tion in the Church is undoubted, but that work was the work of the party in whose hands he was. If we look for any depth of family affection, we experience considerable disappointment. He suffered both his uncles—who, so far as he was personally concerned, never showed him anything but kindness—to perish in their blood, when a slight exercise of the virtues and wisdom attributed to him might at least have saved their lives. He suffered his sisters to be thrust from the throne, apparently without a pang; and coolly and formally stamped upon them with his own hand the base brand of bastardy, which it required no precocious genius to discern was false, and put forward only for the most sordid interests.
Still, whatever the merits or demerits of Edward VI., we must ever gratefully regard him as an instrument in the hands of Providence for the material and manifest furtherance of those institutions which have tended to build up England into what she is, and to mark her out, by her free and liberal spirit, and by her grand prosperity, from all the nations of the earth. So far as regarded the government of the kingdom at the time, nothing was less successful. The party, whichever it was, which had the king in their hands, were too much engrossed by their eager pursuit of the Church lands and of titles, to maintain the domestic prosperity and the foreign fame of England. Never did a country sink so rapidly in prestige, not even in tho miserably imbecile reigns of Richard II. and Edward II. The English forces were driven out of Scotland, after some bloody and wanton successes, and out of France without any success at all. Boulogne, the solitary conquest of Henry VIII., was surrendered on ignominious terms, and amid the most imperious airs of insult from the French ministers. Tho Queen of Scots, whose hand might have cemented the two countries into an eternal union, was driven into the arms of the French; and foreign nations ceased to respect the once great name of Briton.
At home the land was covered by homeless vagabonds, uncultured fields, insurrection, or sullen discontent. Tho enclosure of commons, and the rack-rents of land, drove the farmer from his grange, and the cotter from his cot. The beggar and the thief infested the highways; and, if we are to believe the preachers of the time, the corruption of morals kept pace with the rapacity of the statesmen and the degradation of the clergy.
Chapter XII.
The Reign of Queen Mary.
The ascension of Mary to the throne of England was a remarkable event. She was the first English queen in her own right since the Norman conquest; nor even in the Saxon times had a woman reigned over these islands. The ancient Britons admitted the right of females to rule as sovereigns, and there were amongst them queens-regnant in their own right; but since then, though the common law recognised the claim, the fierce martial spirit of Europe had generally passed over women in the fullest hereditary descent, and placed the sceptre in a male hand. The Empress Matilda could not obtain the throne due to her by her birth, and the same custom had made itself felt in the cases of Eleanor of Brittany and Elizabeth of York. But the ferocious wars of England, and the bloody spirit induced by them, had destroyed almost all Royal male descent in England at this time. There were Mary and her sister Elizabeth, Mary the Queen of Scots, the great-niece of Henry VIII., and Lady Jane Grey and her sisters, whose claims we have stated. It was, therefore, a most interesting epoch, which was to place a woman on the throne, and set the example of female reigns, destined to be so remarkable. But if Mary's position as a woman was novel, it was peculiarly critical, as it regarded the new spirit and new institutions which had developed themselves in the country. She was firmly attached to the old spirit and the old institutions; and both at home and abroad men were anxiously watching what would be the result of her becoming queen.
Especially was the question of deep interest to the Pope, and the sovereigns of France, Spain, and the Netherlands. If Mary brought back the old religion, how greatly would the union betwixt her and her relatives of Spain and the Netherlands be augmented. It was an event which opened up wonderful scenes to the imagination of Charles, and in his old age gave new impetus to his thirst for universal dominion. The King of France had secured the Queen of Scotland for his son, but what was that advantage compared with the opportunity of his own son securing the heiress of England? He had seen, with fearful pangs of political jealousy, the prospect of the union of France and Scotland under one Crown; but now, what was to prevent the Crowns of Spain, of the Netherlands, and of England being blended into one glorious imperial diadem? All that Charles hoped of course Henry feared, and therefore each monarch had long been keeping a close and absorbing watch on the sinking powers of the late king. Renard, tho ambassador of the emperor, and Noailles, the ambassador of the King of France, had kept close to the throne of the dying youth, watching with breathless interest every symptom of the advancing disease, and preparing by every diplomatic art for the coming crisis.
As Mary pursued her flight on the 7th of July, after learning the death of her brother, she arrived in the ensuing evening at the gates of Sawston Hall, near Cambridge, the seat of a Mr. Huddlestone, a zealous Romanist, a kinsman of whose was a gentleman of Mary's retinue. There she passed the night, but was compelled to resume her journey early in the morning, the Protestant party in Cambridge having heard of her arrival, and being on the march to attack her. She and her followers were obliged to make the best of their way thence in different disguises, and turning on the Gogmagog Hills to take a look at the hall, she saw it in flames: her night's sojourn had cost her entertainer the home of his ancestors. On seeing this, she exclaimed, as quite
