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1500Tower of London
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1516Thomas More's Utopia
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1518Songs written by Henry VIII
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1518Catherine of Aragon's pregnancy
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1526First printed Bible in English
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1539Dissolution of the Monasteries
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1547Edward VI's diary
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1549Book of Common Prayer
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1553Letter from Elizabeth I
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1563John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
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1567The First National Lottery
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1577Elizabethan dress codes
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1580Handwritten recipe
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1580Evidence of Royal Scots
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1582Beginnings of an English Dictionary
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1588Speech by Elizabeth I
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1590Spenser, The Faerie Queene
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1592Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
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1595A cure for drunkenness
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1597Shakespeare’s Richard III
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Intro
Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had been pregnant six times, but only one baby survived: Mary, born in 1516. This letter was written two years later by Henry VIII to Cardinal Wolsey, while Catherine was pregnant for the last time. He writes: 'I trust the quene my wyfe be with chylde' ('I trust the Queen, my wife, be with child').
No doubt remembering past unhappy experiences, Henry adds, 'My lord I wrytt thys unto nott as a ensuryd thyng, but as athyng wherin I have grette hoppe and lyklyodes' ('My Lord, I write this not as a certain thing, but as a thing in which I have great hope and likelihood.') Henry was, of course, eager for a male heir, but the child was in fact a girl, and she died shortly after her birth.
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Transcript
Letter from Henry VIII to Cardinal Wolsey
In present day English:
My lord cardinal, I recommend unto you as heartily as I can, and I am right glad to hear of your good health, which I pray God may long continue. So it is that I have received your letters, to the which (by cause they ask long writing) I have made answer by my secretary. Two things there be which be so secret that they cause me at this time to write to you myself; the one is that I trust the queen my wife be with child; the other is chief cause why I am sloth to repair to London ward, by cause about this time is partly of her dangerous times, and by cause of that, I would remove her as little as I may now. My lord, I write thus unto you, not as an ensured thing, but as a thing wherein I have great hope and likelihood, and by cause I do well know that this thing will be comfortable to you to understand; therefore, I do write it unto you at this time. No more to you at this time, nisi quod Deus velit inceptum opus bene finire. Written with the hand of your loving prince,
HENRY R.
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