86 Jan.

Dr. Nicholas Sander Downloaded from

TPHE name of Dr. Nicholas Sander is hardly known except as that JL of the author of a work on the . Never- theless there is much that is curious both in his own fortunes and in the history of his book, no account of which seems yet to have http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ l>een published. Moreover, though generally allowed to rank as an authority on the history of his times, his place as such has been left somewhat undefined. It may not be amiss, therefore, to look back at the man and his book, and to advert to the reasons which give it value. A life study of Nicholas Sander might by itself form a tempting subject for a biographer. It is intimately connected with some great phases of English history, materials for it are plentiful, and it at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 abounds in strong contrasts of scene. The quiet Surroy home and academic peace of Winchester and Oxford change to the splen- dours of Rome, Trent, and Madrid ; these again are varied by diplo- matic missions and ecclesiastical visitations in Prussia, Poland, and Austria, with pauses for literary work among tbe quaint cities of Flanders, while the curtain falls on a peaceful death-scene amid the horrors of a barbarous war. At presont we must only glance at those circumstances in his career which will throw light on his position as an author. Born of a good family, which afterwards suffered much in the cause of religion, Nicholas Sander had made some progress in the course of university preferment at Oxford, when the changes conse- quent on Elizabeth's accession drove him abroad. At Rome he came under the notice of Cardinal Hosius, who conceived so high an idea of his talents that he took him as one of his theologians to the council of Trent. After the close of the council, i Dec. 1563, Sander remained with his patron and Cardinal Commendone during their various missions from the Holy See to the king of Poland and other German princes, and thus it was not till near the close of that decade that he found himself free to devote all his energies to the special service of the cause which he had nearest at heart. Spanish Flanders and the north of France were then full of religious refugees from England, whose chief centre was Lonvain. There Sander joined them, and devoted himself earnestly to the sup- 1891 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER 37 port of their cause. His labours at this period were incessant, but they were also the most congenial he ever engaged in. Besides his work as professor at the university, his activity as a controversialist was wonderful. During the four years in which ho was engaged in a war of books with Jewel, Nowcll, and other protestant divines, ho produced three or four volumes a year, all of them full of close reasoning and showing much research. These qualities are seeu at their best in his great work ' De Yisibili Monarchia,' a folio com- Downloaded from prising a vast number of testimonies from the fathers, doctors, and councils, arranged chronologically, on the subjects then most contro- verted in Europe. So great was the success of this volume, that St. Pius V. summoned him to Rome in January 1572, and his friends confidently believed that he would now be advanced to the purple. http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ But the pope died shortly after Sander's arrival, and his plans were never known. Sander, however, remained at Rome for a year and a half, apparently in the post of adviser on English affairs, and it was during his sojourn there that he composed the smallest yet most famous of all his works, the ' Books on the Rise and Growth of the English Schism,' gathered, as he tells us in his preface, ' from public records, or from the testimony, oral and written, of men of the greatest consideration, or at least from my own knowledge and at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 observation.'l In November 1578 he went to Spain, and appears to have remained there for the next five years, presumably dealing with Philip about the pensions paid by him to the refugees, for they had elected Sander as their procurator before he left Flanders. Doubt- less, too, he urged upon the king his favourite scheme of reducing the protestant government in England by force of arms. ' The state of Christendom dependeth upon the stout assailing of England,' he wrote1 to his intimate friend Dr. , president of the seminary of Douay. But Philip was unfavourable. ' The king is as fearful of war,' in Sander's opinion, ' as a child of fire.' And thus he was all the more anxious to leave his naturally irksome post. ' I have none other thing in this world so at the heart as to be with you, nor can I get leave to depart hence.' Eighteen months later he left stealthily on his last fatal journey. Sir James Fitzmaurice and Sir Thomas Stukely had persuaded the pope to allow them to execute in Ireland the sentence of depriva- tion against Elizabeth. Stukely, whose strange changes of side stand out remarkable even in that age of adventurers, at once diverted the forces with which he had been entrusted to the&id of the king of Portugal in the conquest of , and was lost, with all his men, at the disastrous battle of Alcazar. But Fitzmaurice, in spite of 1 Preface, aubfin. 1 Stoic Papers. Dora. Eli?, v. 115, n. 13. Printed, F. Knoi, Bccorde of Enj. Catholics, ii. 38. 38 Dll. SIC HULAS SANDER Jan. Philip's prohibition, found means through the sympathy of the Spanish to slip over to Ireland, and Sander, by the pope's order, accompanied him as nuncio. It would not surprise us to find that Sander went rather from obedience than willingly in this feeble expedition, which was, after all, a mockery of the ' stout assailing' which he advocated. Certainly, his friends expressed their discon- tent openly. ' Why does the pope send Sander to Ireland ? We J value him more highly than the whole of Ireland.' But, once Downloaded from embarked, he threw himself heart and soul into the enterprise, and the rest of the story of his life is an unbroken tale of incredible difficulty and disaster met with absolutely unwavering courage. Fitzmaurice was shot through the heart in the first skirmish,

