CORRESPONDENCE. "HAVE you seen Gen. Spinner's letter, which I endorse herein ? It seems that the system which you are endeavoring to overthrow is so successful that not only are the notes of all the National Banks good, but those of the broken banks are better than those of the solvent banks. Surely this result has never been accomplished before!" inadequate to the redemption of the notes of the bank, by reason of the securities deposited, is the Government bound to redeem the notes at par? The forty-seventh section of the National Currency Act not only gives the right to forfeit all the securities held for any deficiency; but the Government has a first and paramount lien upon all the assets of a defaulting bank. I therefore answer this question affirmatively. We don't know if this correspondent agrees You ask again, Could the absolute failing with us on the main question, but gladly reprint of a national bank impair the value of the cirTreasurer Spinner's letter as showing in a clear culating notes of the bank making such failure? light what we have endeavored to maintain; I answer, no. On the contrary, the notes of a that is, that the credit of the National Bank-national bank that has failed are rather better Notes is not in any part derived from the Banks; and consequently, that the eighteen millions a year paid to them. out of our taxes is so much thrown away. Indeed, it is worse than that; for it goes to aid them in stimulating specula tion. We had the whole experience of the Bank of England before us, and had succeeded in the introduction of a currency (Greenbacks) to the extent of four hundred millions of dollars (being really a loan without interest to the United States), when we went to work to build up a system of pet banks forty times as bad as those of President Jackson's disastrous experiment, and this in order to supersede this popular, invaluable, and costless currency by another which costs us already much more than the whole expenses of Government under John Quincy Adams. So absurd a course is certain to affect the national credit; for it does not matter how rich we are if we waste our money thus extravagantly. TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, May 16, 1866. Dear Sir, -Your letter of the 10th instant has just now been received. You ask to what extent is the government liable for the redemption of the notes of the national banks? I answer, to the full nominal face value of every note issued by the Comptroller of the Currency to a bank, and by the bank put into circulation. You ask, should the bank-deposits with the United-States Treasurer to secure the circulating notes, with the banks depositing them, be than those of a bank in good standing if away from the business marts or commercial centres of the country, for the reason that the Treasurer of the United States becomes the cashier of such defaulting bank, and will, through his assistants and other Government officers, redeem such circulation. You ask, further, are the notes of the UnitedStates Treasury, beyond the fact of their being legal tenders, a greater security to the holders than the currency of the national banks? The United-States legal-tender notes afford no national banks. The only real difference begreater security to the holder than the notes of tween the two is, that, while the latter are only former are such legal tender from and to all a legal tender from and to the Government, the individuals. Very respectfully yours, parties, whether municipalities, corporations, or F. E. SPINNER, Treasurer. Even if we were not the Editor of the Living Age, we should not like to be the Prince of Wales. The articles on him, and on what Englishmen would like best to be, may be read together. Cobbett said he would undertake to find a respectable person willing to perform all the duties of King of England for forty pounds a year. Perhaps he might have done so but the Prince is dissatisfied though he gets so much more! Industrial Partnership is especially adapted to this country. The Tribune office is so carried on, and, no doubt, many other establishments. From The Elinburgh Review. Brewer's Calendar of State Papers. Published under the direction of the Right Hon. the Master of the Rolls. London: 1862-4. Ir is difficult to understand how future historical writers will be able to deal with the superabundant supply of materials now forthcoming, not only from the researches of private individuals, but from the publication by various Governments of an immense amount of evidence and correspondence heretofore jealously concealed in their respective archives. Our own series of Calendars of the State Papers, published under the authority of the Master of the Rolls, has now reached to no less than twenty-six portly volumes, extending from the year 1509 to 1665, and we must say that a more useful and important literary work has never been accomplished at the public expense. Every document contained in the voluminous records of the realm is here at least described. The more interesting are deciphered and quoted; and although these records must obviously be regarded as the materials of history rather than as history itself, the authenticity of contemporary evidence and the lifelike personal character they give to the study of a departed age, have peculiar charms for the reader. We have already on a former occasion shown to what an extent these papers illustrate the singular history of the first marriage of Queen Katharine of Arragon; and we now propose to borrow from the Calendar of Mr. Brewer some