2 JUNE 1894, Page 28

The English Historical Review: April. (Longmans.) — Mr. J. H. Round in

a long article— it extends to more than fifty pages— replies to two opponents, Mr. Archer and Miss Norgate, on the question whether the army of Harold at the battle of Hastings was or was not defended by a palisade. He takes the negative side, arguing that there was a ditch indeed, but beyond that nothing more than a wall, as it is metaphorically called, of locked shields. Much of the controversy turns on the authority of the Bayeux Tapestry, which Mr. Round upholds and Mr. Archer de- preciates. We must own that Mr. Round seems to make out his ease. But why all this heat? The Arian controversy itself was not more fiercely fought. Canon Perry gives an interesting sketch of Bishop Beckington, a diplomatist bishop of the days of Henry VI. (his " rebus " may be seen in the front quadrangle of Lincoln College). Miss E. A. McArthur gives some curious details of municipal life in York during the sixteenth century. A turbu- lent place it seems to have been. Among the shorter papers is one on the alleged poisoning of Pope Alexander VI. Dr. Garnett thinks that the common story is not true, that Alexander died of Roman fever, though indeed he was just the man who might have been poisoned, as no man had more enemies. "A Welsh Parish in the Interregnum" is curiously appropriate to the pre- sent occasion of proposed Welsh Disestablishment.