The term ‘Tudor’ was hardly used in the 16th Century and its obsessive  modern use by historians and writers generally gives us a misleading  impression of the period, an Oxford historian has found.

Cliff Davies of Oxford University’s History Faculty has scoured official papers, chronicles, poems, plays and pamphlets for  the ‘Tudor’ name, but have found it was hardly ever used as a designation of the monarchy. Not until the last years of Elizabeth’s reign, and even then sparingly. For instance of the many poems written to mark the death of Elizabeth and the accession of James I in 1603, only one talks of a change from ‘Tudor’ to ‘Stuart’.

Davies suggests that terms like ‘Tudor England’ and ‘Tudor monarchy’ used by historians and in TV and film dramas give a false impression of glamour and unity to the period from Henry VII to Elizabeth I, and that historians need to rethink many assumptions about 16th Century England.

In an interview to the Oxford University Media, he claims that ‘The word ‘Tudor’ is used obsessively by historians, often as a quite unnecessary reinforcing adjective to add an appropriate ‘period flavour’ to their work, but it was almost unknown at the time”.

According to Davies, the Tudor name was deliberately played down, because it was an embarrassment in England; Henry VIII would rather boast of the “Union”, of the families of Lancaster and York, which he embodied through his mother.

– ‘Periods’ are artificial constructions by historians. What makes the concept of the ‘Tudor period’ so seductive is that we believe it to have been current at the time. This was not the case.  We need to revise our concepts, says Davies, who is obviously a bit annoyed by the “Tudor Craze” apparent in films, television series and the Living History re-enactments flourishing around the countryside each summer.

C.S.L. Davies is Keeper of the Archives at Wadham College and a distinguished “Tudor” Historian, as it somewhat ironically says on the blurb of a selection of essays, which were presented to him in 2002 (Authority and Consent in Tudor England: essays presented to C.S.L. Davies. Ed. by G. W. Bernard and S. J. Gunn. Ashgate 2002). His main work is a detailed and generally very admired study of “Peace, Print and Protestantism 1450-1558”, published at Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1976.

C.S.L. Davies has published the background for these reflections in an article:
Information, disinformation and political knowledge under Henry VII and early Henry VIII (pages 228–253) in: Historical Research, May 2012, Vol. 85, issue 228: pp. 228 – 253

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