PREFACE. THE inducement which led to the present publication is so fully detailed in the introductory part of the first section, that little, if any thing, remains to be urged on that subject; the author, however, cannot present his work to the public eye without some observations on what may appear to be chronological discrepancies, as compared with the dates of preceding biographers, sometimes to the extent of a whole year. This requires a slight explanation. The truth is, that scarcely any two writers agree precisely in the dates, either of events or of public documents, owing to the different modes of chronological notation cotemporary with WOLSEY and the earlier annalists. The consequences have, therefore, in many instances, been most unjustly unfavourable to the Cardinal, by reversing or transposing the order of events, representing his actions as taking place previous to the circumstances which actually led to them, and thereby exposing him to unmerited censure, where a corrected chronology might serve as his justification. This fact, so fertile in error, was too palpable to escape notice, even in the author's earliest researches, and formed one of the greatest difficulties which he had to contend with in his pursuit of truth -a few instances will be sufficiently illus trative. Previous to, and during the reign of Henry VIII., it was customary to begin and end the year on Lady-day; but the modern mode of beginning the year on the 1st of January having then been partially adopted, the natural consequence was, that what happened in the months of January, February, and part of March, in any given year, by the first mode, was set down as in the year ensuing by those who adopted the second; so as to render necessary the practice, afterwards so frequent, of dating thus 1520-1, 1526-7, &c. |