The Preface.

...end of the first book, in which his disguise is so thin that the matter would not have been much clearer if he had named him The author refers to King Henry VII. directly. But when he dared to write so freely about the father during the son's King Henry VIII. reign, and to present such an idea of government under the haughtiest prince and the one most impatient with uncomfortable restraints who ever reigned in England, who was nonetheless so far from being displeased with him for it that he not only made him a long-term personal friend but also employed him in all his affairs afterward and raised him to be Lord Chancellor—I thought I might venture to translate it into more modern English.

For just as the translators of Plutarch's Lives original: "Platarch's Hero's"; referring to Plutarch's Parallel Lives. or of Cicero's Offices original: "Tullies Offices"; referring to Marcus Tullius Cicero's De Officiis. are not responsible for the principles or the actions they recount, so I, who only tell in