I had to acknowledge that the wisdom of Elizabeth was—the wisdom of her ministers, and that her chief merit, which circumstances must divide with herself, lay in allowing her policy to be guided by Lord Burghley.
I owe an apology to the public for the length to which the book has run. I have this only to say in my defence, that nine-tenths of the materials which I have used are in MS. and therefore difficult of access. I have desired to enable my readers to form their own opinions rather than to intrude mine upon them; and I have allowed the principal actors, therefore, to unfold their characters and motives in their own language.
Thus, with my cordial thanks to the English public for the support which they have kindly extended to me in this enterprise, I close a work which has been the companion of twenty years of pleasant but of unintermittent labour.
- London, June, 1870.
The Calendars of State Papers, published since this book was written, have thrown fresh light on the Divorce of Catherine of Aragon. The new matter confirms the view which I had already taken of that subject. I therefore leave the text unchanged, and I have added a supplementary volume on this particular incident; to which volume I must refer such of my readers as desire to study the story more closely. Special references will be found in the footnotes.
- January, 1893.
