In the sixteenth century, England’s distant history was still cast in the form of national foundation legends; but these were becoming the subject of re-definition and controversy, and Bartholomew has a part to play in this debate. In a recent study, Anke Bernau describes how, in 1534, Polydore Vergil had fuelled the debate by dismissing two well-established legends about Britain’s origins: first, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of Britain’s colonisation by Brutus the Trojan; and, second, later accounts of its first discovery by Albina, daughter of the king of Syria and her sisters.[22] Geoffrey’s narrative of Brutus had provided Edward II and Edward III with justification of English rights over Scotland and Wales. The Albina story, which appears in the fourteenth century as a preface to the Middle English prose Brut, and which John Hardyng included in his Chronicle of 1440–7, came to be used, according to Bernau, as a weapon against the Scots. The Scots had their own female foundation figure, Scota, mythical daughter of a pharaoh of Egypt and foundress of a brave and prosperous race.[23]
A year before Berthelet issued his edition, Polydore Vergil had called into question the veracity of the Albina and Trojan founding myths. However, the legend of the barbarous Albina, her monstrous offspring and their conquest by a civilising ‘Bruytane’ race, remained popular.[24] In 1542, Henry VIII’s Declaration … present warre with the Scottis explicitly cites Brutus’s division of Britain to support the claim to English sovereignty, and of London to be the new Troy. As Bernau suggests, this may have been because, just as the giants’ savagery justified Brutus’s violent colonisation of their land, so allegations of Scottish barbarism could be used to justify English colonisation.
For religious reformers such as Bale it was important to publicise a version of English history that supported the idea of a nation based on political and religious autonomy. We find Bale, writing in 1557, involved in the continuing debate and commenting accordingly on Bartholomew’s flattering account of England and the English in his chapter on Britain, De Brittania. Bartholomew had recounted part of the legendary material explaining the nation’s origins but this did not satisfy Bale. The name of Albion, he says, comes from the giant Albion, son of Neptune, and from the name of the king of Syria's daughter — not from the white cliffs first seen by mariners: ‘as brother Bartholomaeus dreamed up in his work De Proprietatibus rerum, along with others who followed his ravings’.[25] As if to emphasise that this is the revision of a common article of belief, Bale’s Index includes the item Bartholomaei de proprietatibus rerum error, ‘Error of Bartholomaeus, On the properties of things’.[26] Another problem for Bale was that Bartholomew, he thought, had omitted the story of Brutus’ founding of Britain. Pace Bale, who cites the chapter De Brittania, Bartholomew does recount the heroic foundation of Britain and its kings in his chapter on England, De Anglia.[27] I quote Trevisa’s translation which had kept close to the Latin:
And in passing of tyme lordes and noble men of Troye aftir þat Troye was destroied went þence and gadreden naueye and come to þe clyues of þe forseyde ilond … And þe Troianes fauʒte with geauntes long tyme þat woned þerynne and ouercome þe geauntes boþe with crafte and with strenghþe and conquered þe ilond, and clepid þe londe Breteigne bi þe name of Bruite þat was prince of þat ooste and so þe ilande hatte Bretayn as it were an ilond conquerede of Bruyte þat tyme with armes and with myʒte. Of þis Bruytes ofspring come kynges, and who þat hap likyng to knowne here grete dedes rede he þe storye of þe Bruyte.[28]
Trevisa follows Bartholomew in a further explanation for England’s name based on a supposed English foundress:
Saxones departed þe ilonde amonges hem and ʒaf euery prouynce a name by þe proprete of his owne name and nacioun. And þerfore þey clepid þe ilonde Anglia by þe name of Engelia [þe queen], þe worþiest duke of Saxones douʒter, þat hade þe ilonde in possessioun aftir many batailles.[29]
Bale’s insistence on the need for a correct version supports the view that Henry VII had championed the existing Trojan and Arthurian foundation myth for the English crown to emphasise the continuity and validity of the Tudor claim, and that the later Tudors maintained it.[30] There is evidence that during Henry’s reign, the king, government and church were keen to build a basis for English autonomy, not only in religion but also in language, history and legend, landscape and cultural achievements. By claiming Bartholomew as a native-born Englishman and writer, antiquaries and churchmen such as John Leland and John Bale were able to construct an identity for him and his work that supported such nationalistic efforts. A prestigious world book that bolstered Henry’s image and endorsed the national foundation myth was of obvious value, and Bale goes out of his way to apologise for Bartholomew’s apparent shortcoming in this matter.