HENRY of Huntingdon

HENRY of Huntingdon, an ancient English chronicler, was born about the end of the eleventh century, and was brought up by Alcuin of Anjou, a canon of Lincoln Cathedral. After taking orders he was made archdeacon of Huntingdon. The date of his death is not known. His History of England, in eight books, extends from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the accession of Henry II. (A.D. 1154.) It has been nowhere printed except in Savile's Scriptores post Bedam, Lond. 1596. In so far as it is a contemporary history, Huntingdon's work possesses little or no value, but in an antiquarian point of view it is one of the most valuable heir-loom transmitted to us by the twelfth century. It is interspersed with a good deal of verse, partly

Henry. original and partly copied. The author himself states that, taking Bede as his model, he added much from other sources, and borrowed from the chronicles which he found in ancient libraries. In vol. ii. of Wharton's Anglia Sacra is a long letter from Huntingdon to a friend, full of interesting anecdotes of the kings, prelates, and other notable personages of his day.