Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/630

 622 SHORT NOTICES October Arenberg, who was born in 1593, and in 1616 became a Capuchin friar, taking the name in religion of Charles. But the lives of his father and mother, brothers and sisters, are studied in only less minute detail. Such importance as Father Charles may have for political history is due to his connexion with the plotting of the Belgian nobles against Spanish rule in 1633. The Spanish Low Countries were then in a wretched state. They were exhausted by the endless war with the United Provinces. Their industry and commerce were decaying. Their liberties were curtailed by the jealous government of Madrid. The death of the Infanta Isabella, who had been nominally ruler in her own right, took away the shadow of autonomy. Some of the Belgian nobles, accordingly, conspired to bring about peace with Holland, the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, and the restoration of provincial liberties. The Capuchin's elder brother, Philip, duke of Aerschot, was deputed by the States-General to lay their grievances before the king in Madrid. There Philip'found himself under arrest, was interrogated as a criminal and frightened into accusing Father Charles, among others, of conspiracy to rebel. Father Charles was consequently exiled from the Low Countries in 1637, although he was suffered to return a few years later. After holding various important ofl&ces in his order, he died in 1669. He would appear to have been an active, versatile, and accomplished man. His biographer has woven into the narrative a great number of details illustrating the life of the tirn^. Some of these are interesting, as, for example, the catalogue of Antony's library when he was a young courtier at Brussels. But we cannot help thinking that zeal for his hero and his order has beguiled the author into excessive elabora- tion. The conspiracy of the Belgian nobles was thoroughly futile. The part which Father Charles took in it, we may observe, is not distinctly shown. The family life depicted is that of an aristocracy denied a career and destitute of manly ambition. In this crowded world Father Charles is scarcely entitled to so ample a biography. F. C. M. Writing as an essayist and not as an historian Mr. Reginald L. Hine, a collector of manuscripts who takes as his subjects the papers he has in his own possession, brings to light some new and interesting historical materials. His book. The Cream of Curiosity (London : Routledge, 1920), has fifteen chapters, of which the most important for the historian is that which gives an account of the family correspondence of the Heaths from 1626 till near the end of the seventeenth century. Sir Robert Heath of Brasted, who was dismissed from his office of chief justice of the common pleas in 1634 and became chief justice of the king's bench in 1642, is already a well-known figure. 1 Mr. Hine gives a good deal of new informa- tion about his sons : Robert, the cavalier poet ; Edward, a lawyer whose loyalty to the king was not carried to extravagant lengths ; John, who served as a spy in the interregnum and got his reward after the Restoration ; and George, a quiet country parson. Once or twice facts of some importance for general English history are revealed : for instance, that Lord Wil- loughby's secret correspondence with the king began as early as 1643 (p. 96) ; but, in general, the interest of the papery is social and private. Besides an excellent picture of the vicissitudes of a royalist family they