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INTRODUCTION
and are not extant in by any means the same bulk, they are more than a match for them in accuracy when dealing with events on the Continent (though it appears that on a few occasions Verstegan used the same sources as the Antwerp correspondent of the Fuggers for such information), and are vastly superior on events in England. 11. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF VERSTEGAN.
It is intended to publish shortly a full-scale study of Verstegan's life and writings, so that it is not necessary to provide more than a brief biography here. For further details and supporting references the reader is referred to my thesis. Acknowledgements for biographical material which has not been derived from my own research will be made in my forthcoming book. Although not a leading figure in history or literature, Verst egan did attain a position of considerable importance in both these spheres, and certainly a far greater one than has been accredited to him. His career was remarkable. Born in London of Dutch descent, he lived for ninety years (in itself an achievement), and, to the very last he was engaged in some important activity or other. He was a fervent Catholic, and endured two imprisonments, the risk of execution on at least one occasion, and close on sixty years of exile for his faith, fleeing to Paris, then to Rome, to Paris again, and finally to Antwerp, where he settled about 1587 and died in 1640. As the previous sections of this introduction have endeavoured to show, he was the trusted agent and intelligencer for many prominent Catholic exiles on the Continent, and was one of their main links of communication at Antwerp between England, the Low Countries, Spain, Italy and France. He also seems to have facilitated the sending of missionary priests to England via Antwerp and Middelburg. Before he fled to the Continent he helped to operate a secret printing press in London, and later, although he did not have his own press, as has sometimes been suggested, he edited numerous Catholic books. Verst egan was a great linguist and scholar. He seems to have known about nine languages, and this proved of considerable help in his philological work. He was a fine engraver, and probably also a carver and painter. Most important of all, he was a gifted and prolific writer. He wrote over thirty books and pamphlets, in English, Latin, French and Dutch, and these comprise poetry, devotional, polemic and journalistic writings, historical and philological works, an itinerary, translations and imitations, character writings, epigrams, and various satirical works. These writings contain many interesting features. For example, the Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in A ntiquities is one of the first books seriously to derive the ancestry of the English race from the Saxons, and contains the first systematic list of Old English words; it also includes the first English version of the Pied Piper story. Verstegan's