Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/402

388 Her great attainments and amiable qualities endeared her so much to the young king, Edward VI. that he was the more easily seduced by the artifices of the duke of Northumberland to seclude his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the succession, and convey it by will to the Lady Jane. The duke, in order to get the crown into the possession of his own family, contrived a match between the Lord Guildford Dudley, his fourth son, and the Lady Jane, which was solemnized at Durham-place, in May, 1553. Soon after her marriage, the king’s health declined apace, and he died the 6th of July following, 1553, not without suspicion of poison.

These previous steps being taken, and the Tower and city of London secured, on Monday, July 10, the two dukes repaired to Durham-house, where the lady Jane resided with her husband. There the duke of Suffolk, with much solemnity, explained to his daughter the disposition the late king had made of his crown; the clear sense the privy-council had of her right; the consent of the magistrates and citizens, and with Northumberland, paid her homage as queen of England. Greatly astonished at their discourse, but not at all persuaded by their reasons, or elevated by such unexpected honours, she returned them an answer to this effect: "That the laws of the kingdom, and the natural right standing for the king's sisters, she would beware of burdening her weak conscience with a joke that did belong to them; that she understood the infamy of those who had permitted the violation of right to gain a sceptre; that it were to mock God, and deride justice, to scruple at the stealing of a shilling, and not at the usurpation of a crown. Besides," said she, "I am not so young, nor so little read in the smiles of fortune, to suffer myself to be taken by them. If she enrich any, it is