Catholic and Protestant, Monarchist and Republican, have been consulted with the same sincerity.

The works of Bor (whose enormous but indispensable folios form a complete magazine of contemporary state-papers, letters, and pamphlets, blended together in mass, and connected by a chain of artless but earnest narrative), of Meteren, De Thou, Burgundius, Heuterus; Tassis, Viglius, Hoofd, Haraeus, Van der Haer, Grotius-of Van der Vynckt, Wagenaer, Van Wyn, De Jonghe, Kluit, Van Kampen, Dewez, Kappelle, Bakhuyzen, Groen van Prinsterer--of Ranke and Raumer, have been as familiar to me as those of Mendoza, Carnero, Cabrera, Herrera, Ulloa, Bentivoglio, Peres, Strada.

The manuscript relations of those Argus-eyed Venetian envoys who surprised so many courts and cabinets in their most unguarded moments, and daguerreotyped their character and policy for the instruction of the crafty Republic, and whose reports remain such an inestimable source for the secret history of the sixteenth century, have been carefully examined--especially the narratives of the caustic and accomplished Badovaro, of Suriano, and Michele.

It is unnecessary to add that all the publications of M.Gachard--particularly the invaluable correspondence of Philip II.

and of William the Silent, as well as the "Archives et Correspondence" of the Orange Nassau family, edited by the learned and distinguished Groen van Prinsterer, have been my constant guides through the tortuous labyrinth of Spanish and Netherland politics.
The large and most interesting series of pamphlets known as "The Duncan Collection," in the Royal Library at the Hague, has also afforded a great variety of details by which I have endeavoured to give color and interest to the narrative.