Not the least of the many obstacles that prevent the English people from getting at the truth of things concerning the history of the Catholic Church is the method of the Protestant historian—a method employed with conspicuous success from Foxe, with his Book of Martyrs, until our own day.

Various simple devices, which may be detected by the student or general reader, are the signs of the Protestant method in history. Similar devices are employed by all writers engaged rather in making out a special case for a person or cause than in telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

i. The selection of facts to establish a theory or bolster up a prejudice, accompanied by a discreet silence where the known facts do not fit the theory, This suppressio veri rarely fails to effect its purpose, and is the distinguishing mark of all our popular Protestant history books.

2. The attachment of epithets, often question begging epithets, always epithets that stick, to the names of prominent persons or events : irresistible this to Carlyle, too often sacrificing truth to picturesque description. By styling Henry VIII “bluff King Hal,” Mary Tudor “bloody,” and Elizabeth “good Queen Bess,” lively but quite unrecognizable portraits were presented, suitably framed, for the Protestant parlours of John Bull.

3. The citing for reference as authorities non-Catholic authors only. This is doubly effective, for it implies either that no Catholics have written on the subject, or that the non-Catholic writers alone are trustworthy : both conclusions may be drawn where anti-Catholic prejudice is strong.