and there was small appearance of that readiness to rise on which http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ the exiles had built so much. Moreover, the promised help from abroad seemed to be never coming, and such forces as could be raised were far too ill-armed and undisciplined to resist the English in the open field. Once Sander's party was actually captured by their pursuers, but he escaped in the twilight, passing himself off as one of the English force by hia shouts of ' Slaughter the Irish! Slaughter the Irish !' Such at least is the account of those who did not recognise him.4 at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 Amid these reverses Sander was tho soul of the resistance. At first he held out high hopes of simultaneous risings in Scotland and England, and of powerful invasions from abroad—visions which to us, wise after the event, seem to point to something like extrava- gance in his mind, for we can now see that their realisation was never probable. On the other hand, there are not wanting signs that his dreams were not so quixotic as might appear; for powers were actually given by the English government to the lord deputy (of which Sander, of course, knew nothing) to treat with the rebels, and grant them, if necessary, toleration in religion.' But the fierce and barbarous vigour of the English officers reduced the Irish to the greatest straits, and Burghley's carefully disseminated reports of the destruction of all the Geraldines led to the delay of the papal succours at Corufia, in the belief that there was no one left to help. At last a frigate came over to discover the state of affairs in Ireland, and Sander, who had months before declared that he remained ' in pledge to be massacred (for that was his manner of speech) unless those forces did shortly arrive,'6 Joudly upbraided its officers for the remissness of their government in keeping faith. Again he received fair promises, and though their execution was once more delayed, slight gleams of good fortune, destined soon to be over-

• J. Pita, 1M IUuatribus AnglUw Scriptoribiu, 1019, p. 774. • Calendar of Carew MS. 12 Aug. 1580. 1 Fronde, xi. 212 and 280, from Simancai MS, • Carew MS., January 1680, p. 199. 1891 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER 39 shadowed by Btill darker clouds of disaster, began at this time to steal over his cause. Fresh recruits joined the standard of revolt, which was immensely strengthened by the loss inflicted on the new deputy, Lord Grey, at the battle of Glendalough, and not long after that the promised troops arrived, bringing with them money and arms. The latter were stored for use in the fort of Smerwick (St. Mary Wick), where the newcomers had strongly entrenched themselves. Downloaded from Then fortune, which had thus, as it might appear, favoured them with a base of operations and fair field for fighting, turned once more. Don Bastian de San Josepho, the new commander, was, in fact, utterly unfitted for the desperate fighting which those Irish wars involved. He suffered himself to be blockaded by a force not http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ greatly exceeding his own, and at the end of the second day was clinging to the knees of Lord Grey crying for mercy. The fort surrendered, and the English soldiers under Ealeigh, after securing the booty, murdered at their general's order every man, woman, and child that was found within the enclosure. Eight hundred lives were sacrificed that forenoon, for the victors only spared some twenty or thirty officers for ransom, in order that on their return to their country they might tell tho talc of the extreme poverty of at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 Ireland. To the answer to Grey's dispatch announcing his victory, Elizabeth ' prefixed a gracious sentence in her own hand': ' I joy,' she said, ' that you have been the instrument of God's glory, which I mean to give you no cause to forethink,'7 afterwards adding that she would have been better pleased had the choice of justice or mercy been left to her in all cases, for then ' as well the heads as the inferiors had received punishment according to their demerits ;' a hideous innuendo, when we remember how wholesale the slaughter was. But we should notice that Grey had said nothing of the hang- ing of the women, nor of an almost greater piece of barbarity, which followed two days later. Among the prisoners had been found a priest, Laurence Moore, Oliver Plunket, a gentleman of the Pale, and "William Walsh, Sander's English servant. They were reserved to be tried ' judi- ciallye.' This was brief. They were offered the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and on its refusal received sentence, which was immediately followed by execution. They were led to a forge, their arms and legs broken in three places; that night they lay in the most exquisite agony, and next morning were hanged, drawn, and quartered.8 Happily for himself, Sander was not in the fort at the time of