account of another Princess whose matrimonial adventures were equally strange, though far less tragical than those of the divorced Queen of Henry VIII. ministrative genius of Wolsey, and the as-. cendency which England rapidly acquired, upon the accession of Henry VIII., in the affairs of Europe. Nothing, indeed, can be more graphic, and we may almost say dramatic, than the impression which the reader receives from works like that of Mr. Brewer, which give more or less in extenso the very words and writings of the leading personages. And when it is remembered that amongst these are included Henry VIII., Louis XII., Maximilian and his daughter Margaret of Savoy, Francis I., Ferdinand of Arragon, Leo X., Wolsey, Tunstal Fox, Sir T. More, besides the statesmen who exercised a leading influence in the councils of the respective Sovereigns, it is hardly too much to say with the editor of these papers that they present a mass of materials, not only for the reign of Henry VIII., but of Europe generally, to which, in interest and completeness, no parallel can be found in this or any other country. Mr. Brewer has, in our opinion, met with unmerited reproach for incorporating in his work resumés of the despatches of Giustiniani first published by Mr. Rawdon Brown; but he informs us that the plan of his work did not confine him to a bare catalogue of the Public Records preserved in the State Paper Office, and in these volumes he has included all other original documents which could be found to illustrate his history of the period. By so doing he has given a continuous character to much which would otherwise have been fragmentary. For the same reason, though scarcely to the same degree, we think he has done well to include portions of the correspondence of Erasmus, affording an insight into the studious life of that age, which was not then to the same extent as in modern times separated by a broad line of distinction from the more active life of the councilchamber or camp. It is agreeable to turn at times from the intricacies of political combinations, and from the wearisome correspondence of political agents, to the letters of literary men, and to find the silver thread of study and contemplation running through the tangled web of public affairs. Mr. Brewer's Calendar embraces the correspondence of the early years of the reign of Henry VIII., from 1509 to 1518, and it will be remembered that Mr. Froude, though he has prefaced his work by a general introduction of considerable interest in itself, takes as his point of departure the end of Wolsey's career. Mr. Brewer serves as a guide to a correspondence which gives a very full picture of the important events which preceded that period; we gather our own conceptions of the characters who figured on the stage; and we discover to what We can hear Erasmus as he talks of the an extent England was taking a part in progress of his New Testament, and learn European affairs before the date selected by the early impressions produced by the pubMr. Froude as his starting-point. The in- lication of More's Utopia;' and if at the troductory essay on the earlier portion of same time we are reminded not only of the the reign of Henry VIII., prefixed to this wit, but also of some of the more questionvolume, is a masterly production, which ex- able characteristics of the Epistolæ obscuhibits at a glance the person and the court rorum Virorum,' the picture of the times is of the youthful English monarch, the ad-rendered more interesting and complete. We have alluded, however, only to the that of this Sovereign, as judged by the names of the leading men concerned, but correspondence in Mr. Brewer's volumes. these Calendars are full of particulars re- Wavering and uncertain in his policy, garding many of the women whose fortunes money was his object, and for money he were mixed up in events of historic impor- was ever ready to make any sacrifice. As tance. Until the publication of Mr. Ber- Pope Julius expressed himself regarding genroth's Calendar, comparatively little was him, 'Imperator est levis et inconstans : known of the interesting particulars con- alienæ pecuniæ semper mendicus nected with the marriage of Katharine of est tamen conciliandus nomine diaboli, et Arragon; and Mr. Brewer now gives us pecunia ei semper est danda.' A tone of the curious details of the history of Mary ridicule as regards the royal medicant runs the sister of Henry VIII. Although the throughout the correspondence of the statesstory of this Princess as now presented to men of the day, and specially in the dethe reader is wanting in many of the pa- spatches of the English agents who were thetic points of interest connected with frequently concerned in pecuniary transKatharine, we have thought that it is so full actions with him; for in these times, as in of varying events, and so characteristic of more modern instances, we find Germany the times, that we shall be doing a service looking to England for the means to enable to many readers by giving them the sub-it to fight its own battles. stance of what Mr. Brewer's volumes contain on the subject. The Princess Mary, youngest daughter of Henry VII., her sister Margaret having married James IV. of Scotland, had been in 1506, in accordance with the usage of times when royal marriages were made so subservient to political purposes, affianced by her father to the infant Prince Charles, afterwards to become celebrated as Emperor, but even then, by his relationship to the Emperor Maximilian and to the Spanish sovereigns, one of the greatest