It is sometimes said that such and such a scholar, when asked to write a review of a volume, was so busy writing the (near-defamatory) review that s/he was too busy to read the book. Ironically, this two-volume set, and its historical significance, are both such that it actually is possible to write a review almost without having to look at it, or at any rather for very long. For anyone interested in Anglo-Spanish relations in the early seventeenth century, or the later European Counter-Reformation, or Jacobean London, this is an invaluable collection of newsletters, one which follows on from Glyn Redworth's well-received monograph on the writer of these newsletters, Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza. The editing is exemplary – a light touch but with a full introduction to each letter. The news recorded by Luisa opens up a new set of perspectives on the early and mid-Jacobean period and on the nature of London Catholicism. It tells us, in a way that no ‘official’ source possibly can, what the dissenting and separatist Catholic minority thought about a number of key issues, and it gives us a unique insight into one fraction of contemporary Spanish opinion about the attempts of the early Stuart monarchy to maintain some sort of conformist via media in the national Church.

It would be easy to conclude from the letters of this Spaniard that she was neurotic, if not partially deranged. Certainly Redworth's earlier biographical account of her is quite lurid in places. But these sharply observed letters about her contacts in London's Catholic underground and her relationship with the Spanish embassy and fraught dealings with the often hostile London authorities suggest that Luisa was able to play a certain style of politics with the best of them. Rather than a class A lunatic she was well aware of the modes of political activity available to her, which she performed to maximum effect in the face of the often enraged Protestant officials who tried from time to time to silence her. It is impossible in a review of limited space, as this is, to do real justice to these volumes. But they are certain to be a major resource for historians of the early seventeenth century. Most of the letters in the first volume and all those in the second volume come from the period of her life after she had arrived in England. The first letter written from London is dated 14 December 1605. Her last letter is dated 20 November 1613 and she died in December. There are 179 items in total in the two volumes. It is worth reading closely the letters written by this self-appointed Spanish missionary during those years when several aspects of the post-Reformation settlement in England still appeared to be open to renegotiation.