I like to fancy that in the Record Office, at Simancas, Brussels, and in the Archives of the Indies (that great red pile, in Seville), there are some old librarians who remember him, and talk about his work. I hear them say, at Seville or Simancas, ‘There was an Englishman who used to come here, one who spoke Christian. He used to sit and write, and knew the documents better than we ourselves’ (which was not difficult). ‘I tell you that that Englishman was like a devil at his work.’ If they exist, and Hume could hear of them, I am certain he would smile in his grave way and say: ‘Ah, yes; old Don Saturino Lopez, or Don Eustaquio Perez,’ as the case might be, ‘I well remember him. He never knew where to find anything; he came from Coria, I think.’ R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM. INTRODUCTION In a previous volume I have remarked upon the extremely small political significance of most of the Queens Consort of England, although socially the country has become what it is mainly through feminine influence. In Spain the exact reverse has happened, and in no Christian country has the power of women been less formative of the life and character of the nation, whilst, largely owing to personal and circumstantial accident, the share of ladies in deciding the political destinies of the country from the throne has been more conspicuous than in other European monarchies. The oriental traditions dominant in Spain for centuries tended to make wives the humble satellites rather than the equal companions of their husbands; and the inflated gallantry, before marriage at least, that sprang from the chivalrous obsession grafted upon mixed feudal and Islamic ideals, affected to exclude woman from the harder facts of existence, and from the practical problems that occupied the minds of men. But whilst these traditions limited the power of Spanish women generally, they were insufficient to counteract the extraordinary political influence of a series of remarkable feminine personalities who, mainly owing to feebleness and ineptitude of consorts, or to long minorities of sons, have on occasion during the course of four centuries practically wielded the sceptres of Spain. It is true that queens regnant in England as well as in Spain have usually, and quite naturally, been powerful political factors, but in most instances they necessarily differed but little, either in aims or methods, from male sovereigns. The difference between the queens of the two countries is most remarkable in the case of queens consort, who in Spain have, either as wives or widowed regents, influenced government to an extent quite unparalleled in England. Apart from the accident of forceful personal character, or other influential qualities possessed by some of these ladies, the reason for their importance must be sought in the fact that most of them represented great dynastic interests or