7 Fronde, xi. 288. Grey was, however, afterwards temporarily disgraced, but appa- rently only pro forma. B. Simpson, Campion, p. 2S5. • Sander to Cardinal Como, 0 Jan. 1581. Becord Ollico. llonun Transcriptt • (Stevenson), vol. iii. 40 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER Jan. its capture, for if such was the treatment accorded to his very ser- vant we may well wonder what his fate would havo been had he fallen alive into the hands of the English. In truth his danger was still extreme, for anyone might have had pardon at the price of be- traying ' that papistical, arrogant traitor.' But despite his losses and his danger Sander's high courage never failed for a moment. This is well shown in a very characteristic composition,9 probably the last he ever penned. It is a proclamation intended to raise the Downloaded from spirit of his followers to the level of his own. To achieve this he does not attempt to blink his losses ; rather he confidently points to them as proofs that God will undertake their cause Himself. And certainly, as far as Sander was concerned, what followed was perhaps as happy a course as could be expected. He was attacked by dys- http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ entery, and died somewhat suddenly, and very peacefully, at the end of February or the beginning of March 1581. The end of Sander's life throws back a lurid light on much that may seem obscure in its previous course. In times of peace it is hard to conceive the horrors of war, and so we may easily fail to bring homo to ourselves the reality of the struggles amid which Sander's lot was cast. But the massacre of Smerwick and the inhuman cruelties done to his servant show us unmistakably at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 how real and ruthless were the foes against whom Sander strove. These excesses wero but extreme forms of the persecution which had wrecked his home and driven him from his native laud. Thenceforward his life had been devoted to combating with act, word, and pon tho movement which finally overwhelmed him, and accordingly there come to be sayings and doings of his which cannot IJKS understood except by those who bear this contest in mind. Looking, however, to those features in his life which directly concern his credibility as an historian, we recognise several of a favourable character, none which exclude a favourable interpretation. Ho was a noted scholar and contemporary of most of the events he describes. He won the confidence of great rulers abroad though he entered their service late in life devoid of favour and introduction. More noteworthy still, perhaps, is the incident, that so divided a party as that of the English refugees should have selected him as arbitrator in the division of their pensions ; and, most important of all, his official position at Madrid and the Vatican must have brought opportunities of acquiring first-hand information of the highest value. And if, on the other hand, it be objected that he misled the Irish into a ruinous revolt, it may fairly be answered that, while such an assumption overstrains his responsibility, he unquestionably shared in their dangers, risked even more than they did, and died at his post. Let us now pass from the author to his book, ' De Schismate Anglicano.' • Ellis, Orig. Letters, 2nd. »er. vol. iii. p. 98. 1891 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER 41 What will strike us most, perhaps, at first sight about it is this, that it had in its day a larger circulation on the continent than any other book about England whatever. In the first ten years after its publication in 1585 the number of editions amounted to fifteen; and though the total number finally more than doubled this, all but two modern translations were printed abroad. In Germany it appeared nine times, in France seven times, in Spain six times, in Italy four times, as well as in Holland, Poland, and Portugal. Downloaded from These publications were in Latin, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Polish.10 Next let us note the remarkable consensus of writers who have accepted it as an authority. It may briefly be said that practically all winters on the Catholic side, from Bellarmine and Suarez down http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ to Benedict XTV, refer to his name as a sufficient warrant for the facts to be found in his work, and the contiriuator of Baronius is often content to copy from him at length when English affairs aro to be described. He was, in fact, the standard authority for his party until the appearance of Dr. Lingard. Last and not least amid the peculiar features of the book is tho extraordinary abuse heaped upon it by its adversaries. We now turn more particularly to the history of the volume, at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 which, as we have seen, was commenced at Rome about the year 1572, but left unfinished. Unfinished, however, as it was, it' eoon found favour, as books of its class often did in those days, when printing was expensive, in manuscript copies, one of which was securod by Edward Bishton four years after Sander's death, and at the request of Dr. Jodocus Skarnkert of Cologne prepared for the preBS. Sander's works were in fact in great requisition at the time; a treatise on Justification had just been published at Trier, and his great M'ork ' De Visibili Monarchia ' was reprinted twice by German enterprise, while other works, ' De Clave Davidis' and ' Dc Fide ' were also sought out and published in that country. Rishton, who was himself a careful student of history, and had published a little work entitled ' Synopsis Reruni Ecclesiasticarum usque ad Annum Christi 1577,' now entirely lost, found his task as editor an easy one as far as regarded Sander's first two books, which treat of tho reigns of Henry, Edward, and Mary. With a few corrections they were ready for the press, and still bear in their style and composition evident signs of having proceeded from a different hand to that which has given us the last book on the history of Elizabeth. Sander's description of this would need, BO Bishton found, very much alteration. It was now twelve years behind date, and the addition of so much new matter would entail the remodelling of the whole. He therefore wisely put Sander's work aside and

