errors, of Puritan prejudices, and some deliberate suppressions of the
truth, its mass of facts and wonderful charm of style will always give
importance to the "Acts and Monuments" or "Book of Martyrs" of John
Foxe, as a record of the Marian persecution. Among outer observers, the
Venetian Soranzo throws some light on the Protectorate; and the
despatches of Giovanni Michiel, published by Mr. Friedmann, give us a
new insight into the events of Mary's reign.

For the succeeding reign we have a valuable contemporary account in
Camden's "Life of Elizabeth." The "Annals" of Sir John Hayward refer to
the first four years of the Queen's rule. Its political and diplomatic
side is only now being fully unveiled in the Calendar of State Papers
for this period, which are being issued by the Master of the Rolls, and
fresh light has yet to be looked for from the Cecil Papers and the
documents at Simancas, some of which are embodied in the history of this
reign by Mr. Froude. Among the published materials for this time we have
the Burleigh Papers, the Sidney Papers, the Sadler State Papers, much
correspondence in the Hardwicke State Papers, the letters published by
Mr. Wright in his "Elizabeth and her Times," the collections of Murdin,
the Egerton Papers, the "Letters of Elizabeth and James the Sixth"
published by Mr. Bruce. Harrington's "Nugae Antiquae" contain some details
of value. Among foreign materials as yet published the "Papiers d'Etat"
of Cardinal Granvelle and the series of French despatches published by
M. Teulet are among the more important. Mr. Motley in his "Rise of the
Dutch Republic" and "History of the United Netherlands" has used the
State Papers of the countries concerned in this struggle to pour a flood
of new light on the diplomacy and outer policy of Burleigh and his
mistress. His wide and independent research among the same class of
documents gives almost an original value to Ranke's treatment of this
period in his English History. The earlier religious changes in Scotland
have been painted with wonderful energy, and on the whole with
truthfulness, by Knox himself in his "History of the Reformation." Among
the contemporary materials for the history of Mary Stuart we have the
well-known works of Buchanan and Leslie, Labanoff's "Lettres et Memoires
de Marie Stuart," the correspondence appended to Mignet's biography,
Stevenson's "Illustrations of the Life of Queen Mary," Melville's
Memoirs, and the collections of