men by
brotherhood, and let us never forget that we are ourselves responsible
for this last half of the nineteenth century, and that we are placed
between a great past, the Revolution of France, and a great future, the
Revolution of Europe.

* * * * *

MARTIN HUME

The Courtships of Elizabeth

Major Martin Andrew Hume, born in London on December 8, 1847,
and educated at Madrid, comes of an English family, the
members of which have resided in Spain for a hundred years. He
began life in the British Army, from which he retired with the
rank of major. Major Hume was appointed editor of the Spanish
state papers published by the Record Office; he is also
lecturer in Spanish History and Literature at Cambridge, and
examiner and lecturer in Spanish at the Birmingham University.
He has written numerous works on the history of Spain; but
perhaps he is best known for his historical studies of the
Tudor period, of which may be mentioned "The Courtships of
Queen Elizabeth," "The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots,"
and "The Wives of Henry VIII." In the first-named work,
published in 1896, Major Hume has presented an exceedingly
interesting human document, and classified a tangled mass of
material. The epitome here presented has been prepared for THE
WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS by the author himself.

_I.--Foreign Philandering_

The greatest diplomatic game ever played on the world's chessboard was
that consummate succession of intrigues which, for nearly half a
century, was carried on by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers with the
object of playing off one great Continental power against another for
the benefit of England and Protestantism, with which the interests of
the queen were inextricably involved. Those in the midst of the strife
worked mostly for immediate aims, and neither saw, nor cared, for the
ultimate results; but we, looking back, see that out of that tangle of
duplicity there emerged a new era of civilisation and a host of vigorous
impulses which move us to this hour.

The victory of England in that struggle meant the dominance of modern
ideas of liberty and of the imperial destiny of our race, and it seems
as if the result could only have been attained in the peculiar
combination of circumstances and persons then existing. Elizabeth
triumphed as much by her weakness as by her strength. H