PREFACE. THE number, variety, complexity, and importance of the events and characters of the Reformation and the reign of James VI. fill the present volume. Concerned with a period of less than a century, the volume is based on documents far more numerous than exist for the previous fifteen hundred years. After the accession of James VI. to the English throne (1603) the student loses the invaluable guidance of Mr Tytler, who lacked, indeed, the Spanish evidence first seriously explored by Mr Froude, but who is certainly, beyond all rivalry, the most learned and impartial historian of Scotland. The present writer has made use of the printed Calendars and State Papers, and, in many cases, has had recourse to the original MSS. in the Record Office and the British Museum. Through the generosity of Father Pollen, S.J., he has had the advantage of using Father Stevenson's transcripts of the Cambridge MSS., for the most part once in the possession of the Regent Lennox. These have been more copiously employed by the author in his Mystery of Mary Stuart' (1901). To the kindness of the Earl of Haddington, and of Lady Cecily Baillie-Hamilton, the author owes his knowledge of the Sprot papers as to the Gowrie Conspiracy,papers which he has edited for, and presented to, the Rox 5915 burghe Club. To the Rev. John Anderson, of the General Register House, and to Mr Gunton, Librarian at Hatfield House, he is very greatly indebted for assistance and advice; not less to Father Pollen; and on several points he has had the advantage of consulting Dr Hay Fleming and Major Martin Hume. He must also express his thanks to Mr Maitland Anderson and Mr Smith, of the University Library, St Andrews, and to Miss E. M. Thompson, who made many transcripts from the MS. Records, and helped in verifying references. The portrait of James VI. is reproduced by permission of the Curator of the Scottish Gallery of National Portraits, Mr Caw. The author must apologise for any errors in fact which have escaped his attention, or are due to that subconscious bias from which no historical student can be free. In his opinion the hardships of the Catholics, after the Reformation, have been rather cavalierly treated by many of our historians, and he has therefore dwelt upon a point too much neglected. As Sir Walter Scott observed in a private letter, our sympathies-at the period here treated, and later -are apt always to be with the party which is out of power. A. LANG. |