the king’s majesty’s espouse, by which marriage the realms of England and Scotland should have been united in perpetual peace.  Money had been wasted on the royal household.  The alliance with Charles V. had been trifled away.  The princely name and princely splendour which Somerset affected, the vast fortune which he amassed amidst the ruin of the national finances, and the palace—­now known as Somerset House, London—­which was rising before the eyes of the world amidst the national defeats and misfortunes, combined to embitter the irritation with which the council regarded him.

His great rival, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, by constant insinuations both in and out of parliament, excited the national feeling against him to such a degree that at length the young king was constrained to sign his deposition.  He seems to have entertained no strong attachment to his uncle.  On December I, 1551, he was tried before the lords for high treason and condemned.  He was beheaded on Tower Hill on January 22, 1582.  The English public, often wildly wrong on general questions, are good judges, for the most part, of personal character; and so passionately was Somerset loved, that those who were nearest the scaffold started forward to dip their handkerchiefs in his blood.  Before this event, Dudley, by whose cruel treachery the tragedy had been brought about, had been created Duke of Northumberland.  The great aim of this nobleman was to secure the succession to the throne for his own family.  With this purpose in view he married his son, Lord Guildford Dudley, to Lady Jane Grey, daughter of the Duchess of Suffolk, to whom, by the will of Henry VIII., the crown would pass, in default of issue by Edward, Mary, or Elizabeth.

In April, 1553, Edward, who had been removed to Greenwich in consequence of illness, grew rapidly worse.  By the end of the month he was spitting blood, and the country was felt to be on the eve of a new reign.  The accession of Mary, who was personally popular, was looked forward to by the people as a matter of course.  Northumberland now worked on the mind of the feeble and dying king, and succeeded in persuading him to declare both his sisters incapable of succeeding to the crown, as being illegitimate.  The king died on July 6.  The last male child of the Tudor race had ceased to suffer.

When Lady Jane was saluted by Northumberland and four other lords, all kneeling at her feet, as queen, she shook, covered her face with her hands, and fell fainting to the ground.  The next Monday, July 10, the royal barges came down the Thames from Richmond, and at three in the afternoon Lady Jane landed at the broad staircase of the Tower, as queen, in undesired splendour.  But that same evening messages came saying that Mary had declared herself queen.  She had sent addresses to the peers, commanding them on their allegiance to come to her.