infant seemed to strangle in his cradle the serpents of
civil discord. Every lip hastened to proffer him its homage; every heart
united, or seemed at least to unite, in the general burst of
thankfulness and congratulation.

[Note 4: See Chron. of Ireland in Holinshed, _pass_. Collins's
Peerage, by sir E. Brydges, article _Viscount Leinster_.]

The zealous papists formed the party most to be suspected of insincerity
in their professions of satisfaction; but the princess Mary set them an
excellent example of graceful submission to what was inevitable, by
soliciting the office of godmother. Her sister was happily too young to
be infected with court-jealousies, or to behold in a brother an
unwelcome intruder, who came to snatch from her the inheritance of a
crown: between Elizabeth and Edward an attachment truly fraternal sprung
up with the first dawnings of reason; and notwithstanding the fatal blow
given to her interests by the act of settlement extorted from his dying
hand, this princess never ceased to cherish his memory, and to mention
him in terms of affectionate regret.

The conjugal felicities of Henry were destined to be of short duration,
and before he could receive the felicitations of his subjects on the
birth of his son, the mother was snatched away by death. The queen died
deeply regretted, not only by her husband, but by the whole court, whom
she had attached by the uncommon sweetness of her disposition. To the
princess Mary her behaviour had been the reverse of that by which her
predecessor had disgraced herself; and the little Elizabeth had received
from her marks of a maternal tenderness. Jane Seymour was accounted a
favourer of the protestant cause; but as she was apparently free from
the ambition of interfering in state affairs, her death had no further
political influence than what resulted from the king's marriage thus
becoming once more an object of speculation and court intrigue. It did
not even give a check to the advancement of her two brothers, destined
to act and to suffer so conspicuously in the fierce contentions of the
ensuing minority; for the king seemed to regard it as a point of policy
to elevate those maternal relations of his son, on whose care he relied
to watch over the safety of his person in case of his own demise, to a
dignity and importance which the proudest nobles of the land might view
with respect or fear. Sir Edward Seymour, who had been created lord
Beauchamp the year befor