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126

127

well as Mary who was one, gave the throne to lady
Jane Gray.
The lawyers declared immediately
that such a change would be treason. The state
secretary, sir William Petre, desired them to obey
the king's desire, of drawing a legal instrument
according to his wishes, and with speed." They
attended the council again, to repeat their assurance
that the meditated act was treason, and that all the
lords would be guilty of treason if they went on
with it.128 Northumberland was not then in the
council chamber: but being apprised of this pro-
nounced opinion, he threatened the legal dignitaries,
till they expected personal violence. But they were
not intimidated, and persevered in their sentiments.129
On the 15th they were again sent for, with another
judge. The king then himself was pleased to ask
them with some severity, if they had prepared the
instrument he had ordered. They justly declared
that it would be unavailing without a parliamentary
enactment. Edward replied, that he meant to call
one; and the chief justice proposed that they should
wait until it met. The king insisted on the change
being then completed, and left for parliament to
ratify; and interfered so personally and perempto-
rily, as to require them on their allegiance to obey
him. Some of the council then added to the judges,
that if they disobeyed this injunction, they would

126 Burnet, 3, p. 356. So fully was Edward's mind bent on this inexplicable plan, and able, notwithstanding his illness, to think and act upon it, that he has left, in his own hand-writing, a detailed sketch of it, which Burnet has printed, v. 6. p. 274. In this he made lady Frances, the mother of Jane Gray, the governess regent, if he left no male issue: an idea which in the MS. is dashed out, and was omitted in the subsequent deed. 129 Ib. 357.

in Ib. 356.

128 Ib.

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become traitors themselves. Shaken by this, they, CHAP. thinking that a royal commission commanding them to prepare the instrument, and a pardon under the great seal for executing the mandate, would constitute a legal exculpation, agreed to comply, with the exception of one, whom the earl of Shrewsbury, one of the most powerful noblemen of the kingdom, as well as Northumberland, menaced into a temporary acquiescence.13

Nineteen lords of the council and five judges then subscribed a written agreement, to effectuate this new settlement of the crown.131 The judges composed for the king the legal deed which he required; and on 21 June, the chancellor, with thirty-three lords of the council and judges, signed the fatal and unrighteous act, as well as the king."

132

Rich, the ex-chancellor
Lord Darcy, the lord chamberlain
Sir T. Cheyne

Sir J. Gates

Sir W. Petre

Sir J. Cheke

Sir W. Cecil.

The judges were, the chief justice and four others: a set of names which implies a deliberate combination of the chief aristocracy of the country.

It recites that they had many times heard the king express his earnest desire and express commandment on this limitation of the succession; that they had seen his own device of it, first wholly written by his hand, then copied out in his presence, and signed by him, and delivered by him to certain judges, to be written in full order. Therefore they promised on their oaths and honors to fulfil it, and with their lives to maintain it; and if any of them varied from this obligation, that he should be punished with most sharp punishments, as a breaker of the common concord and unity.' See it in Burnet, v. 6. p. 275, 6. 132 Burnet, v. 3. p. 358. That the instrument appointing Jane's succession was signed on 21st June, was stated in the proclamation issued on her accession, Heylin 160; and in the Italian letter, in Lett. Principe,

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to their repeated urgencies.133

BOOK Cranmer at first refused to add his name, or to yield He argued much with the king about it, in the presence of the marquis of Northampton, and of Darcy, the lord chamberlain.134 He repeated his objections again at the council table.135 He still objected, until he had personally conversed with the king alone. This was refused, when asked; but he saw Edward again on the subject, who solicited his concurrence in terms which implied that he requested it as a personal favor. 136 The prelate affixed, unhappily both for his own reputation and for the reformation he patronized, his approving signature.

It is impossible to ascribe this succession of voluntary acts one after another for nearly a fortnight, by so many individuals, all men of distinction and independence, to the single will or plotting of the duke of Northumberland. He was neither powerful from popularity, for he was generally disliked; nor overwhelming from property, for other lords fully

133 His own account, in his letter to queen Mary, is, I never liked it, nor any thing grieved me so much as your grace's brother did. And if by any means it had been mine to have letted the making of that will, I would have done it.' Lett. Strype Cran. p. 919.

