Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/179

1553.] France; but the King of France, men said, should never set foot in England. The jealousy with which Edward was guarded only stimulated suspicion. Some said that he was already dead, others that the Duke had poisoned him; to which the Protestants had their answering accusation that his sister Mary had 'overlooked' him; that his illness became mortal from the day when she was last in his presence.

In other times the popular discontent would have expressed itself in a violent form; but London was overawed by the 'gendarmerie,' who could have extinguished in blood any merely popular tumult. The council had not been formally consulted, and no opinions on either side had been officially expressed: yet none of those who were suspected of being unfavourable to the Duke felt their lives secure; Cecil, walking with a friend in Greenwich Park, whispered his own misgivings; for himself, he said, he would be no party to treason, and he had resigned his office of secretary; but he went about ever after armed, in dread, he avowed, of assassination; he secreted his money and papers and prepared to fly.

Meantime Northumberland had made important progress; he had persuaded Edward. Edward had consented by a strained imitation of the precedent of Henry VIII. to name his successor by letters patent, or by will; and the council and the Lords could thus be forced into an appearance of acquiescence which they