the
institution of the Holy Office in Seville. Between the two there are
many points of contact, and each supplies what the other lacks to make
an interesting narrative having for background the introduction of the
Inquisition to Castile. The denouement I supply is entirely fictitious,
and the introduction of Torquemada is quite arbitrary. Ojeda was the
inquisitor who dealt with both cases. But if there I stray into fiction,
at least I claim to have sketched a faithful portrait of the Grand
Inquisitor as I know him from fairly exhaustive researches into his life
and times.

The story of the False Demetrius is here related from the point of view
of my adopted solution of what is generally regarded as a historical
mystery. The mystery lies, of course, in the man's identity. He has
been held by some to have been the unfrocked monk, Grishka Otropiev, by
others to have been a son of Stephen Bathory, King of Poland. I am not
aware that the theory that he was both at one and the same time has ever
been put forward, and whilst admitting that it is speculative, yet I
claim that no other would appear so aptly to fit all the known facts of
his career or to shed light upon its mysteries.

Undoubtedly I have allowed myself a good deal of licence and speculation
in treating certain unwitnessed scenes in "The Barren Wooing." But
the theory that I develop in it to account for the miscarriage of the
matrimonial plans of Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley seems to me to
be not only very fully warranted by de Quadra's correspondence, but the
only theory that will convincingly explain the events. Elizabeth, as
I show, was widely believed to be an accessory to the murder of Amy
Robsart. But in carefully following her words and actions at that
critical time, as reported by de Quadra, my reading of the transaction
is as given here. The most damning fact against Elizabeth was held to be
her own statement to de Quadra on the eve of Lady Robert Dudley's murder
to the effect that Lady Robert was "already dead, or very nearly
so." This foreknowledge of the fate of that unfortunate lady has been
accepted as positive evidence that the Queen was a party to the crime at
Cumnor, which was to set her lover free to marry again. Far from that,
however, I account it positive proof of Elizabeth's innocence of any
such part in the deed. Elizabeth was far too crafty and clear-sighted
not to realize how her words must incriminate her afterwards if she knew
t