This chapter is about Whately’s understanding of the Preliminary Question, and the three disputes he used to illustrate it. The first illustration concerns King Charles II, the second Copernicus’s theory of falling bodies, the third is on the Moscow fire. Whately’s claim is that in all three cases, when the Preliminary Question is asked, it is found that there is no truth in any of the three disputes. This then provides the setting for the main subject of his Historic Doubts: the life and character of Napoleon, about which, as Whately shows, there has been much dispute. Whately’s (ironic) conclusion is that, when the Preliminary Question is asked, it turns out that the answer is in accord with the three illustrations: that there is no truth in the disputes about Napoleon, and for the simple reason that Napoleon did not exist.