u See British Museum Catalogue, and De Backer, BibliotlUque des Eerivaiiu de la Comp. de Jt&ut, rob vooe P. Bibadeneyra, n. 5. 42 DE. NICHOLAS SANDER Jan. wrote a fresh history for himself, prefixing a ' synopsis' to explain what he had done and why. But before the work thus corrected saw the light, death again intervened. Bishton died of the plague at Ste. Menehould on 80 June, 1585, and was there buried. He had only been freed from prison in England in the preceding January." Who Dr. Jodocus Skarnkert was, who finally saw the book

through the press, we know not. It is, however, to be remarked that Downloaded from he had no scruple in making anonymous additions to llishton's work. A priest and a layman having suffered in England shortly after Rishton's death, accounts of both were added, together with a mention of the deportation of thirty priests and two laymen on 24

Sept. of the same year. The volume was brought out at Cologne http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ with the following title :— Doctisairui viri Nicolai Sanderi, de origine ac progressu Sckisnifttifl Anglicani liber. Continens historiaru maxime ecclesiasticam, annorum circiter sexaginta, lectu dignissimam : nimirum, ab anno 21 regni Henrici 8 quo primnm cogitare «3oepit de repudianda legitima uxore serenissima Cathenna, usqne ad Imnc vigesimam septimum Elizabethae, qoae ultima est ejnsdem Henrici soboles. Editus et auctus per Edouardum Riflhtonum.

Praecipua capita totins opens post praefationem authoris continentur. at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 (Joloniao Agrippinae, Auno Domini 1585.l2 Following the -fortunes of the little volume, we now turn to Eome, whither Dr. William Allen and Fatner Eobert Persons had been summoned in August 1585 to hold the same post which Sander had once filled, viz. to advise the Pope on English affairs. Now Persons was a man like Sander in very many respects, and especially in the faculty for carving out work. To spend long hours in business at the Vatican, to direct the affairs of the English Jesuit mission, to correspond with its various members then scattered amongst their brethren on the continent—for in those early days they were too few to constitute a province of their own—was not enough to satisfy the energies of this untiring man. He too had become possessed of a manuscript copy of Sander's compilation and set to work to prepare it for the press. This is evident from the existing state of the document, still preserved at the English College, Rome,11 which contains emendations written in his unmistakable hand in the mar- gin. These notes cease after fol. 46, from which we may conjecture that at this stage the edition just published in Germany became available, and that his subsequent alterations were made on the printed volume. The MS., however, contains a few notes in another

