ABSTRACT
Substantial collections of letters have survived from the sixteenth century. The vast correspondence of the Cecils and the Privy Council letters preserved in state papers provide a detailed insight into the business of Tudor government. At last it becomes possible to derive much of our political and social history from the correspondence of those who made it, for the country’s business was carried out by writing letters. Throughout the century there was a steady growth in literacy, defined as the ability to read. In his edition of the fifteenth-century Paston letters Gairdner wrote, ‘No person or any rank or station in society above mere labouring men seems to have been wholly illiterate. From late medieval times it had been customary in grammar schools to hold additional classes for the ‘petties’, young children including girls who were taught the alphabet and how to read. The letters of Henry VIII reveal a remarkably talented and sensitive person.
