Good Newes from Fraunce; French Anti-League Propaganda in Late Elizabethan England by Lisa Ferraro Parmelee (review)

BOOK REVIEWS341 siastical historian it also raises questions. It would be useful to know, if only in approximate terms,how many accusations were made beyond the limited number of cases studied.Within the sprawling and, in some respects, disorganized organization of the Spanish Church in the early modern period, it was not surprising that cases of irregular sexual conduct occurred among the clergy. Although the author suggests that the problem was widespread, we do not have reUable statistical information for the kingdom as a whole to indicate how great or smaU the problem was in relation to the clergy's overall size. It also would be useful to have a greater sense of change from one period to another. Although solicitation accusations continued to be made through the eighteenth century, for example, there is evidence from the records of episcopal pastoral visits that the Spanish Church made substantial progress in improving the moral quality of the clergy after 1750. Even the mendicant orders, the largest source of solicitation accusations, underwent sporadic reforming efforts during the century. The author's emphasis on the increased frequency of confession as one cause ofthe surge in soUcitation cases from the middle of the sixteenth century onward also raises questions.Although there is some evidence that the Church made headway in certain regions in its efforts to persuade the faithful to confess and receive communion more than once a year, there are no accurate figures for the kingdom as a whole to indicate whether the attempt to modify historic entrenched attitudes was as successful as the book maintains. The laments ofpastoral experts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as weU as local studies by social anthropologists suggest that the historic practice of annual confession and communion in rural Spain, even in areas known for high levels of religious practice, persisted weU into the modern period. Indeed , as late as 1913 in one CastUian vUlage,the confessional appeared only during Lent, to be stored away after Easter for another year. These reservations aside, this is a richly detaUed and informative study of a hitherto obscure aspect of the Spanish Church during the early modern period. Although the conclusions appear at times too sweeping given the limited number of cases involved, the author has developed a weU-argued thesis which makes an important contribution to our understanding of the problem of soUcitation Ui the early modern Spanish Church. William J. Callahan University ofToronto Good Newes from Fraunce; French Anti-League Propaganda in Late Elizabethan England. By Lisa Ferraro Parmelee. (Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press; BoydeU & Brewer, Inc. 1996. Pp. ix, 204. $45.00.) The influence of French poUtical writings on Stuart England has already been treated by J. M. H. Salmon, the author's mentor, in his The French Religious Wars in English Political Thought and more briefly by J. P. SomerviUe in his Politics and Ideology in England, l603-1640.The author, whUe acknowledging the 342BOOK REVIEWS help received from these two authors, concentrates on the influence of French thought on England during the last dozen years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. There were at least two things France and England had in common during these two years.The first was a succession problem.Who would succeed to the throne? The second was a reUgious problem. Each had an estabUshed church along with a sizable religious minority.This is a thorough study not only of the influence of French poUtical thought but also "the process by which that influence was effected." This volume is weU organized.There is a good deal of useful material about printing and translation in England. And there is an extensive treatment of the calamity the French experienced and the EngUsh feared: civU war with reUgious overtones. Of course, it came to England a generation later in what one EngUsh historian has caUed "the last of the wars of religion." One of the chief pro-League and revolutionary items on the origins of political power had an EngUsh source. It was DeJusta Reipublicae in Reges Impíos et haereticos . . . Authoritate, published in Paris in 1590. It was signed G.G.R.A. There was another edition pubUshed in...