The Breviary of Britain, with selections from The History of Cambria - Paperback

by Humphrey Llwyd (Author), Philip Schwyzer (Editor), David Powel (Author)

Humphrey Llwyd's Breviary of Britain (1573) is both the first Tudor description of Britain and a passionate and learned defence of Welsh historical traditions. Featuring the first reference in English to the 'British Empire', Thomas Twyne's translation would influence Elizabethan writers from Michael Drayton to John Dee.

The volume also includes relevant illustrative selections of David Powel's History of Cambria (1584). Based on Llwyd's own translation of the medieval Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogyon, Powel's History was an important source for Spenser's Faerie Queene and Drayton's Poly-Olbion, and remained the standard history of medieval Wales until the nineteenth century.