Welsh Journals

of Alabama, is clear and well-constructed, with a wealth of notes and a long book-list. It deals with a precise episode in the last century of the 'Auld Alliance' by which the French, between 1296 and the Scottish Reformation, helped Scotland to maintain its precarious independence against England. After James IV was killed at the disaster of Flodden in 1513, Margaret Tudor acted as regent for her infant son James V, but by 1515 this was unacceptable and she was replaced by a French exiled member of the Stuart family, John, duke of Albany. He was in many ways the saviour of Scotland in the early-sixteenth century, although he only stayed to suit Francis Fs complicated diplomatic intrigues against England or the Habsburgs from 1515 to 1517, 1521 to 1522, and from 1523 to 1524. Albany's energetic rule enlivened Scotland and enabled her to resist England at a time when she might very easily have been conquered. However, he was disliked by many in Scotland-by a party of pro-English nobles, and by one of the most unfortunate of the Tudors, Queen Margaret of Scotland. It is a miracle that, when so many other notables were killed by one side or another, she escaped with her life while she intrigued with both sides in order to beg enough means to live on. This episode is an ugly story of English and French interference in Scottish affairs and of even uglier Scottish noble gang-fights and squabbles. The author complains that Anglo-Scottish diplomacy has been badly neglected: this is true, although I know of at least three books on the Scottish frontier during the sixteenth century. It may be that the field has been neglected because there is little that is fundamentally new or significant to be found in the extensive printed calendars of English and Scottish papers used by Professor Eaves. PRYS MORGAN Swansea THE RECORDS OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN ENGLAND. By Dorothy M. Owen. British Records Association (Archives and the User, No. 1), 1970. Pp. 64. 80p. The increasing use of archives calls for, but does not always elicit, on the one hand more detailed and extensive lists at individual repositories and, on the other, more general guides to particular types of records. Popular guides have been appearing in recent years which satisfy many casual searchers interested in the history of a house or a family. The historian, hopefully criticising his sources as he explores them, needs to know how they came into being and under what circumstances they were retained. The archivist thus has two types of student with which to deal, the casual searcher and the serious historian. It is doubtful whether many of the former will be able to take advantage of Mrs. Owen's book, which