11 Pits. Da IUwt. Any. Scrlptoritnu, p. 787. Knox, Records of Eng. Catiwiks, i. 200 and 304. '- Mr. D. Lewis's excellent translation (London, 1877) is from this edition. 13 I am indebted to the Hector, Mgr. William Giles, for much valuable information about this manuscript. 1891 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER 43 hand, such as might point to some other attempt at editing, but are more probably the comments of an ordinary reader. However this may be, we shall not he far wrong in assuming that Father Persons was the responsible editor of the next edition, which ho certainly commenced, and—to judge from internal evidence—pre- sumably completed. It was printed at Borne by Bartolomeo Bon- fadini in the 7ia dei Pellegrini in 1586. The title was slightly

changed. Instead of professing to be ' edited, with additions, by Downloaded from Edward Eishton,' we read: ' Aucti per Edouardum Rishtonum, et im- pres&iprimum in Germania, mine iterum loctiplctiue et castigatius editi.' The intention of the new editor, as evidenced by his alterations, was to make the book a more complete guide to the catholic side of

the English Reformation. In outline and general tendency he left http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ it untouched, but introduced freely from trusted authors such striking incidents as seemed to him likely to make the story definite and tangible. A complete list of the authors quoted would be a long and curious one. Pole seems to be his greatest favourite; Stowe is most relied upon for names and dates; and Erasmus, Cochleus, Maurice Chauncy, Francis Bourchier, and Surius, together with

the less familiar works of John Lewis Vives and Frederick at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 Nausea are brought into requisition. In fact the selection shows that considerable pains and research were used to select and arrange the fresh material. Then, too, the extracts are often striking and piquant, as, for instance, the story (taken from one of Stapletori's controversial works) 14 of Cranmer carrying about the woman he had married in a box, until the laws of Edward legiti- mised their union. The documents printed in the volume seem to have been taken from the archives of ihe English College, Rome, where there was already the commencement of a collection of papers, which subsequently, under Persons' own rule as rector, became so large and valuable that the parts of it which survive have become the chief treasures of the muniment rooms of Stony- hurst, Oscott, and the archdiocese of Westminster. It was evidently from this source that he drew (pp. 445-02) the long and interesting letter which Bartoli15 quotes as one of Persons' own, as well as the confessions of John NicholB (pp. 469-78), and the document printed at the end of the volume, probably the most valuable of all Father Persons' additions. It is entitled ' Rerum ... in Turri Londinensi gestarum, ab anno domini 15.80, ad annum usque 1585, indiculus seu diarium ; ab eo observatum atque collectum, qui toto tempore captivus interfuit.' This is generally quoted as ' Rishton's Diary,' which is certainly incorrect. It does

" Nicholas Harpafleld, Hist, of Divoru, p. 290 (Cainden Soc.), also mentions this story. 11 Inghtiterra, ed. 1667, p. 215. 44 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER Jan. not appear in Bishton's edition, and shows no evidence of having been composed by him ; indeed, he was probably never in the Tower at all. It should, apparently, rather be ascribed to John Hart; as Persons in his • Notes for a Lifo of Campion,'16 makes mention of the Diarium Joannis Harti, and no such document is known to exist unless this be it. In spite of this uncertainty as to the name of its author, there

can be no doubt that this is one of the most striking records extant Downloaded from of the persecution of catholics. Here we have precise information of the employment of the rack, the ' little ease,' the ' scavenger's daughter,' the thumbscrews, the manacles, shackles, and the pit. The unimpassioned brevity of the record, together with its close 17 agreement with the warrants in the ' Council Books,' make its http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ force all the more striking. Tho whole document deserves careful editing. It has never yet been printed in English. It will easily be believed that Father Persons, in making ad- ditions, which amount to about a quarter of the whole book, fell into various errors, both in the manner of interpolation and in the matter introduced. For one of these, the description of the death of Abbot Whiting, he has been taken to task by Father Gasquet.18

