The present volume does not profess to do more than roughly sketch Henry VIII.'s more prominent characteristics, outline the chief features of his policy, and suggest some reasons for the measure of success he attained. Episodes such as the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the determination of the relations between Church and State, would severally demand for adequate treatment works of much greater bulk than the present. On the divorce valuable light has recently been thrown by Dr. Stephan Ehses in his _Roemische Dokumente_.[11] The dissolution of the monasteries has been exhaustively treated from one point of view by Dr. Gasquet;[12] but an adequate and impartial history of what is called the Reformation still remains to be written. Here it is possible to deal with (p. x) these questions only in the briefest outline, and in so far as they were affected by Henry's personal action. For my facts I have relied entirely on contemporary records, and my deductions from these facts are my own. I have depended as little as possible even on contemporary historians,[13] and scarcely at all on later writers.[14] I have, however, made frequent use of Dr. Gairdner's articles in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, particularly of that on Henry VIII., the best summary extant of his career; and I owe not a little to Bishop Stubbs's two lectures on Henry VIII., which contain some fruitful suggestions as to his character.[15] A.F. POLLARD. PUTNEY, _11th January, 1905_. [Footnote 11: Paderborn, 1893; _cf. Engl. Hist. Rev._, xix., 632-45.] [Footnote 12: _Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries_, 2 vols., 1888.] [Footnote 13: Of these the most important are Polydore Vergil (Basel, 1534), Hall's _Chronicle_ (1548) and Fabyan's _Chronicle_ (edited by Ellis, 1811). Holinshed and Stow are not quite contemporary, but they occasionally add to earlier writers on apparently good authority.] [Footnote 14: I have in this edition added references to those which seem most important; for a collected bibliography see Dr. Gairdner in _Cambridge Modern History_, ii., 789-94. I have also for the purpose of this edition added references to the original sources--a task of some labour when nearly every fact is taken from a different document. The text has been revised, some errors removed, and notes added on special points, especially those on which fresh light has recently been thrown.]