Major Martin Andrew Hume, born in London on December 8, 1847, and educated at Madrid, comes of an English family, the members of which have resided in Spain for a hundred years. He began life in the British Army, from which he retired with the rank of major. Major Hume was appointed editor of the Spanish state papers published by the Record Office; he is also lecturer in Spanish History and Literature at Cambridge, and examiner and lecturer in Spanish at the Birmingham University. He has written numerous works on the history of Spain; but perhaps he is best known for his historical studies of the Tudor period, of which may be mentioned "The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth," "The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots," and "The Wives of Henry VIII." In the first-named work, published in 1896, Major Hume has presented an exceedingly interesting human document, and classified a tangled mass of material. The epitome here presented has been prepared for THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS by the author himself. _I.--Foreign Philandering_ The greatest diplomatic game ever played on the world's chessboard was that consummate succession of intrigues which, for nearly half a century, was carried on by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers with the object of playing off one great Continental power against another for the benefit of England and Protestantism, with which the interests of the queen were inextricably involved. Those in the midst of the strife worked mostly for immediate aims, and neither saw, nor cared, for the ultimate results; but we, looking back, see that out of that tangle of duplicity there emerged a new era of civilisation and a host of vigorous impulses which move us to this hour. The victory of England in that struggle meant the dominance of modern ideas of liberty and of the imperial destiny of our race, and it seems as if the result could only have been attained in the peculiar combination of circumstances and persons then existing. Elizabeth triumphed as much by her weakness as by her strength. Honest Cecil kept his hand upon the helm so long because the only alternative to him was the greedy crew of councillors eager for foreign bribes. Without Leicester as a permanent matrimonial possibility, the queen could never have held the balance between her foreign suitors; and, but for the follies of Mary Stuart, the English Catholics would not have been subjected so easily, whilst the religious dissensions in France and the character of Philip II. aided Elizabeth's diplomacy. Elizabeth was more than once betrothed in her childhood to aid her father's policy, but when Henry died, in 1547, his younger daughter was unbetrothed.