hase which others were
enjoying in the Park. After her marriage too, which did not make her
exactly happy, she still lived thus with her thoughts withdrawn from
the world, when she was one day summoned to Sion-House where she found
a great and brilliant assembly. She still knew nothing of the King's
death. What were her feelings, when she was told that Edward VI was
dead; that to secure the kingdom from the Popish faith and the
government of his two sisters who were not legitimate, he had declared
her, Lady Jane, his heiress, and when the great dignitaries of the
realm bent their knees and reverenced her as their Queen! At times
they had already talked to her of her claim to the throne, but she had
never thought much of it. When it now thus became a reality, her whole
soul was overcome by it: she fell to the ground and burst into a flood
of tears. Whether she had a full right to the throne, she could not
judge: what she felt was her incapacity to rule. But whilst she
uttered this, a different feeling passed through her, as she has told
us herself: she prayed in the depths of her soul that, if the highest
office belonged to her legally, God might give her the grace to
administer it to his honour. The next day she betook herself by water
to the Tower, and received the homage offered her. The heralds
proclaimed her accession in the capital.

But here this proclamation was received in silence and even with
murmurs. The succession had been settled by Henry VIII on the basis of
an act of Parliament: nothing else was expected but that this would be
adhered to, and Mary succeed her brother: that Edward without any
legal authorisation of a similar kind had now put a distant relative
in his sister's place, seemed an open robbery of the lawful heir. It
made no impression, that at the proclamation men were reminded of the
Popery of the Princess Mary and her intention to restore the Papal
power. Religious discord had not yet become so strong in England as to
make men forget the fundamental principles of right on its account.
The man who brought the princess the first news of Edward's death
(which was still kept secret) remarks expressly in telling it, that he
did not love her religion but abhorred the attempt to set aside lawful
heirs. Mary prudently betook herself to Norfolk, where she had the
most determined friends, to a castle on the sea; so as to be able, if
her opponent should maintain the upper hand, to escape to the Emperor.