author
Giles Du Wés
d. 1535
A Tudor court teacher and musician, he is best remembered for helping royal pupils learn French at a time when language training was part of elite life. His name survives above all through an early French manual prepared for the young Princess Mary.
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About the author
Giles Du Wés, often listed as Giles Duwes, died in 1535 and was a Flemish musician and royal tutor at the Tudor court. Reliable reference sources describe him as serving in England during the reign of Henry VII and Henry VIII, where he became known especially as a teacher of French.
He is associated with the education of several high-profile royal pupils, including Arthur, Prince of Wales, the future Henry VIII, and the future Mary I. He also worked as a court musician, which helps explain why he appears in the historical record as both a cultural servant of the court and a language instructor.
Du Wés is chiefly remembered for writing An Introductorie for to lerne to rede, to pronounce, and to speake Frenche trewly, a French-learning text prepared for Princess Mary. That book gives him a small but interesting place in literary and educational history: not as a famous author in the modern sense, but as a practical teacher whose work shows how languages were taught among the Tudors.