nd seemed to have consigned for ever to an equitable oblivion all the
mortifications and heartburnings of which the child of Anne Boleyn had
been the innocent occasion to her in times past, and under circumstances
which could never more return.

In the splendid procession which attended her majesty from the Tower to
Whitehall previously to her coronation on October 1st 1553, the royal
chariot, sumptuously covered with cloth of tissue and drawn by six
horses with trappings of the same material, was immediately followed by
another, likewise drawn by six horses and covered with cloth of silver,
in which sat the princess Elizabeth and the lady Anne of Cleves, who
took place in this ceremony as the adopted sister of Henry VIII.

But notwithstanding these fair appearances, the rancorous feelings of
Mary's heart with respect to her sister were only repressed or
disguised, not eradicated; and it was not long before a new subject of
jealousy caused them to revive in all their pristine energy.

Amongst the state prisoners committed to the Tower by Henry VIII., whose
liberation his executors had resisted during the whole reign of Edward,
but whom it was Mary's first act of royalty to release and reinstate in
their offices or honors, was Edward Courtney, son of the unfortunate
marquis of Exeter. From the age of fourteen to that of six-and-twenty,
this victim of tyranny had been doomed to expiate in a captivity which
threatened to be perpetual, the involuntary offence of inheriting
through an attainted father the blood of the fourth Edward. To the
surprise and admiration of the court, he now issued forth a comely and
accomplished gentleman; deeply versed in the literature of the age;
skilled in music, and still more so in the art of painting, which had
formed the chief solace of his long seclusion; and graced with that
polished elegance of manners, the result, in most who possess it, of
early intercourse with the world and an assiduous imitation of the best
examples, but to a few of her favorites the free gift of nature herself.
To all his prepossessing qualities was superadded that deep romantic
kind of interest with which sufferings, long, unmerited, and
extraordinary, never fail to invest a youthful sufferer.

What wonder that Courtney speedily became the favorite of the
nation!--what wonder that even the severe bosom of Mary herself was
touched with tenderness! With the eager zeal of the sentiment just
awakened in her heart,