much with him, that the lectures, if printed, would be of real use, both to those who heard them and to many more who had not done so, he was shaken in this opinion. And when the clergy who attended the Summer School of Theology at Durham in July 1904 made a formal request for the publication of these four studies in English Church History, he was induced to go so far as to consult his old friends, Messrs. T. & T. Clark of Edinburgh, as to what might be done with prudence. Their reply was so encouraging that he began to prepare the lectures for publication. In doing so he has thought it best to leave them almost unaltered. Their form shows that they were meant for viva voce delivery and were not composed as historical disquisitions. Hence the frequent use of italics, indicating what was underlined for emphasis in reading aloud. An attempt to abolish this form would rob them of their primitive character, without increasing their value; they would cease to be lectures, but would not become anything better. The real difference between the lectures as published and as delivered, is that a certain number of paragraphs, which had to be abbreviated or omitted in delivery, in order to keep within the limits of an hour, are now given in full, and that the notes have been increased.

(2) The writer does not suppose that he has much that is original to offer. It is true that, in preparing this volume, original and contemporaneous sources have to a considerable extent been used;

and it is possible that some of the points urged have not been urged before, or at least not in the same manner. But, in the main, these lectures are based upon, and in some particulars are directly derived from, modern works which are accessible to every one. A list of these is given below, and the writer's debt to some of them is large. He believes that it is largest in the case of two historians whom he had the happiness of knowing,-Bishop Creighton and Leopold von Ranke. He took part with the former and four others in translating the History of England of the latter into English. Mr. W. H. Hutton's book was also very useful for the reign of Charles I. What should have been an earlier volume in the same series (Mr. W. H. Frere on Elizabeth and James 1.) has been delayed in publication, and the lecturer had no opportunity of consulting it.

In treating of a period about which Englishmen feel so strongly as the great religious and political struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is perhaps impossible to be wholly impartial. But it is possible to try to be fair; and the attempt has been made in these lectures. We should have much less disputing, and our controversies would be much more fruitful, if each side would resolutely endeavour to see the matter in dispute from the point of view of the other side, before giving utterance to severe criticisms and sweeping condemnations.

And there is another peril with regard to this period from which it is difficult wholly to escape.

It may easily be thought by some readers that the amount of secular history that is touched upon in lectures which profess to deal with English Church History is rather large. But, throughout this whole period, ecclesiastical and political causes and effects are inextricably intertwined, and it is impossible to make either the religious or the secular side of the history intelligible, without saying a great deal about the other. Nevertheless, it is only too possible that in this case the right proportion between the two has not always been maintained. The difficulty of knowing precisely what to omit, when so much had of necessity to be omitted, has throughout been very considerable.

The trouble of preparing this little volume for publication will be amply repaid, if it induces a few more people to become acquainted with some of the books which were used in producing it; and perhaps with some of the far larger number, which ought to have been employed, but which, owing to the writer's want of knowledge or of opportunity, were left unused. Some idea of the size of the latter class may be obtained by a glance at the cruelly copious Bibliography in the first two volumes of the Cambridge Modern History.

The following are the principal modern works that have been used:

ANON., The Life and Correspondence of Lord Bacon.

ARBER, E., An English Garner, vol. viii.

BURNET, G., History of his own Time, vol. i.

BURROWS, MONTAGU, Commentaries on the History of England.

Cambridge Modern History, vols. i. and ii.

CARLYLE, T., Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches.
CAZENOVE, J. G., Some Aspects of the Reformation.

CHURCH, R. W., Bacon.

Spenser.

Church Quarterly Review.

COLLINS, W. E., The Northern Rebellion. Queen Elizabeth's Defence.

CREIGHTON, M., The Age of Elizabeth (Epochs of Mod. Hist.). Queen Elizabeth.

Historical Lectures and Addresses.

Dictionary of National Biography.

DÖLLINGER, I., Kleinere Schriften.

Historical and Literary Addresses.

DÖLLINGER und REUSCH, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der römisch-katholischen Kirche.

Encyclopedia Britannica.

FEARENSIDE, C. S., History of England from 1485 to 1603.
FREEMAN, E. A., Growth of the English Constitution.

FROUDE, J. A., History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, vols. ix. to xii.

GARDINER, S. R., History of England from the Accession of
James I.

The Puritan Revolution (Epochs of Mod.
Hist.).

GARDINER and BULLINGER, Introduction to the Study of English
History.

GEE and HARDY, Documents Illustrative of English Church History.

GREEN, J. R., History of the English People.

GRIESINGER, T., The Jesuits.

HALLAM, H., Constitutional History of England, vols. i. and ii. Introduction to the Literature of Europe.

HÄUSSER, L., The Period of the Reformation.

Hook, W. F., Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury.
HUTTON, W. H., The English Church from the Accession of
Charles I. to the Death of Queen Anne.

LINGARD, J., History of England, vols. vi. to viii.
MACAULAY, T., History of England, vol. i.

Essays.

MACOWER, F., Constitutional History of the Church of England. MARSDEN, J. B., History of the Early Puritans.

MORLEY, J., Oliver Cromwell.

MOSHEIM, J. L., Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, vol. iii.

MOZLEY, J.B., Essays on Strafford, Laud, and Cromwell.

OXENHAM, H. N., Studies in Ecclesiastical History and Biography.

PATTISON, MARK, Isaac Casaubon.

PERRY, G. G., History of the Reformation in England (Epochs of Church History).

RANKE, L., History of England, vols. i. and ii.

REUSCH, F. H., Beiträge zur Geschichte des Jesuitenordens.

SEEBOHM, F., The Era of the Protestant Revolution (Epochs of Mod. Hist.).

SHAW, W. A., History of the English Church during the Civil Wars.

SMITH, GOLDWIN, Three English Statesmen.

TASWELL-LANGMEAD, T. P., English Constitutional History. WHITE, F. O., Lives of the Elizabethan Bishops.

The lectures were originally asked for by the Exeter Diocesan Church Reading Society, and have been delivered at several centres in Devonshire during the spring and autumn of 1904, as well as at Durham in the summer. The second, third, and fourth were also delivered, at the request of the Central Society of Sacred Study, at Bristol.

ALFRED PLUMMER.

BIDEFORD, November 1904.