N ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OF QUEEN MARY.

The premature death of that celebrated young monarch, Edward the Sixth,
occasioned the most extraordinary and wonderful occurrences, which had
ever existed from the times of our blessed Lord and Saviour's
incarnation in human shape. This melancholy event became speedily a
subject of general regret. The succession to the British throne was soon
made a matter of contention; and the scenes which ensued were a
demonstration of the serious affliction which the kingdom was involved
in. As his loss to the nation was more and more unfolded, the
remembrance of his government was more and more the basis of grateful
recollection. The very awful prospect, which was soon presented to the
friends of Edward's administration, under the direction of his
counsellors and servants, was a contemplation which the reflecting mind
was compelled to regard with most alarming apprehensions. The rapid
approaches which were made towards a total reversion of the proceedings
of the young king's reign, denoted the advances which were thereby
represented to an entire revolution in the management of public affairs
both in church and state.

Alarmed for the condition in which the kingdom was likely to be involved
by the king's death, an endeavour to prevent the consequences, which
were but too plainly foreseen, was productive of the most serious and
fatal effects. The king, in his long and lingering affliction, was
induced to make a will, by which he bequeathed the English crown to lady
Jane, the daughter of the duke of Suffolk, who had been married to the
lord Guilford, the son of the duke of Northumberland, and was the
grand-daughter of the second sister of king Henry, by Charles, duke of
Suffolk. By this will, the succession of Mary and Elizabeth, his two
sisters, was entirely superseded, from an apprehension of the returning
system of popery; and the king's council, with the chief of the
nobility, the lord-mayor of the city of London, and almost all the
judges and the principal lawyers of the realm, subscribed their names to
this regulation, as a sanction to the measure. Lord chief justice Hale,
though a true protestant and an upright judge, alone declined to unite
his name in favour of the lady Jane, because he had already signified
his opinion, that Mary was entitled to assume the reins of government.
Others objected to Mary's being placed on the throne, on account of
their fears that she might marry a