These days of the Great Schism, when the Roman Pontiffs had much ado to hold Their Own against irregularly elected pseudopontiffs, must have been utterly horrible. A reigning sovereign is uneasy when pretenders to, or usurpers of, his crown appear. Republican France farcically banishes men whose nobler forefathers represented other forms of government. England sometimes wakes prodigally to spend blood and treasure in support of her suzerainty. If secular powers, then, strive, struggle for their life; and, in the struggle, cause distress, how many times more distressing must have been the rivalry of the Great Schism, when the prize at stake was the Headship of Christendom. This consideration will make it easy to understand how great an obligation the Lord Martin P.P. III lay under to the skilful canon, who actually persuaded His rival peaceably to renounce his claim to the triple crown, terminating the thirty-eighth schism of the Holy Roman Church. As a reward, Canon Alonso de Borja received the bishopric of Valencia, his native diocese; and, after his consecration, he continued to be useful to King Don Alonso de Aragona, by re-organising the government of the Regno, and by supervising the education of the King’s Bastard and subsequent successor, Don Ferrando. * * * * * The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were not more filled with improbable situations than the twentieth. The situations were different, that is all. The situation of bastards was quite curious, and must be realised by any one who desires intelligently to understand the time. To this intelligent understanding Ludovico Romano’s theories will lend aid. He argues that it is false to say that bastards are infamous and incapable of honours. To the infamous is denied the dignity of Decurion (command of ten men). But bastards may become Decuriones. Therefore bastards are neither infamous nor incapable of honour. Giampietro de Crescenzi Romani, in _Il Nobile Romano_, states the case thus: Plebeians are not eligible to the Decurionate. Bastards are eligible to the Decurionate. Therefore, bastards are not plebeians, but nobles if born of noble stock. Bastards are capable of nobility, of secular and civil dignity; for Ishmael was not hunted from his father’s house on account of his bastardy, but on account of his insolence. It is not necessary to quote Crescenzi’s argument as to the bastards of King David, from whom descends the Son of David, Son of Abraham, according to the Scripture, and Whom the Fathers of the Church acclaim as One of royal generation; nor to give more of his catalogue of noble bastards than Theodoric, King of the Goths of Italy and of Spain, the Emperor Charlemagne, Roberto and Pandolfo Malatesta, Tyrants of Rimini, Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of Pesaro, William (called The Conqueror), Duke of Normandy and King of England. He continues to say that nature does not distinguish between