He has substituted for Sander's words what that author conjectures at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 to be ' the gossip of the countryside current half a century later.' This lits in perfectly with our conclusion of Pprsons being the editor; he was a Somersetshire man. Several other errors are pointed out in an appendix to Burnett, whose somewhat crude criticisms aro the objects of the much more valuable comments of Joachim Le Grand. A not uninteresting specimen of Father Persons' work is the account interpolated by him of the submission of the clergy made in the convocation of 1531. True, it is n somewhat unfortunate passage, as it probably contains more faults than will be met with in the same space elsewhere. But then these very faults will be found to be clues to the authorities whom Persons is quoting, for his errors seem to be always those of the over-faithful copyist, rarely or never those of the careless composer. In the present case he seems to have chiefly followed the ' Narratio Eichardi Hilliardi Angli de rebus Anglicis,' and, fortunately, tho part of Hilliard's 6tory here used is found in a surviving fragment of his narrative preserved in the British Museum,19 and accounts for at least half the inaccuracies in Father Persons' interpolation. Sander'6 original passage is apparently responsible for another, and, as Persons

'• FoL 157, Stonyhuret M3S. 17 Happily these invaluable documents are now being printed, and we shall soon be able to consult thorn without the infinite trouble that undertaking used to involve. " Henry VIII and the Eng. Monasteries, ii. 351, note. " Arundel MSS. voL clii. SVJ, 313. 1891 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER 45 certainly had in his hands a life of Fisher not known to us, one is prone to suspect that puch other features of his story as are not referable to these sources would be accounted for if this life were forthcoming. It will be recognisable by a story of Fisher quoted by Persons, not to be found in any of the known lives of that bishop.20 Aa soon as the old man espied from afar the scaffold whereon he was

to consummate his glorious conflict, he cast away the staff on which ho Downloaded from leant, and cried, ' Come, come, ye feet of mine, this service yo shall do me, now your journey's end is near!' " The staff so cast away is still preserved as an heirloom in the family of Mr. Eyston of East Hendred.

The errors of which we have just 'been speaking are chiefly http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ deviations from the chronological order, and should not, we think, be condemned too severely, nor should it be considered wonderful that Father Persons, if he be the editor, should have omitted to put his name to the book, for that name was the object of so much ill-will in England that not one of the forty-four works ascribed to him could safely bear it, except one printed in Spanish for Spain. Still it does surpriso us to find so little notieo of the fact that large additions had been made to Sander's original with absolutely no at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 indication as to what was original and what supplementary. True, the title-page informs us that the books arc locupletius et castigatius e.diti, but to what extent the reader is absolutely uninformed. This seems very inexplicable to our ideas, but that it did not seem so to men of that day is evident from the high character of the editor, and tho singular coincidence that so many translators and other editors allowed themselves the same liberty. We have already mentioned the anonymous additions to the edition of 1585. Father Peter Eibadeneyra in his Spanish version (which, however, professes to be more than a translation) added an appendix bringing it down to 1588, and inserted fresh matter in tho text, e.g. a letter of the Princess Mary to Queen Catherine. In Italy Fra Girolamo Pollini, a dominican, added the yet more extra- ordinary story of the citation laid on the grave of St. Thomas Becket commanding him to appear in court to answer a charge of high treason. The warrants which Pollini professes to quote can- not be correct as they stand,23 but whether the errors in them are due to attempts to purify tho Latinity, or to what other cause, has

