IT PEEFACE. request of an eminent and learned friend; but. for reasons of a private nature, before any portion of the manuscript went to press, the work was suspended, and so continued till after the author bad returned from the far south, in 1852. During this period, Hannah Lawrence, Mary Howitt, the pre-eminently successful Agnes Strickland, and other less significant writers, published Memoirs of some of the Queens, whose lives are in regular chronologic succession comprised in the present work. Certainly, the best written, the most accurate, and the most copious of these biographies is that by Miss Strickland; and it is but justice to the gifted authoress of that valuable documentary work, " The Lives of the Queens of England," to acknowledge that to her labours in the path of regal biography—labours which can only be duly appreciated by those historic writers who " take nothing upon trustor second-handed" —the author of these volumes is indebted for many valuable suggestions, and for references to important authorities, which otherwise might have been entirely overlooked. Thanks also are duo to the late learned Dr. Lingard, who, years back, favoured the author with much important information ; likewise to several other obliging friends, for valuable assistance in translations from ancient records, and for obtaining copies of several valuable manuscripts. Before concluding, it may be observed, that to avoid crowding the pages with a multitude of notes, the authorities from which the facts in these Memoirs have been obtained, have only been quoted occasionally ; and as epace is precious, and a list of such authorities would probably prove of no interest to the general reader, the author need only state, that in the course of his labours he has consulted the chronicles and annals of the leading British and Continental Historians, the Bolls and Journals of Parliament, the collections of State Papers, the despatches of Ambassadors, the letters and confidential correspondence of Princes —of Ministers—of Ecclesiastics—and of persons in high and official stations, both at home and abroad ; and the published and, whenever practicable, unpublished diaries and memoirs of courtiers, nobles, monks, nuns, and others, who had the means of obtaining authentic information of our Queens and their courts. These and other less important authorities (either the originals, or authentic copies or translations) have all been attentively perused and compared ; the value and accuracy of each have been carefully ascertained, and the text is the result, ï. L, 3, Clarence Place Clapham Road,