Welsh Tudor chronicle recognised as national treasure

One of the volumes of Elis Gruffudd's chronicles

A Welsh chronicle dating from the reign of King Henry VIII has been added to a prestigious list of texts granted national heritage status.

The books by 16th Century Flintshire soldier Elis Gruffudd are among six new pieces to be placed on the Unesco UK Memory of the World Register.

Described as a "gem", it includes rumours about Henry and Anne Boleyn.

It joins titles such as the Domesday Book and Churchill Archives on the register.

Written in Welsh between 1550 and 1552, it is a history of the world and of the soldier's life, written while he was garrisoned in Calais.

The city was part of England at the time - until its capture in 1558 by the French, in which it is thought Gruffudd was killed.

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Born in Llanasa in 1490, Gruffudd joined the English army and fought in the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, before working in London and then finally in Calais.

Part of the chronicles held at the National Library of Wales

He provided unique eyewitness testimony to English military campaigns at the time, and an account of the meeting of King Henry and Francis I of France at the Field of Cloth of Gold summit in 1520.

There is also scandalous gossip about the Tudor king's adulterous conversations with Boleyn, before she became his second wife.

"The importance of this four-volume work cannot be over-emphasised. It is the most ambitious narrative chronicle ever to have been produced in the Welsh language," said Pedr ap Llwyd, director at the National Library of Wales.

"This is a largely forgotten gem, overlooked by Welsh readers. The whole work has never been transcribed, translated or published in book form."

The chronicle will now go on display at the National Library in Aberystwyth.