gn of this young prince. By
a change he had every thing to lose, and nothing to gain. Several
circumstances tend also to show that the fatal event, hastened by the
treatment of a female empiric to whom the royal patient had been very
improperly confided, came upon Northumberland at last somewhat by
surprise, and compelled him to act with a precipitation injurious to his
designs. Several preparatory steps were yet wanting; in particular the
important one of securing the persons of the two princesses: but this
omission it seemed still possible to supply; and he ordered the death of
the king to be carefully concealed, while he wrote letters in his name
requiring the immediate attendance of his sisters on his person. With
Mary the stratagem had nearly succeeded: she had reached Hoddesdon on
her journey to London, when secret intelligence of the truth, conveyed
to her by the earl of Arundel, caused her to change her course. It was
probably a similar intimation from some friendly hand, Cecil's perhaps,
which caused Elizabeth to disobey the summons, and remain tranquil at
one of her houses in Hertfordshire.

Here she was soon after waited upon by messengers from Northumberland,
who apprized her of the accession of the lady Jane, and proposed to her
to resign her own title in consideration of a sum of money, and certain
lands which should be assigned her. But Elizabeth wisely and
courageously replied, that her elder sister was first to be agreed with,
during whose lifetime she, for her part, could claim no right at all.
And determined to make common cause with Mary against their common
enemies, she equipped with all speed a body of a thousand horse, at the
head of which she went forth to meet her sister on her approach to
London.

The event quickly proved that she had taken the right part. Though the
council manifested their present subserviency to Northumberland by
proclaiming queen Jane in the metropolis, and by issuing in her name a
summons to Mary to lay aside her pretensions to the crown, this leader
was too well practised in the arts of courts, to be the dupe of their
hollow professions of attachment to a cause unsupported, as he soon
perceived, by the favor of the people.

The march of Northumberland at the head of a small body of troops to
resist the forces levied by Mary in Norfolk and Suffolk, was the signal
for the defection of a great majority of the council. They broke from
the kind of honorable custody in the T