Ballads about events which happened during the reigns of the later Tudors are far more numerous than those which relate to the reigns of their predecessors. They fall naturally into three classes. There are a few traditional ballads, probably handed down by word of mouth, committed to writing much later, and generally not printed till the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The authors of these are unknown; in the shape in which we possess them they may be the work of more than one hand; in many cases it is certain that they have been pieced together and reshaped by modern editors.

Both Burke and Coxe have said that Jenkins never lost his ear from the stroke of a Spanish ‘cutlash’; a modern historian has shown it to be likely that he did. What, however, is more important than the establishment of this truth is the decision as to the exact amount of influence it had upon producing the war which followed. Jenkins' ear may be said to typify the feelings of the English public in their broad sense, their hatred for the Spaniards as cruel Papists, their insular detestation of the foreigner, and the like. The question is how far did these feelings influence the declaration of war; what were the main motives of the diplomats on either side? Did the English statesmen first truckle to Spain and then to England? The great interest of such an inquiry lies in the fact that the year 1739 was a turning point of history. It was, perhaps, the first of English wars in which the trade interest absolutely predominated, in which the war was waged solely for balance of trade rather than for balance of power. But it is not alone memorable on this account; from this war issued, in a clear and undeviating succession, the series of wars which were waged between England and France during the eighteenth century — wars in which Spain was sometimes a passive spectator, oftener an active enemy, never the friend of England. Spain's alliance with France produced grave complications for England in 1743, contributed to the fall of the greatest of English ministers in 1761, and to the loss of the greatest of English colonies in 1783.

There is perhaps no historical subject less easy to treat dispassionately than the Inquisition. The tissue of exaggerations that has grown up around it is such that the sole hope of arriving at the truth is to turn to authentic sources, and to draw our own conclusions from them. Perhaps it was with this idea that the late Marquess of Bute, who had acquired a very valuable collection of the archives of the Canary Inquisition, had intended publishing in extenso the cases relating to English traders and others. The execution of this plan was unfortunately frustrated by death; but though a search through many volumes of MSS. is rendered necessary for a full study of the subject, the catalogue prepared by Dr. de Gray Birch is probably sufficient to give an intelligent acquaintance with it.

The Regium Donum was a pension paid by the Crown to the Presbyterian Ministers in Ireland. It began in the reign of Charles II., having been promised by that monarch about the middle of October, 1672. After being discontinued in the latter part of this reign, and throughout the reign of James II., it was revived and augmented by William III., again to be discontinued in the latter part of the reign of Queen Anne, and revived for the second time by George I. From this period it was continued until commuted by the Act which disestablished the Irish Church in 1869.