Today in 1471 Thomas Mallory died. He is famous for having written Le Morte d’Arthur in prison, the same year of his death. Mallory took the famous ideas of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and put them into one large book, which was published by William Caxton in 1485. At the beginning of the book, Caxton had written, “ “For this was written by a knight prisoner Thomas Malleorre, that God send him good recovery.”
There has been much debate about the identity of Mallory, in part because of the multiple spellings of his name. A scholar in 1896 identified him as a knight who fought at Calais with the Earl of Warwick, but a later biography identified him as a man who was in prison for theft and kidnapping. It’s likely that he was from Warwickshire, and in 1451 he was accused of ambushing Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham. Later he was extorting money from monks, and somehow got involved in a plot with Richard Neville, the earl of Warwick to overthrow Edward IV.
That’s your Tudor Minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com.
Suggested links:
Episode 21: William Caxton
Episode 62: Printing from Caxton to Shakespeare
Le Morte d’Arthur book Amazon Associates Link
From the shop:
Old Map Collection
Featuring: Old Map Luggage Cover
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
