every day, and small hopes were entertained of
his recovery. To make matters worse, his physicians were dismissed by
Northumberland's advice, and by an order of council; and he was put
into the hands of an ignorant woman, who undertook in a little time
to restore him to his former state of health. After the use of her
medicines, all the bad symptoms increased to the most violent degree:
he felt a difficulty of speech and breathing; his pulse failed, his legs
swelled, his color became livid, and many other symptoms appeared of his
approaching end. He expired at Greenwich, in the sixteenth year of his
age, and the seventh of his reign.

All the English historians dwell with pleasure on the excellent
qualities of this young prince; whom the flattering promises of hope,
joined to many real virtues, had made an object of tender affection to
the public. He possessed mildness of disposition, application to study
and business, a capacity to learn and judge, and an attachment to equity
and justice. He seems only to have contracted, from his education,
and from the genius of the age in which he lived, too much of a narrow
prepossession in matters of religion, which made him incline somewhat
to bigotry and persecution: but as the bigotry of Protestants, less
governed by priests, lies under more restraints than that of Catholics,
the effects of this malignant quality were the less to be apprehended if
a longer life had been granted to young Edward.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

[Illustration: 1-432-mary.jpg MARY]

MARY.

{1553.} The title of the princess Mary, after the demise of her brother,
was not exposed to any considerable difficulty; and the objections
started by the lady Jane's partisans were new and unheard of by the
nation. Though all the Protestants, and even many of the Catholics,
believed the marriage of Henry VIII. with Catharine of Arragon to be
unlawful and invalid; yet, as it had been contracted by the parties
without any criminal intention, had been avowed by their parents,
recognized by the nation, and seemingly founded on those principles of
law and religion which then prevailed, few imagined that their issue
ought on that account to be regarded as illegitimate. A declaration
to that purpose had indeed been extorted from parliament by the usual
violence and caprice of Henry; but as that monarch had afterwards been
induced to restore his daughter to the right of succession, her title
was now become as lega