Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/150

142 SHORT NOTICES January actual intriguers often had their most bitter enemies in their neighbours, and that there was no widespread conspiracy among them. The first example given is O'Donnell, who in 1516 obtained some heavy guns from France to attack his neighbours the O'Conors and O'Neills. The next is the earl of Desmond, who seems to have had no support outside his own district, except perhaps O'Brien, while with his neighbour the earl of Ormonde he was at daggers drawn. His supposed ' invasion of England ' in 1529 with an Irish army estimated at 20,000 men seems to be founded on entire misapprehension of the authorities (p. 22). In these sporadic endeavours to obtain foreign aid against England Mr. Hogan finds proof of ' a definite homogeneous nationalism ' in Ireland. Much space is devoted to the romantic story of the wanderings of Gerald FitzGerald, sole survivor of the house of Kildare, and of the plots which centred about his name. All Ireland, we are told, ' was seething with discontent ', and for Gerald's return supported by a French army ' the conspirators waited in an agony of expectation '. The reader might forget that just at this period all the principal Irish chieftains had sworn allegiance to Henry VIII, and many of them were receiving titles and rewards at his hands and were attending his parliaments. As history, the account given of Gerald's supposed intrigues is much shaken by the entire lack of evidence that he personally took any part in them ; and as romance, it is spoilt by the fact that in the result, at any rate, he proved no traitor, but sought a reconciliation with the Crown and was restored to his lands and honours. Next we are told of intrigues with the house of Guise and Henry II, when again and again but for a storm, or the unlucky election of an unsympathetic pope, or the irresolution of the French monarch, ' English domination would have vanished in a month '. Mr. Hogan writes clearly and well and has throughout commendably examined the primary sources, but his inferences are too often warped by his evident inability to think anything but evil of England, and by his desire to represent the disaffected elements in Ireland as constituting a ' distinct state-entity ' and as actuated by a lofty patriotism which excuses all duplicity. We have noticed many misprints in dates and some careless errors in names, such as ' the Imperial town of Vincennes ' (Valenciennes), pp. 47, 49 ; ' Gonzago, duke of Milan ', p. 53. To call Charles V ' Emperor of Austria ' is incorrect, and such misleading forms as ' Cahir Donaesha ', p. 26, and ' MacCarthy High ', p. 64, though occurring in State Papers, should not have been silently adopted. Nor should John Strype be called a contemporary writer of events that happened about a century before his time. G. H. 0. A welcome addition to our knowledge of maritime trade in the sixteenth century is made by M. Leon Van der Essen in his Contribution a I'Histoire du Port d'Anvers et du Commerce d 'Exportation des Pays-Bas vers I'Espagne et le Portugal a VEpoque de Charles-Quint, 1553-1554, reprinted from the Bulletin de VAcademie Royale d'Archeologie de Belgique for 1920. This gives an account of the contents of a volume in the Archives .Generates at Brussels (Chambre des Comptes, Carton no. 326, Anvers), a list of goods exported from Antwerp to the Peninsula and the Spanish and Portuguese possessions overseas which paid the duty of 2 per cent, levied from