It would, perhaps, not become me to offer any observations on these contemporaries; but I cannot refrain from bearing testimony to the work of a distinguished foreigner, M. Guizot, _Histoire de la Revolution d'Angleterre, depuis l'Avenement de Charles I. jusqu'à la Chute de Jacques II._, the first volume of which was published in 1826. The extensive knowledge of M. Guizot, and his remarkable impartiality, have already been displayed in his collection of memoirs illustrating that part of English history; and I am much disposed to believe that if the rest of his present undertaking shall be completed in as satisfactory a manner as the first volume, he will be entitled to the preference above any one, perhaps, of our native writers, as a guide through the great period of the seventeenth century. In terminating the _Constitutional History of England_ at the accession of George III., I have been influenced by unwillingness to excite the prejudices of modern politics, especially those connected with personal character, which extend back through at least a large portion of that reign. It is indeed vain to expect that any comprehensive account of the two preceding centuries can be given without risking the disapprobation of those parties, religious or political, which originated during that period; but as I shall hardly incur the imputation of being the blind zealot of any of these, I have little to fear, in this respect, from the dispassionate public, whose favour, both in this country and on the Continent, has been bestowed on my former work, with a liberality less due to any literary merit it may possess, than to a regard for truth, which will, I trust, be found equally characteristic of the present. _June 1827._ ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION The present edition has been revised, and some use made of recent publications. The note on the authenticity of the Icon Basilice, at the end of the second volume of the two former editions, has been withdrawn; not from the slightest doubt in the author's mind as to the correctness of its argument; but because a discussion of a point of literary criticism, as this ought to be considered, seemed rather out of its place in the _Constitutional History of England_. _April 1832._ LIST OF AUTHORITIES _The following Editions have been used for the References in these Volumes_ _Statutes at Large_, by Ruffhead, except where the late edition of _Statutes of the Realm_ is expressly quoted. _State Trials_, by Howell. Rymer's _Foedera_, London, 20 vols. The paging of this edition is preserved in the margin of the Hague edition in 10 vols. _Parliamentary History_, new edition. Burnet's _History of the Reformation_, 3 vols. folio, 1681. Strype's _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, _Annals of Reformation_, and Lives of Archbishops Cranmer, Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift, folio. The paging of these editions is preserved in those lately published in 8vo. Hall's _Chronicles of England_.