ey had cause to hate Henry,
and they hated him with an intensity of passion which could not have been
more savage had he been the devil himself. But there are men whose enmity
is a compliment. They libelled Luther almost as freely as they libelled
the English king. I myself, after reading and weighing all that I could
find forty years ago in prints or manuscripts, concluded that the real
facts of Henry's conduct were to be found in the Statute Book and nowhere
else; that the preambles of the Acts of Parliament did actually represent
the sincere opinion about him of the educated laymen of England, who had
better opportunities of knowing the truth than we can have, and that a
modern Englishman may be allowed to follow their authority without the
imputation of paradox or folly.

With this impression, and with the Statute Book for a guide, I wrote the
opening portion of my "History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the
Defeat of the Armada." The published criticisms upon my work were
generally unfavourable. Catholic writers inherited the traditions and the
temper of their forefathers, and believed the catena of their own
historians. Protestants could not believe in a defence of the author of
the Six Articles Bill. Secular reviewers were easily witty at the "model
husband" whom they supposed me to be imposing upon them, and resented the
interference with a version of the story authenticated by great names
among my predecessors. The public, however, took an interest in what I had
to say. The book was read, and continues to be read; at the close of my
life, therefore, I have to go once more over the ground; and as I am still
substantially alone in maintaining an opinion considered heretical by
orthodox historians, I have to decide in what condition I am to leave my
work behind me. In the thirty-five years which have elapsed since those
early volumes appeared large additions have been made to the materials for
the history of the period. The vast collection of manuscripts in the
English Record Office, which then were only partially accessible, have
been sorted, catalogued, and calendared by the industry of my friends Mr.
Brewer and Mr. Gairdner. Private collections in great English houses have
been examined and reported on by the Historical Manuscripts Commission.
Foreign archives at Paris, Simancas, Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Brussels
have been searched to some extent by myself, but in a far larger degree by
able scholars sp