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• Prefatory Note
• Introduction Lord Acton As Professor
• Inaugural Lecture On the Study of History*
• I: Beginning of the Modern State
• II: The New World
• III: The Renaissance
• IV: Luther
• V: The Counter–reformation
• VI: Calvin and Henry VIII.
• VII: Philip II., Mary Stuart, and Elizabeth
• VIII: The Huguenots and the League
• IX: Henry the Fourth and Richelieu
• X: The Thirty Years’ War
• XI: The Puritan Revolution
• XII: The Rise of the Whigs
• XIII: The English Revolution
• XIV: Lewis the Fourteenth
• XV: The War of the Spanish Succession
• XVI: The Hanoverian Settlement
• XVII: Peter the Great and the Rise of Prussia
• XVIII: Frederic the Great
• XIX: The American Revolution
• Appendix I

PREFATORY NOTE

The Lectures on Modern History were delivered by Lord Acton in his ordinary course as Professor in the academical years 1899–1900 and 1900–01. The Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History, here reprinted, was delivered on June 11, 1895. The document printed in Appendix I. is of great interest, as exhibiting the ideals of Lord Acton as a student and the aims of the undertaking which he planned and still bears his name.

It is hoped shortly to issue in another volume the Lectures on the French Revolution, and thus to complete the record of his work as Professor. The Introductory Essay deals exclusively with his Cambridge work. A more general account of his career will precede the volumes of essays and reviews. The editors wish to thank Professor Henry Jackson for his kind advice with regard to the Introduction.

J. N. F.

R. V. L.