matches in Christendom. The proposed marriage was thus in full accordance with the shrewdness which characterised the policy of Henry VII., nor did it lose its political significance in the eyes of his successor when the death of the Archduke Philip placed Charles in the position of heir to the crown of Castile. But the position of the other principals concerned was also to be affected by this and other political considerati ons. Ferdinand of Arragon, old, selfish, and deceitful, was the first to show disinclination to the marriage. Jealous as he had been of the rights of the Archduke Philip, he was not likely to view with much favour an alliance which would strengthen the position of the youthful heir; and when by the acquisition of Navarre, not effected without the concurrent action of Henry VIII., he had secured important advantages, no principles of honour, no gratitude for obligations, or considerations of existing family connection, were sufficient to counterbalance a policy founded only on motives of self-interest. It would, on the other hand, be difficult to give to the policy of Maximilian even so consistent a motive. Few characters in history figure in a more pitiable light than Hume appears to have somewhat undervalued the policy pursued by Henry and by Wolsey with a view to counteract the successes of Francis in his first Milanese campaign, by purchasing the concurrence of Maximilian. It is evident, indeed, that, in spite of the difficulties which attached to any co-operation with the Emperor, an important check was thus placed on French designs in Italy; but this was not effected without a large expenditure of English gold, disbursed in the hands of Maximilian's Swiss auxiliaries, so far at least as it could be kept from his own clutches. The correspondence of Wingfield and Pace, the two agents employed by Henry in this matter, is most interesting, and the contrast between the two characters is well worth study in their despatches. Wingfield, a veteran agent, credulous and feeble, but withal a gentleman in his tone - a very pantaloon of diplomatists was called upon to co-operate with Richard Pace, an agent of a totally different character. Our readers will recollect Shakspeare's allusion to the latter : Camp. Was he not held a learned man? Richard Pace appears to have been a shrewd and determined agent, undaunted by Maximilian's threats, inaccessible to his blandishments, and patient under the severe trials to which he was subjected by his fidelity to the interests intrusted to him. Writing from a bed of sickness or from prison, and even when summarily dismissed by the Emperor, we find the same constancy 6 Henry VIII. was not likely to submit to such hesitations. Explanations were demanded, and his Ambassador at Brussels was directed to make preparations for the marriage, but delays and evasions were the only result: and at length, as Henry himself informed Margaret's envoy, Gerard de Pleine, it was the common talk of Europe that the delay was only designed to break off the engagement. It is with little sur and incorruptibility. Joint action between | same agent stating that the Emperor was two such opposite characters was manifestly not to be trusted, and that he had instructimpossible. Wingfield's easy nature was ed Margaret to defer the marriage on the necessarily irritated by the unyielding dis- plea of the Prince's health; and Charles's position of his colleague. Personal jeal- own Council, acting under French influousy was soon to follow, and querulous com- ence, also appear to have desired to raise plaints against the confidence which Henry difficulties on the ground that the Prince reposed in Pace. But the King and his was but a child and Mary full-grown. Minister were not the men to misunderstand the true state of things. To be plain with you,' wrote Henry to Wingfield, we now evidently perceive, more by your own writings than by the relation of others, that ye having better opinion in yourself than your wisdom or qualities can attain to, not only by elation of a glorious mind, but moved by the instigation of malice against our Secretary, Mr. Pace, have more considered your sensual appetite than regard-prise, therefore, that we read a public ined our commandments, weal, profit, or surety.' Better, added the angry monarch, that Wingfield had not been born than that inconvenience should result from his vainglorious ways, more studying to win thanks there, than regarding our honour and profit.' But we must leave the poor old knight in the midst of his tribulations, and only wonder that Henry did not forthwith accede to his request that his poverty might be remembered, and that he might be permitted to retire and make his pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham, where, as he wrote, by the leave of God I would gladly leave my beard, which is now of so strange a colour that I need none other arms or herald to show what favour I am worthy or like to have from henceforth amongst ladies and gentlewomen.' * We have digressed thus far from the history of Mary and her fortunes, as it was necessary to allude to the characters concerned in the matter of her marriage with Charles of Castille. Whatever might be the interests and inclinations of Ferdinand and Maximilian, they could not ignore the engagement contracted with Henry VII.; but it was in spite of his inclinations that Ferdinand in 1509 ratified the engagement, for Henry's agent, Knight, reported that, 'whether he feareth that the Prince waxeth too ripe in age, or that he remembereth old injuries, or