THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES, TO THE DEATH OF GEORGE THE SECOND; BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH, M.B. A NEW EDITION, REVISED, WITH A CONTINUATION ΤΟ THE DEATH OF GEORGE THE FOURTH UNIVERSITY OF THREE: VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: PRINTED FOR C. J. G. AND F. RIVINGTON; T. CADELL; LONGMAN, REES, ORME, AND HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. MARY. A. D. 1553-1558. THE death of Edward only served to prepare fresh troubles for a people who had hitherto greatly suffered from the depravity of their kings, or the turbulence of their nobility. The succession to the throne had hitherto been obtained partly by lineal descent, and partly by the aptitude for government in the person chosen. Neither quite hereditary, nor quite elective, it had made ancestry the pretext of right, while the consent of the people was necessary to support all hereditary pretensions. In fact, when wisely conducted, this is the best species of succession that can be conceived, as it prevents that aristocracy which is ever the result of a government entirely elective, and that tyranny which is too often established, where there is never an infringement of hereditary claims. Whenever a monarch of England happened to be arbitrary, and to enlarge the prerogative, he generally considered the kingdom as his property, and not himself as a servant of the people. In such a case, it was natural for him at his decease to bequeath his dominions as he thought proper, making his own will the standard of his subjects' happiness. Henry the Eighth, in conformity to this practice, made his will, in which he settled the succession merely according to his caprice. In that, Edward his son was the first nominated to succeed him; then Mary, his eldest daughter by Catharine of Spain; but with a special mark of condescension, by which he would intimate her illegitimacy. The next that followed was Elizabeth, his daughter by Anne Boleyn, with the same marks, intimating After his own children, his sister's chil her illegitimacy also |