s Since writing the above I have been informed by Pere Van Ortroy, Bollandist, that in preparing the newly discovered life of Fisher for a forthcoming number of the Analecta Bollandiana, he has not met with this story in any of the lives consulted by him. :l Eia, inquit, pfdes, officium. facile, parum itiwris jam restat. De Scbismate, p. 133. " Wntins, iii. 835. •46 DIL NICHOLAS SANDER Jan. not yet been satisfactorily explained. Again in 1610 a new edition was published professing also to have been issued • locwpletius et castigativs'; but the only alteration discernible is the addition of some confessions of John Nichols, pp. 416-429. The edition of 1628, on the other hand, while making the same professions, appears rather to have returned to the earlier text, which, however, has been more carefully revised. Having thus seen something of the history and structure of the book we are considering, we may fittingly conclude with some Downloaded from account of the criticisms passed upon it. We have already noticed the great favour shown by those of his own side, and there are expressions of his adversaries far more emphatic still on the oppo- site side. Heytin calls him Dr. Slander, Strype ' a most profligate fellow, a very slave to the Eoman See, a sworn enemy to his own http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ country,' &c, &c. Burnet's opinion is that ' Sanders had so given himself up to vent reproaches and lies, that he often does it for nothing, without any end but to carry on a trade, that had been so long driven by him that he knew not how to lay it down.' Francis Mason declares that in Sander's ' libel,' ' the number of lies may seem to vie with the multitude of lines.' Camden, though he uses very strong words of condemnation, adds with greater moderation at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 that ' though learned ' he was ' more credulous than becomes a man of exact judgment.'" Of modern writers the most vehement is Mr. Froude, who styles the book ' the most venomous and successful of libels,' and thus describes it:— In a history of ' The English Schism ' he collected into a focus every charge which malignity had imagined against Henry VIII and his mini- sters : and so skilful was his workmanship that Nicholas Sanders, in the teeth of Statute and State Paper, in direct contradiction to every con- temporary document -which can claim authority—except the invectives of Pole, which he appropriated and exaggerated—has had the shaping of the historic representation of the Anglican Keformation. Sanders ' on the Origin and Progress of the English Schism ' has governed the impressions of millions, who have least believed that they were under his influence. Not a scandalous story was current at the time of the revolt from the Papacy but Sanders took possession of it and used it—used it so adroitly that he produced a book which eclipsed Buchanan's ' Detectio,' and made Mary Stuart's doings appear pale and innocent beside the picture of rapine, lust, and murder, which he held up before the eyes of Europe.*4 A more weighty testimony as to Sander's worth is that of Mr. Pocock. Many facts, which had been disbelieved because he was the only nar- rator of them, have been proved to be true by recent publications of con- ° For these and other such opinions, see Lewii, Introd. ni. " IiitU of Eng. xi. 204. 1891 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER 47 temporary documents. He alone, of all historians, gives the correct number of Catherine's children; and even in his somewhat exaggerated description of 's personal deformities, which he has been accused of inserting more from dislike of the queen and her mother than for any assistance it would afford to the main view of his history, he was correct as to the facts of the particulars he narrates. . . . These little particulars afford the strongest guarantee for his accuracy in other matters. The mistakes which occur in the work are in those parts which were added by Bishton and others to the original narrative.

. . . Sanders, though very prejudiced, was not dishonest; he believed Downloaded from what he wrote, and, upon the whole, is tolerably correct in his facts.83 An able article in the Saturday Review for 8 Oct. 1868, styles the book ' a first class authority,' and adds,

We would recommend anybody who wishes to get a clear idea of the http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ political and religious movements of the sixteenth century to read Sander's book, ' De Schismate Anglicano,' as presenting a more discriminating account of the various disturbances in church and state than can be found in so small a compass anywhere else. Let us conclude with the very sensible recommendation of Mr. Mullinger to historical students, that they should consult Sander's treatise because it ' is frequently appealed to by writers of his party as authoritative.'w The reason here touched seems to us after all at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 one of the soundest and safest for setting value on this little trac- tate. Some will prize it as a chronicle of the times, some may esteem it as proceeding from the men to whom we owe it, but all.must recognize that no history of a violent strife, such as that of the English Eeformation, can be truly appreciated without carefully examining the question from the points of view of each of the con- tending parties, and nowhere can that eide of the quarrel, which was once that of the majority, be more clearly seen than in Nicholas Sander's ' Book on the English Schism.' J. H. POLLEN.

a N. Pocock, Records of the Beformation, vol. i. pref. p. xlii. Mr. Pocock's state- ment is abundantly oonfirmed by the notes to Lewis's edition. =• Introduction to the Study of English History, by Prof. Gardiner and J. B. Mnllinger, 1881, p. 880.