Autograph Letter Signed ('A. Cardinal Gasquet') to the publishers Messrs George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., together with typed copy of their reply.

[Vatican Librarian; Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archive; subject of Shane Leslie's biography;Three pages, octavo. Good, on lightly aged and spotted paper, with crease to second leaf of bifolium. Regarding Rev. J. R. McKee's translation of Arnold Oskar Meyer's 'England and the Catholic Church under Queen Elizabeth'. He has received McKee's letter. 'When I promised this to the Professor more than two years ago I did not contemplate having to leave England altogether & still less had I any dream of the war, which has interrupted all relations with German friends'. He has written to McKee and to explain that he cannot write the introduction, 'especially in view of the way the German Professors had treated the war question'. McKee does not think the book will be published till after the war. If Routledge do publish the book, Gasquet 'will ask you to do so without any "foreword" from me at all'. He is writing to them directly 'as McKee tells me that he is going as chaplain to the troops & his whereabouts is quite uncertain'. Replying (one page, quarto) on 1 July 1915, the firm state that they understand Gasquet's objection. 'Father McKee has, we believe, now started for the Front, so that we cannot at the moment communicate your decision to him.'