XXXV. 1553. umberland the more intent on the execution of his pro- CHAP. ject. He removed all except his own emissaries from about the king: he himself attended him with the greatest 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 consider 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. XXXV. 1553. The arguments were canvassed in several different meetings 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. XXXV. gree he felt a difficulty of speech and breathing; his CHAP. pulse failed, his legs swelled, his colour became livid;, and many other symptoms appeared of his approaching 1553. end. He expired at Greenwich, in the sixteenth year of and death, 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 prepos session 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. 6th July. XXXVI. CHAPTER XXXVI. MARY. LADY JANE GRAY PROCLAIMED QUEEN. -DESERTED BY THE PEOPLE. THE СНАР. THE title of the Princess Mary, after the demise of her brother, was not exposed to any considerable difficulty; 1553. 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. XXXVI. reflected on the long train of fraud, iniquity, and cruelty, CHAP. by which that project had been conducted; that the lives of the two Seymours, as well as the title of the princesses, 1553. had been sacrificed to it; they were moved by indignation to exert themselves in opposition to such criminal enterprises. The general veneration also paid to the memory of Henry VIII. prompted the nation to defend the rights of his posterity; and the miseries of the ancient civil wars were not so entirely forgotten, that men were willing, by a departure from the lawful heir, to incur the danger of like bloodshed and confusion. Northumberland, sensible of the opposition which he must expect, had carefully concealed the destination made by the king; and in order to bring the two princesses into his power, he had had the precaution to engage the council, before Edward's death, to write to them, in that prince's name, desiring their attendance, on pretence that his infirm state of health required the assistance of their counsel, and the consolation of their company. Edward expired before their arrival; but Northumberland, in order to make the princesses fall into the snare, kept the king's death still secret; and the Lady Mary had already reached Hoddesden, within half a day's journey of the court. Happily, the Earl of Arundel sent her private intelligence both of her brother's death and of the conspiracy formed against her: she immediately made haste to retire; and she arrived, by quick journeys, first at Kenninghall in Norfolk, then at Framlingham in Suffolk; where she purposed to embark and escape to `Flanders, in case she should find it impossible to defend her right of succession. She wrote letters to the nobility and most considerable gentry in every county in England, commanding them to assist her in the defence of her crown and person. And she despatched a message to the council, by which she notified to them that her brother's death was no longer a secret to her, promised them pardon for past offences, and required them immediately to give orders for proclaiming her in London. Northumberland found that farther dissimulation was fruitless he went to Sion-house, accompanied by the b Heylin, p. 154. d Fox, vol. iii. p. 14. e Burnet, vol. ii. p. 233. |