that he would dissever the marriage, your Grace may truly imagime that he is not well disposed.' In like manner in 1513 Maximilian also signed the articles of the marriage, which was fixed to take place in the following year, but again we find the * A very few years were to see the end of this shrine. In 1538, the wonder-working image was brought to Chelsea and there burnt. (Paston Letters, note to letter xvi.) strument, signed by Mary herself in July, 1514, by which the alliance was formally renounced by the Princess; but that which does occasion a shock to the feelings of the reader is that Henry's announcement of this step to Leo X. is coupled with the intelligence that Mary was now betrothed to Louis XII. of France. A husband of the mature age of fifty-two was thus substituted for a boy of fourteen! Political causes had doubtless a paramount influence in inducing Henry to relinquish the alliance with Charles. The contract had been entered into, so far as he was concerned, only as part of an arrangement between Henry, Maximilian, and Ferdinand, for joint action against France, but the agreement was soon violated by a truce between the two latter and Louis. Henry's position was thus altered; it was, moreover, not unnatural for him to be indignant at the treatment to which his sister had been exposed. For that treatment was hard. The Princess, as described in a letter to Margaret, was a beautiful lady; her deportment exquisite both in conversation and dancing. She is very lively and well brought up, and appears to love the prince wonderfully. She has a very bad picture of him, and is said to wish for his presence ten times a day.' From the year 1509, we find her styled in public documents as Princess of Castille.' Margaret in her letters spoke of her as betrothed to the Prince; and as late as December, 1513, we find Charles himself signing a letter to her with his name as 'y're bon mary.' The contract itself, and the hesitation of the Prince's relations to fulfil it, were thus equally notorious; and personal dignity concurred with political motives in inducing Henry to break off the engagement. But 6 nor knowledge how to advertise and give me counsel in any time of need, which is to be feared more shortly than your Grace thought at the after the true facts of the case are thus ap- If, however, the rupture with Charles cess. We gather an impression of this amorous monarch from Peter Martyr's letters. In one of them he states, The King is at Abbeville, waiting for his new bride, who will be his death. What an old valetudinarian suffering from leprosy can want with a handsome girl of eighteen, you may infer;' and in another. The Frenchman went out to meet his bride like a gay bridegroom perched on a Spanish war-horse, licking his lips, and gulping his spittle. If he lives to smell the flowers of spring, you may promise yourself five hundred autumns.' The sacrifice was, however, to be made, and the marriage took place on the 9th of October. The first results we learn in a letter from the new Queen to Henry dated a few days later;· 'The morn next after my marriage all my other man servants were discharged, and likewise my mother Gilford with my women and maidens, except such as never had experience And this was the way in which the promised contentation' as regarded Mary's attendants was carried out by Louis, who, in Worcester's words, yet lieth still, ever excusing himself by his gout.' Nor could Worcester, acting in obedience to Henry's instructions, bring about a better state of things. The only reply he could get from Louis was, 'that his wife and he be in good and perfect love as ever two creatures can be, and both of an age to rule themselves, and not to have servants who should rule over him or her.' And thus had the poor young Queen to accept her fate. She had not, however, long to endure it. A new actor is now to appear on the scene, and one destined to take a prominent part in Mary's fortunes. This was Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Henry's favourite, and one whose history bears some curious analogy to that of his Royal master. He appears to have married four wives and was also contracted in marriage to Elizabeth Grey, heiress of Viscount Lisle, which title was then conferred on him by Henry VIII. but surrendered when the lady refused to fulfil the engagement; and it appears from Mr. Brewer's interesting preface that Suffolk's matrimonial connexions had been peculiar. Contracted in marriage during the reign of Henry VII. to Anne Brown, daughter of Sir Anthony Brown, Governor of Calais, he obtained a dispensation and married his aunt Margaret Mortymer. From her he subsequently separated on the plea of prohibited affinity, and then married his first love, by whom he had two daughters. Eventually, in 1528, he obtained a Papal Bull annulling all objections which might be raised on account of these previous engagements. We learn, moreover, from other papers contained in Mr. Brewer's volumes, the particulars of a somewhat advanced flirtation between Suffolk and Margaret of Austria. Nor was Henry indifferent in the matter; he appears to have pressed the suit of his favourite; and though Margaret ultimately declined her consent, it is evident from her letters that she did so from no personal repugnance to Suffolk. Such were the antecedents of the agent selected by Henry to proceed to France at this period in Mary's fortunes. He was sent ostensibly with the object of representing English chivalry at the tournaments held in honour of the marriage, but he was |