1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 269 transcripts of the Sessa letters are in the Advocates' Library. If authorities are handled in this way no real advance is possible, and the book gives other evidences of a too-great haste. Slips in grammar occur on pp. 139 and 202, slips in spelling on pp. 26, 62, and 97, and on p. 125 Philip II appears as Philip V. Watts (p. 87) was not a Jesuit. The conclusions advanced are not novel, and though most of the author's dicta are 30und, there is a want of unity throughout the book. The reformation did not
- sweep away the old international interests of Europe ', it only rearranged
them ; and the dividing line in the history of Hispano-Scottish relations is really the formation of the Anglo-French entente. Prior to that ' diplo- matic revolution ', Spain aimed at reconciling England and Scotland ; after it, at detaching Scotland from England. It is, however, convenient to have in one volume so large a collection of facts bearing on the relation of Scotland to Spain in the sixteenth century, and historians will welcome the publication in the appendix of Cecil's famous Discovery e, a rare tract of which only one copy survives in the British Museum. J. D. Mackie. Newcastle-upon-Tyne Record Series. Vol. i : Extracts from the Newcastle Council Minute Booh, 1639-56. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne : Northumber- land Press, 1920.) This volume is the outcome of a proposal to publish under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne a series of annual volumes dealing with the records of Durham, Northumberland, and New- castle. The work of transcribing, editing, and indexing has been entrusted to the competent hands of Miss M. H. Dodds, and the volume forms a welcome addition to the material bearing on Newcastle that has already appeared in the publications of the Surtees Society, in Archaeologia Aeliana, and in Richardson's Extracts. Miss Dodds has selected portions from the Common Council Act Book, vol. A 1, which, though used by Brand for his history of Newcastle published in 1789, was long missing, and was not recovered by the corporation till 1897. The interest of the records lies ' in the minute local detail, showing how the life of the town struggled on through dangerous and unprosperous times '. Few towns can have suffered as severely as Newcastle in the civil war period. From August 1640*to August 1641 it was occupied by the Scots : from 1642 to 1644 it was held for the king ; in October 1644 it was captured by the Scots after a stubborn siege and was garrisoned by them till early in 1647. No wonder the corporation complained that by its ' unparalleled suffer- ings ' it was ' brought very low '. More than once the export of coal to London was stopped ; trade was interrupted during the war with the Dutch in 1653 ; and nine years earlier, during the siege by the Scots, the town walls had been severely damaged and the common seal, with many charters, deeds, and other records, had been destroyed. In 1647 there was no money for the payment of ministers' stipends, and in 1653 the £10 usually expended on the auditors' feast was voted to be an unnecessary charge. By 1654 the extraordinary disbursements had so completely exhausted the town revenues that money had to be raised by the sale
