At the very outset I should like to make it clear that my approach to the Marian Exile has been entirely from the political side. When I crossed the Channel in pursuit of new material for its interpretation, I went not as a student of theology, nor as a religious partisan, but as an historical detective bent upon discovering the origin of the cabal against the queen which certainly existed in Elizabeth's first parliament and was the element that obstructed the passage of the Supremacy Bill. All the obscurities, all the contradictions of that enigmatic struggle can be traced to its sinister influence. But what did the existence of this cabal mean? Why, in a protestant House of Commons, did a protestant faction oppose a protestant measure against the will of a supposedly protestant sovereign? We can hardly doubt that the House itself knew the answer to the riddle, but if so, both protagonists in the parliamentary duel were at equal pains to conceal the facts: the cabal, because it was temporarily defeated; the queen, because it would have been disastrous to her at the moment to reveal to the world that her chief enemies were those of her own household. After patiently searching for a clue to the mystery among English archives, I became convinced that if an answer still survived it would be found, not in England but on the Continent.