serve to
confirm his health; and he had afterwards made a progress through some
parts of the kingdom. It was suspected that he had there overheated
himself in exercise; he was seized with a cough, which proved obstinate,
and gave way neither to regimen nor medicines: several fatal symptoms
of consumption appeared; and though it was hoped that, as the season
advanced, his youth and temperance might get the better of the malady,
men saw with great concern his bloom and vigor insensibly decay. The
general attachment to the young prince, joined to the hatred borne the
Dudleys, made it be remarked, that Edward had every moment declined in
health, from the time that Lord Robert Dudley had been put about him in
quality of gentleman of the bedchamber.

The languishing state of Edward's health made Northumberland the more
intent on the execution of his project. He removed all, except his
own emissaries, from about the king; he himself attended him with the
greatest assiduity: he pretended the most anxious concern for his health
and welfare; and by all these artifices he prevailed on the young
prince to give his final consent to the settlement projected. Sir Edward
Montague, chief justice of the common pleas, Sir John Baker and Sir
Thomas Bromley, two judges, with the attorney and solicitor-general,
were summoned to the council, where, after the minutes of the intended
deed were read to them, the king required them to draw them up in the
form of letters patent. They hesitated to obey, and desired time to
consider of it. The more they reflected the greater danger they found in
compliance. The settlement of the crown by Henry VIII. had been made in
consequence of an act of parliament; and by another act, passed in the
beginning of this reign, it was declared treason in any of the heirs,
their aiders or abettors, to attempt on the right of another, or change
the order of succession. The judges pleaded these reasons before
the council. They urged, that such a patent as was intended would be
entirely invalid; that it would subject, not only the judges who drew
it, but every counsellor who signed it, to the pains of treason; and
that the only proper expedient, both for giving sanction to the new
settlement, and freeing its partisans from danger, was to summon a
parliament, and to obtain the consent of that assembly. The king said,
that he intended afterwards to follow that method, and would call a
parliament in which he purposed to ha