2110-6-9-4

KINGS LAND, SHIPLEY, HORSHAM.

7. xi. 34

My dear Buchan,

I was really delighted to get your letter! I wish you had reviewed my book, for I should very much like to have heard your view - not of the disputed facts such as the planning of Charles' death - but of the view of the man. I guess I was right. I think he was mainly a soldier, as soldiers then were, & a soldier who discovered himself. The book was only hack work, after all, but the theme is of interest. Historically a main [juvat?] - impossible to put numerically - is the survival of English Catholicism: strong up to 1642, noticeable in 1680: striken in 1688-1715. It died - the tiny remnant of it in 1745. Hence a

breach in continuity. It ceased to be even the ghost of the Old Religion & became a new & alien thing.

Your book I am glad to see goes on selling & selling & must, by its fullness & weight become permanent.

Yours always,

H Belloc.

[ST: Hilaire Belloc]

There's a misprint in the review, as there are many in all my work (43 in the Cromwell). It's "English" for "Englishmen" in the sentence on the Messianic idea. It turns the sentence into an ellipsis: a thing I dislike