CHAP. illegitimacy, without giving also an exclusion to the other. XXXV. 1553. The king's sickness, Northumberland, finding that his arguments were likely to operate on the king, began to prepare the other parts of his scheme. Two sons of the Duke of Suffolk by a second venter having died this season of the sweating sickness, that title was extinct; and Northumberland engaged the king to bestow it on the Marquis of Dorset. By means of this favour, and of others which he conferred upon him, he persuaded the new Duke of Suffolk and the duchess to give their daughter, the Lady Jane, in marriage to his fourth son, the Lord Guilford Dudley. In order to fortify himself by farther alliances, he negotiated a marriage between the Lady Catherine Gray, second daughter of Suffolk, and Lord Herbert, eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke. He also married his own daughter to Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Earl of Huntingdon'. These marriages were solemnized with great pomp and festivity; and the people, who hated Northumberland, could not forbear expressing their indignation at seeing such public demonstrations of joy during the languishing state of the young prince's health. Edward had been seized in the foregoing year, first with the measles, then with the small-pox; but having perfectly recovered from both these distempers, the nation entertained hopes that they would only serve to confirm his health; and he had afterwards made a progress through some parts of the kingdom. It was suspected that he had there overheated himself in exercise: he was seized with a cough, which proved obstinate, and gave way neither to regimen nor medicines: several fatal symptoms of a consumption appeared; and though it was hoped, that, as the season advanced, his youth and temperance might get the better of the malady, men saw with great concern his bloom and vigour insensibly decay. The general attachment to the young prince, joined to the hatred borne the Dudleys, made it be remarked, that Edward had every moment declined in health, from the time that Lord Robert Dudley had been put about him in quality of gentleman of the bedchamber. The languishing state of Edward's health made North 1 Heylin, p. 199. Stowe, p. 609. umberland the more intent on the execution of his pro- CHAP. ject. He removed all except his own emissaries from XXXV. about the king: he himself attended him with the greatest 1553. assiduity he pretended the most anxious concern for his health and welfare; and by all these artifices he prevailed on the young prince to give his final consent to the settlement projected. Sir Edward Montague, chief justice of the common pleas, Sir John Baker, and Sir Thomas Bromley, two judges, with the attorney and solicitorgeneral, were summoned to the council; where, after the minutes of the intended deed were read to them, the king required them to draw them up in the form of letters patent. They hesitated to obey, and desired time to con-sider of it. The more they reflected, the greater danger they found in compliance. The settlement of the crown by Henry VIII. had been made in consequence of an act of Parliament; and by another act, passed in the beginning of this reign, it was declared treason in any of the heirs, their aiders or abettors, to attempt on the right of another, or change the order of succession. The judges pleaded these reasons before the council. They urged, that such a patent as was intended would be entirely invalid; that it would subject, not only the judges who drew it, but every counsellor who signed it, to the pains of treason; and that the only proper expedient, both for giving sanction to the new settlement, and freeing its partisans from danger, was to summon a Parliament, and to obtain the consent of that assembly. The king said, that he intended afterwards to follow that method, and would call a Parliament, in which he purposed to have his settlement ratified; but, in the mean time, he required the judges, on their allegiance, to draw the patent in the form required. The council told the judges, that their refusal would subject all of them to the pains of treason. Northumberland gave to Montague the appellation of traitor; and said, that he would, in his shirt, fight any man in so just a cause as that of Lady Jane's succession. The judges were reduced to great difficulties between the dangers from the law and those which arose from the violence of present power and authority". m Fuller, book 8. p. 2. CHAP. 1553. The arguments were canvassed in several different meetXXXV. ings between the council and the judges; and no solution could be found of the difficulties. At last, Montague proposed an expedient which satisfied both his brethren and the counsellors. He desired that a special commission should be passed by the king and council, requiring the judges to draw a patent for the new settlement of the crown, and that a pardon should immediately after be granted them for any offence which they might have incurred by their compliance. When the patent was drawn, and brought to the Bishop of Ely, chancellor, in order to have the great seal affixed to it, this prelate required that all the judges should previously sign it. Gosnald at first refused; and it was with much difficulty that he was prevailed on, by the violent menaces of Northumberland, to comply; but the constancy of Sir James Hales, who, though a zealous Protestant, preferred justice, on this occasion, to the prejudices of his party, could not be shaken by any expedient. The chancellor next required, for his greater security, that all the privy counsellors should set their hands to the patent: the intrigues of Northumberland, or the fears of his violence, were so prevalent, that the counsellors complied with this 21st June. demand. Cranmer alone hesitated during some time, but at last yielded to the earnest and pathetic entreaties of the king". Cecil, at that time secretary of state, pretended afterwards that he only signed as witness to the king's subscription. And thus, by the king's letters patent, the two princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, were set aside; and the crown was settled on the heirs of the Duchess of Suffolk, for the duchess herself was content to give place to her daughters. After this settlement was made, with so many inauspicious circumstances, Edward visibly declined every day; and small hopes were entertained of his recovery. To make matters worse, his physicians were dismissed, by Northumberland's advice, and by an order of council; and he was put into the hands of an ignorant woman, who undertook in a little time to restore him to his former state of health. After the use of her medicines, all the bad symptoms increased to the most violent de n Cranm. Mem. p. 295. gree he felt a difficulty of speech and breathing; his CHAP. pulse failed, his legs swelled, his colour became livid; XXXV. and many other symptoms appeared of his approaching 1553. end. He expired at Greenwich, in the sixteenth year of and death, 6th July. his age, and the seventh of his reign. All the English historians dwell with pleasure on the excellent qualities of this young prince; whom the flattering promises of hope, joined to many real virtues, had made an object of tender affection to the public. He possessed mildness of disposition, application to study and business, a capacity to learn and judge, and an attachment to equity and justice. He seems only to have contracted, from his education, and from the genius of the age in which he lived, too much of a narrow prepossession in matters of religion, which made him incline somewhat to bigotry and persecution: but as the bigotry of Protestants, less governed by priests, lies under more restraints than that of Catholics, the effects of this malignant quality were the less to be apprehended, if a longer life had been granted to young Edward. бес магу Twow, art, in 800 ho age. 1553. CHAPTER XXXVI. MARY. LADY JANE GRAY PROCLAIMED QUEEN.-DESERTED BY THE PEOPLE. THE QUEEN - CHAP. THE title of the Princess Mary, after the demise of her XXXVI. brother, was not exposed to any considerable difficulty; and the objections started by the Lady Jane's partisans were new and unheard of by the nation. Though all the Protestants, and even many of the Catholics, believed the marriage of Henry VIII. with Catherine of Arragon to be unlawful and invalid, yet, as it had been contracted by the parties without any criminal intention, had been avowed by their parents, recognized by the nation, and seemingly founded on those principles of law and religion which then prevailed, few imagined that their issue ought on that account to be regarded as illegitimate. A declaration to that purpose had indeed been extorted from Parliament by the usual violence and caprice of Henry; but as that monarch had afterwards been induced to restore his daughter to the right of succession, her title was now become as legal and parliamentary as it was ever esteemed just and natural. The public had long been familiarized to these sentiments: during all the reign of Edward, the princess was regarded as his lawful successor and though the Protestants dreaded the effects of her prejudices, the extreme hatred universally entertained against the Dudleys", who, men foresaw, would, under the name of Jane, be the real sovereigns, was more than sufficient to counterbalance, even with that party, the attachment to religion. This last attempt to violate the order of succession had displayed Northumberland's ambition and injustice in a full light; and when the people a Sleidan, lib. 25. |