cloth-of-gold and pageants, and how he made his people like him from sheer admiration of his own splendid conceit. A tyrant, but such a human sort of creature that people forgave him his bad deeds. And there is a romance of Henry’s sister, Mary Tudor, which is told by Charles Major in a book you must get, though I dare say it is one that most of you know already—“When Knighthood was in Flower.”
The great Wolsey belongs in this time, and this was the era of the Reformation, begun by Martin Luther. Henry did not like Luther's ideas, and replied to them in a book of his own, which drew another book from Luther, and the world was very much excited.
There are several good stories of this part of England's life. There is G. P. R. James's tale of
“Darnley, or The Field of the Cloth-of-Gold,” which is very romantic and full of descriptions of the looks and manners of English folk great and small, with Henry’s famous meeting with Francis I of France as an important occurrence in the story, Then Charlotte Yonge has one of
From photograph by Franz Haufstanengle..
Jane Seymour, wife of Henry VIII
From the painting by Holbein. her charming books set in this reign, with lots about Wolsey, who was, if possible, even more magnificent than the king, and certainly a far greater man. This is called “The Armourer’s
Apprentice,” and tells how two nice lads came up from the New Forest to London to see what it 
From photograph by Franz Haufstanengle..
Edward VI
From the painting by Holbein. held for them. It held a good deal, and it is all told so that you are glad to read it, and finish with a feeling that you know the things interested people in those days as well as they did themselves.
It was King Henry VIII who was first called “Defender of the Faith,” and Frank Mathew has written a story with this title (Lane, $1.50) that is said to be excellent, but I have not seen it, and can only report that it is quoted as “good.” A book I have read, however, and would willingly read over, is W. Harrison Ainsworth’s “Windsor Castle.”
This story is as brilliant and changing as a medieval procession, All the great men and women of the time of Henry's prime come into the tale; Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour are the two heroines, while the mysterious legend of Herne the Hunter runs its ghostly way from chapter to chapter. There are two editions, both published by Dutton, one without illustrations, and the other with delightful pictures by Doré.