134 What I said therein, as well to the council as to himself, divers of your majesty's council can report, but none so well as the marquis of Northampton and the lord Darcy, then lord chamberlain to the king's majesty, which two were present at the communication between the king's majesty with me.' ib.

135 To the council the archbishop urged the entailing of the crown by Henry on his two daughters, and used many grave and pithy reasons to them from the lady Mary's legitimacy when they argued against it.' Str. Cran. ib. 424.

126 So at length I was required by the king's majesty himself to set my hand to his will, saying, that he trusted that I alone would not be more repugnant to his will than the rest of the council were; which words surely grieved my heart very sore. And so I granted him to subscribe his will, and to follow the same.' Lett. Strype, p. 920.

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matched him separately in that; nor so irresistible CHAP. from any military force, as to have then extorted from his compeers what they united to produce, if they had elected to have opposed it.137 Hence the

real character of the transaction seems to be, that it was a confederacy of great noblemen;138 and their motives we may infer to have been to raise the aristocracy once more to its feudal eminence, against or above the throne; and to restore it to that commanding power which it had enjoyed during the middle ages, and which, after having given the crown to the house of Tudor, had been by that dynasty weakened and reduced into a mortifying but beneficial subordination. Mary or Elizabeth would have been sovereigns by right, and, from legal accession, paramount to all competition, and independent of any control, except that constitutional co-operation of parliament, and that public opinion, which, when it censures,

137 Cranmer's own account takes the imputation away from the duke of Northumberland in particular, for he wrote to Mary, And whereas it is contained in two Acts of Parliament, that I, with the duke of Northumberland, should devise and compass the deprivation of your majesty from your royal crown: surely, it is untrue. For the duke never opened his mouth to me to move me to any such matter. It was other of the council that moved me; and the king himself; the duke of Northumberland not being present. Neither before, neither after, had I ever any privy communication with the duke of that matter; saving that, openly, at the council table, the duke said unto me, that it became not me to say to the king as I did; when I went about to dissuade him from his said will.' Lett. Strype's Cr. 920.

138 Their own expressions, in their letter to Mary, imply that it was the act of the great nobility. They told her, that the king's letters patent for Jane's succession were signed by them, 'in presence of most part of the nobles, counsellors, judges, with other grave and sage personages, assenting and subscribing the same.' They added, that it was agreed upon by the nobles and greatest personages aforesaid.' See their letter in Heylin, p. 158. The same statement, in similar words, appears in Jane's proclamation of 10 July. See it in Noailles Amb. 2. p. 62,

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warns; and when favoring, as it usually is, gives to every government its most substantial foundation. But lady Jane Gray would have been a creature of the great nobles who had enthroned her, dependent wholly on them, from her destitution of all legal right; removable, as their pleasure changed or factions should shake her; governable by them, from her youth and sex; and from this situation forced to court and aggrandise, instead of neglecting and weakening the aristocracy which raised her. But altho this view of the subject elucidates, as to the noble supporters, the principle of a project which otherwise appears as absurd as it was iniquitous in them to uphold, it neither vindicates nor explains Edward's abandonment of all moral justice in the displacement of his sisters. As Cranmer personally opposed it, we cannot ascribe the king's conduct to any conscientious apprehensions about religion. On this point of the question, the greatest of all the English reformers, and his chief ecclesiastical counsellor, was alone the fittest judge; and when this prelate, never reluctant to please his sovereign, refused to sanction the disinheritance of his late master's daughters, it was his testimony that no religious duty either sanctioned or commanded it.139 The whole transaction therefore has left a blot on Edward's dying character, which however reluctant

139 The MS. cited by Strype states, that Cranmer, when desired to sign, answered, that he might not without perjury, for so much as he was before sworn to my lady Mary by king Henry's will.' To whom the council answered, That they had consciences as well as he; and were also as well sworn to the king's will as he was.' The archbishop answered: I am not judge over any man's conscience, but mine own only.' Strype, 425; and yet he signed.