Bacon pointed out the ‘unworthiness’ and ‘deficiences’ of English history in his Advancement of Learning.[1] ’Some few very worthy, but the greater part beneath mediocrity’ was his verdict on modern histories in general.  He was not the first to express these views.  Sir Henry Savile had been more emphatic in his dedication to Queen Elizabeth of his collection of early chronicles, Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam, published in 1596.[2] And after Bacon, somewhere about 1618, these views were again expressed by Edmund Bolton in his Hypercritica, or a Rule of Judgement for writing or reading our Histories.[3] ‘The vast vulgar Tomes’, he said, ’procured for the most part by the husbandry of Printers, and not by appointment of the Prince or Authority of the Common-weal, in their tumultuary and centonical Writings do seem to resemble some huge disproportionable Temple, whose Architect was not his Arts Master’.  He repeated what he calls the common wish ’that the majesty of handling our history might once equal the majesty of the argument’.  England had had all other honours, but only wanted a history.

But the most valuable statement on the conditions of English history at this time and the obstacles that hindered its progress was made by Sir John Hayward at the beginning of his Lives of the III Normans, Kings of England, published in 1613.  Leaving aside the methods of the chroniclers, he had taken the classical historians as his model in his First Part of the Life and raigne of King Henrie the IIII.  The interest of this work to the modern reader lies in its structure, its attempt at artistic unity, its recognition that English history must be written on a different plan, rather than in its historical matter.  But it was no sooner published than Hayward was committed to the Tower because the account of the deposition of Richard ii was held to be treasonable, the offence being aggravated by the dedication, in perfectly innocent terms, to the Earl of Essex.  His work was thus checked till he met with encouragement from Henry, Prince of Wales, a patron of literature, of whom, though a mere youth, such men as Jonson, Chapman, and Raleigh, spoke with an enthusiasm that cannot be mistaken for flattery.  Prince Henry saw the need of a worthy history of England.  He therefore sent for Hayward to discuss the reasons with him: 

Prince Henry ... sent for mee, a few monethes before his death.  And at my second comming to his presence, among some other speeches, hee complained much of our Histories of England; and that the English Nation, which is inferiour to none in Honourable actions, should be surpassed by all, in leauing the memorie of them to posteritie....

I answered, that I conceiued these causes hereof; One, that men of sufficiencie were otherwise employed; either in publicke affaires, or in wrestling with the world, for maintenance or encrease of