Early modern writers, such as Polydore Vergil and Matthew Parker, the Elizabethan Archbishop of Canterbury, also utilised the Historia, and his works were used by both Protestant and Catholic sides in the Wars of Religion.

But the rediscovery of the works of Tacitus during the Renaissance allowed Polydore Vergil to reintroduce her into British history as " Voadicea " in 1534.

So, for example, the 16th-century humanist scholar Polydore Vergil famously rejected the claim that Arthur was the ruler of a post-Roman empire, found throughout the post-Galfridian medieval " chronicle tradition ", to the horror of Welsh and English antiquarians.

Polydore Vergil, Henry Tudor's official historian, would later record that " King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies ".

Polydore Vergil and Thomas More expanded on this portrayal, emphasising Richard's outward physical deformities as a sign of his inwardly twisted mind.

More's work, and that of contemporary historian Polydore Vergil, reflects a move from mundane medieval chronicles to a dramatic writing style ; for example, the shadowy King Richard is an outstanding, archetypal tyrant drawn from the pages of Sallust, and should be read as a meditation on power and corruption as well as a history of the reign of Richard III.

* April 18 – Polydore Vergil, English historian ( b. 1470 )

* August – Polydore Vergil completes De inventoribus rerum, the first modern history of inventions.

Polydore Vergil tells of how the young Joan of Kent, Countess of Salisbury – allegedly the king's favourite at the time – accidentally dropped her garter at a ball at Calais.

He had to obtain the approval of King Henry VIII of England, the Pope through the intermediary Polydore Vergil, and the Bishop of Ely to suppress the religious hospital and convert it to a college.

The Italian historian Polydore Vergil said that some of the English royal council objected to the match, saying that it would bring the Stewarts directly into the line of English succession, to which the wily and astute Henry replied :" What then?

Polydore Vergil, in his Anglica Historia ( circa 1513 ), specifies that Tyrrell was the murderer, stating that he " rode sorrowfully to London " and committed the deed with reluctance, upon Richard III's orders, and that Richard himself spread the rumours of the princes ' death in the belief that it would discourage rebellion.

After the despatch of Richard, who had gone into battle crowned, Polydore Vergil records that the fallen coronet was retrieved and placed by Lord Stanley on his stepson ’ s head before his cheering troops, thereby emphasing the critical role the Stanleys had played in bringing Henry Tudor to the throne.

He therefore took offence when the Italian scholar Polydore Vergil cast doubts on certain elements in the Arthurian legend in his Anglica Historia ( published in 1534 ).

Another version of what happened was given by three Tudor sources: The Grand Chronicle of London, Polydore Vergil and Edward Hall.

** Polydore Vergil – Adagia

** Polydore Vergil – De inventoribus rerum

Polydore Vergil ( c. 1470 – 1555 ), in his De Rerum Inventoribus, writes that it was customary to make the Sign of the Cross over one's mouth, since " alike deadly plague was sometime in yawning, wherefore men used to fence themselves with the sign of the cross ... which custom we retain at this day.

The Tudor historian Polydore Vergil appears to have misread the ancient texts for the battle site as he places it at Abyndoniam ( Abingdon ) instead of Edington.

The chronicler Polydore Vergil made some use of Boece for his 1534 Historia Anglica.

Douglas was educated at St Salvator's College, St Andrews and was a friend and correspondent of many of the internationally renowned men of his age, including Polydore Vergil, John Major, Cardinal Wolsey and Henry, 3rd Lord Sinclair.

Polidoro Virgili, commonly latinised as Polydorus Vergilius, or anglicised as Polydore Vergil ( or Virgil ), and often known as Polydore Vergil of Urbino ( c. 1470 – 18 April 1555 ) was an Italian humanist scholar, historian, priest and diplomat who spent most of his life in England.

From Roy Ayers in the 1970s to Randy Weston in the 1990s, there have been collaborations which have resulted in albums such as Africa: Centre of the World by Roy Ayers, released on the Polydore label in 1981.

Among eminent men who have been associated with the cathedral – besides those who have already been mentioned – are Robert of Gloucester, the chronicler, prebendary in 1291 ; Nicholas of Hereford, chancellor in 1377, a remarkable man and leader of the Lollards at Oxford ; John Carpenter, town clerk of London who baptized there on December 18, 1378 ; Polydore Vergil, prebendary in 1507, a celebrated literary man, as indeed with such a name he ought to have been ; and Miles Smith, prebendary in 1580, promoted to the See of Gloucester – one of the translators of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible.

In 1890 Polydore Hochart published De L ' Authenticité Des Annales Et Des Histoires de Tacite which specifically argued that the whole of Annals had been forged by Italian author Poggio Bracciolini who lived 1380-1459.

On April 12, 1514, he became an English citizen, and in 1515 Pope Leo X appointed him subcollector of papal taxes in England, after Ammonio had conspired against Polydore Vergil for the post.

Vergil is sometimes referred to in contemporary documents as Polydore Vergil Castellensis or Castellen, and it has sometimes been assumed that he was a kinsman of his patron, Cardinal Adriano Castellesi.

Although he stated in the preface that it was of the hand of Polydore Vergil, there has been some debate about the authorship of the work.

During the closing years of exile he was on intimate terms with the historian Polydore Virgil, and one of his last acts was to arrange to give Polydore a corrected version of Major's account of Scottish affairs.

Polydore was educated at the University of Padua, and possibly at Bologna.

In continental Europe, Vergil is principally remembered for the Inventoribus Rerum and the Adagia: these are the works which secured his reputation before he ever came to England, and which he himself regarded as his masterpieces, writing " I, Polydore, was the first of the Romans to treat of these two matters ".

He was referred to as the " English Achilles "; the historian Polydore Vergil called him " a man of singular valour, constancy, and gravity.

Professor Tim Murray writes that this Trojan foundation myth was not challenged until Polydore Vergil, historian of the early Tudor dynasty, questioned it in the 16th century.

He was succeeded by Adrian de Castello ( 1504-18 ) who was an absentee bishop, under whom the see was administered by Polydore Vergil the noted historian.

In the Aeneid, Vergil may have based the triple-souled figure of Erulus, king of Praeneste, on Geryon.

A Southern Italian amphora ( 6th-century BC ) depicting the triple-warrior Geryon, after whom Vergil may have modeled Erulus

Vergil did, however, have a motive ; this project provided a background for his anti-Arthurian position.

The latter is the more probable possibility: Vergil would probably have wanted to present a fine manuscript to Henry VIII instead of a printed book and since Veterani was the most famous copyist of the time it would make sense that Vergil asked him to do it: however, no such copy by Veterani is known.

Vergil claimed to have been very careful in collecting materials for this work, and to have drawn on the work of foreign as well as English historians.

* In the Devil May Cry video game series, the twin brothers Vergil and Dante are shown to have an immense, fratricidal rivalry with one another.

This criticism touched a patriotic nerve with the antiquary John Leland, who responded first in an unpublished tract, written perhaps in 1536, the Codrus sive Laus et Defensio Gallofridi Arturii contra Polydorum Vergilium (" Codrus ", a reference to Vergil, was a type-name drawn from Juvenal for an offensive hack-poet ); and then in a longer published treatment, the Assertio inclytissimi Arturii regis Britannia ( 1544 ).