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.