Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/354

340 the members of the Council and of the legal advisers of the Crown, who pledged to the number of four-and-twenty their oaths and honour to support this arrangement. The legal instrument, being prepared, was engrossed in parchment, and was authenticated by the great seal. The peers, the judges, the lords of the Council, the officers of the Crown, and others then signed it, to the number of 101.



There were many other measures necessary to ensure so dangerous an enterprise as Northumberland had now undertaken, which if he failed must send his head to the block—if he succeeded would make him the father of a line of kings. These measures he had carefully prepared. He had superseded the Constable of the Tower, Sir John Gates, by a creature of his own, Sir James Croft. He had dismantled some of the forts on the sea coasts and the banks of the Thames, to carry their stock of ammunition to the Tower, and these preparations being made, Croft surrendered the keeping of the Tower to the high admiral, Lord Clinton. His sons were placed at the head of some companies of horse, and feeling himself now strong at all points, the arch-traitor laid his plans to inveigle the Princess Mary into his hands. A letter was written to her from the Council, informing her that her brother was very ill, and praying her to come to him, as he earnestly desired the comfort of her presence, and wished her to see all well ordered about him. Mary, who was at Hunsdon, was touched by the apparent regard of the king, and sending back a message that she was much gratified that her dear brother thought she could be of any comfort to him, set out to go to him. This was on the last of June. She had reached Hoddesdon, and all seemed to favour the plot of Northumberland, when a mysterious messenger met her, and brought information which caused her to pause in much wonder.

It appears from Cole's MS. in the British Museum, that this messenger was her goldsmith; that one of the Throckmortons, who was in the service of the Duke of Northumberland, casually overheard a part of a conversation between that nobleman and Sir John Gates, one of his most resolute cavaliers. The duke was in bed, the subject of conversation was the Princess Mary, and Sir John Gates exclaimed, "What, sir! will you let the Lady Mary escape, and not secure her person?" The answer was too low to be caught, but the young man hastened to inform his family, who consulted on the best means of apprising Mary of her danger. It was thought best to consult Mary"s goldsmith, who was accordingly sent for, and, it is supposed, immediately dispatched to stay her progress. He met and arrested her advance at Hoddesdon. On the 6th of July the king expired in the evening, and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton hastened after the goldsmith to inform the princess. Mary was in a state of great perplexity when he arrived, from the previous news brought to her, and from a similar message from the Earl of Arundel. The tidings of Sir Nicholas were speedily confirmed by his father, and by the father of the young man who had given the first alarm. By the advice of the elder Throckmorton, Mary quitted the road to London in all haste, and took her way through Bury St. Edmunds for her seat of Kenninghall, in the county of Norfolk.

The death of Edward had been long expected by the whole nation, and so many prognostics had been published of it, that the Council had dealt severe corporal chastisement, as well as incarceration, to a number of such death-prophets. Hayward, Heylin, and others represent the Royal invalid as being, during the latter part of his life, taken out of the hands of his physicians and entrusted to the care of a female quack, whose nostrums hastened his end, and led many to a suspicion that even poison had been resorted to. When his physicians were at last recalled, they declared him past recovery.

Edward was only fifteen years, eight months, and twenty-two days old at his death, and had reigned six years and a half. Much as has been said of the genius and virtues of this young prince, it is still difficult to decide the exact amount of his personal merit, and still more to prognosticate what might have been the character of his reign had he attained to full manhood or to age. That he had a fair share of ability is not to be doubted, and this had been cultivated to the greatest advantage for his years. But we are not warranted in endorsing all the marvellous flatteries of the party in whose hands he was, and who represented him as a prodigy of talent, learning, and virtue. His talent, and indeed his wisdom, would be pre-eminent, did we give him credit for all the grave and well-weighed sentences which were put into his mouth. The boy of fourteen used to sit like an oracle amid his council of learned prelates and practical statesmen, and deliver his opinions and decisions with a grave propriety, which was rather that of a hoary king, than of a mere youth. But we learn from Strype that all this was prepared beforehand. He was drilled by Northumberland in the part which he had to act on every occasion. The whole business was laid down plainly before him, and he was supplied with short notes of the affair in hand, which he committed to memory. The whole reduced itself into the mere lesson of the schoolboy; but to the uninitiated spectator it appeared astonishing and precocious. His learning, which has been asserted on the evidence of his letters, which have been preserved by Fuller, Strype, and others, bears marks of the touches of his preceptors, and his virtues are still more difficult of estimation. That he assisted in a great work of