This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
Martin Andrew Sharp Hume, (1843 -1910) born Martin Andrew Sharp, was an English historian and longtime resident of Spain.
After some practice in journalism, he meanwhile produced his first book, A Chronicle of King Henry VIII of England (1889), a translation from the Spanish. Though this attracted little attention, Hume persevered, and The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth; a History of the Various Negotiations for her Marriage, and The Year after the Armada, and other Historical Studies, both issued in 1896, were received with a degree of popular favour which led him to adopt authorship as a profession. In 1897, he published Sir Walter Ralegh and Philip II of Spain, the latter monograph showing insight and independence of view.
Next year Hume succeeded Pascual de Gayangos at the Public Record Office as editor of the Spanish State Papers, and did sound work in this capacity. However, his official duties did not absorb all his energies. In 1898, he published The Great Lord Burghley, a readable study, and Spain, its Greatness and Decay, 1479–1789, a useful historical outline, which he completed in the following year by the publication of Modern Spain, 1788-1898 (1899 ; new edit. 1906).