebellion …

’ The same error of date is found in the Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, p. 86: “Item the xv. day of the same monyth began the insurreccion at Maydstone by sir Thomas Wyett knyght…’

11. continuer, Fabyan's (Chronicle, London, 1559)Google Scholar drew upon one of the later editions of the Breuiat Cronicle, as this quotation (p. 558) will show: ‘This yere the fiftene day January, Sir Thomas Wiat, George Harper, Henry Isley, and Leonard Digges, with other, began a rebellion at Maidston in Kent, and made a proclamation, pretending to defende the realme from Spaniards, and other straungers.’.

12. The following passage from Holinshed's Chronicles (London, 1808), iv, 11, is to be compared with Mychell's account, sig. N7: ‘But yet such was the diligence and warie ‘circumspection of Iohn Twine at that present major of Canturburie, for that he misliked their disordered attempts, that there was not any of that citie knowne to stur…'