l and parliamentary as it was ever esteemed just
and natural. The public had long been familiarized to these sentiments:
during all the reign of Edward, the princess was regarded as his
lawful successor; and though the Protestants dreaded the effects of
her prejudices, the extreme hatred universally entertained against the
Dudleys,[*] who, men foresaw, would, under the name of Jane, be the real
sovereigns, was more than sufficient to counterbalance, even with that
party, the attachment to religion.

* Sleidan, lib. xxv.

This last attempt to violate the order of succession had displayed
Northumberland's ambition and injustice in a full light; and when the
people reflected on the long train of fraud, iniquity, and cruelty,
by which that project had been conducted; that the lives of the two
Seymours, as well as the title of the princesses, had been sacrificed to
it; they were moved by indignation to exert themselves in opposition
to such criminal enterprises. The general veneration also paid to the
memory of Henry VIII. prompted the nation to defend the rights of
his posterity; and the miseries of the ancient civil wars were not
so entirely forgotten, that men were willing, by a departure from the
lawful heir, to incur the danger of like bloodshed and confusion.

Northumberland, sensible of the opposition which he must expect, had
carefully concealed the destination made by the king; and in order to
bring the two princesses into his power, he had had the precaution to
engage the council, before Edward's death, to write to them in that
prince's name, desiring their attendance, on pretence that his infirm
state of health required the assistance of their counsel and the
consolation of their company.[*] Edward expired before their arrival;
but Northumberland, in order to make the princesses fall into the
snare, kept the king's death still secret; and the lady Mary had already
reached Hoddesden, within half a day's journey of the court. Happily,
the earl of Arundel sent her private intelligence, both of her brother's
death, and of the conspiracy formed against her;[**] she immediately
made haste to retire; and she arrived, by quick journeys, first at
Kenning Hall in Norfolk, then at Framlingham in Suffolk; where she
purposed to embark and escape to Flanders, in case she should find it
impossible to defend her right of succession. She wrote letters to
the nobility and most considerable gentry in every county in England;