northern neighbours, with whom they were involved in
almost perpetual hostilities. It might easily therefore have happened,
in case of the king's death without male heirs, that in spite of the
power recently bestowed on him by parliament of disposing of the crown
by will, which it is very uncertain how he would have employed, a
connexion with the potent house of Howard might have given the title of
lady Margaret a preference over that of any other competitor. Henry was
struck with this danger, however distant and contingent: he caused his
niece, as well as her spouse, to be imprisoned; and though he restored
her to liberty in a few months, and the death of Howard, not long
afterwards, set her free from this ill-starred engagement, she ventured
not to form another, till the king himself, at the end of several years,
gave her in marriage to the earl of Lenox; by whom she became the mother
of lord Darnley, and through him the progenitrix of a line of princes
destined to unite another crown to the ancient inheritance of the
Plantagenets and the Tudors.

The princess Mary, after the removal of Anne Boleyn, who had exercised
towards her the utmost insolence and harshness, ventured upon some
overtures towards a reconciliation with her father; but he would accept
them on no other conditions than her adopting his religious creed,
acknowledging his supremacy, denying the authority of the pope, and
confessing the unlawfulness of her mother's marriage. It was long before
motives of expediency, and the persuasion of friends, could wring from
Mary a reluctant assent to these cruel articles: her compliance was
rewarded by the return of her father's affection, but not immediately by
her reinstatement in the order of succession. She saw the child of Anne
Boleyn still a distinguished object of the king's paternal tenderness;
the new queen was likely to give another heir to the crown; and whatever
hopes she, with the catholic party in general, had founded on the
disgrace of his late spouse, became frustrated by succeeding events.

The death of Catherine of Arragon seemed to have removed the principal
obstacles to an agreement between the king and the pope; and the holy
father now deigned to make some advances towards a son whom he hoped to
find disposed to penitence: but they were absolutely rejected by Henry,
who had ceased to dread his spiritual thunders. The parliament and the
convocation showed themselves prepared to adopt, without he