It may be advisable to notice briefly the succession of the crown from Henry VII. in the House of Tudor. It has been before stated that Henry VIII., who succeeded his father in 1509, married his brother's widow

19

Katherine, whom he divorced, after having been

united to her for eighteen years, on the plea that

"the marriage with his brother's wife

Crept too near his conscience;"

whereas in truth

"his conscience

(Had) crept too near another lady."

Queen Katherine is well known as one of the finest characters drawn by the hand of Shakspeare, who makes even her enemies bear testimony to her excellence. She bore to her husband two sons who died young, and one daughter,

"The model of our chaste loves,"

Mary, afterwards Queen of England. The second queen of Henry was the Lady Anne,

"Sir Thomas Bullen's daughter,

The viscount Rochford, one of her highness' women;"

19 This excellent and injured princess was fourth daughter of the celebrated patrons of Columbus, Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, and was a direct descendant from Edward III. of England, through John of Gaunt, whose daughter, by his second wife Constance of Castile, Catherine, married her cousin Henry III. King of Castile and Leon, and their son, John II., was father of Queen Isabella.

SPEED.

whose beauty had attracted the amorous king's notice. She was by him mother of Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of England. After three years' union with Anne Boleyn, the king formed an attachment to the Lady Jane Seymour, to gratify which, Anne was executed upon false pretences, May 19th, 1536, and the day after her death, Jane became the third and best-loved wife of Henry, who by her was father of his successor, Edward VI., of whom the queen died in child-bed, Henry's fourth wife was the Princess Anne of Cleves, who was divorced to make way for the Lady Catherine Howard, who, being executed, was followed by the Lady Catherine Parr, daughter of Sir Thomas Parr, widow of the Lord Latimer; she survived her cruel husband, narrowly escaping the fate of her predecessors. Henry VIII. died in 1547, and was succeeded by his son Edward, sixth of that name,21 then eight years old, whose pious and excellent character has caused him to be likened to Josiah, King of Judah, who began his reign at the same early age, and like whom, King Edward "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord." 22 Edward VI. died

20

20 It is a remarkable fact that all the six wives of Henry VIII. were, like himself, descended from Edward I.

21 Edward VI. crowned the lion supporter of his arms with an imperial crown, as it is now used.

"Edward, the spotless Tudor." SOUTHEY. King, child, and seraph, blended in the mien

in 1553, having been prevailed upon, in his last enfeebled hours of disease, by the ambitious Duke of Northumberland, to exclude his sisters from the succession in favour of the Lady Jane Grey. The Princess Mary, however, who escaped the snare laid for her by Northumberland, was proclaimed queen as well as the Lady Jane, who shortly fell into Mary's power, and was beheaded immediately after her husband. Queen Mary married Philip, son of Charles V. the Emperor, a match peculiarly displeasing to the nation; no issue resulted from this marriage, and upon Mary's death in 1558, her sister ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth, amidst the acclamations of the nation. It does not fall within the scope of this work to enter into an account of this reign, so fertile in events, and garnished with such a bright galaxy of some of England's choicest worthies. It is more apposite to notice that the near relationship of the beautiful Mary, Queen of Scots, to the throne of England, to which her partisans claimed for her the right in preference to that of Elizabeth, was the cause, in addition to the rivalry on personal grounds, of the bitter hostility evinced towards that unfortunate princess, when, fleeing from her own rebellious subjects, she threw herself upon the protection and supposed generosity of

Of pious Edward, kneeling as he knelt
In meek and simple infancy." wORDSWORTH.

Elizabeth; an hostility which displayed itself for nineteen years, by imprisonment and indignities, ended only by the tragedy in Fotheringay Castle. Elizabeth, during her whole life-time seems to have taken a pleasure in deluding various suitors, both foreign princes and native nobles of the highest rank, and even deceiving her parliament, with the idea that she intended to marry, an intention probably which she least meaned to fulfil even when she most proclaimed it. At her death in 1603, she was succeeded by her kinsman JAMES VI. of Scotland, son of the murdered MARY, Queen of Scots, who has been shown in the preceding chapter to be doubly derived from Henry VII. The next chapter will be devoted to the Scottish monarchs, ancestors of James VI.

23 For the honour of the maiden queen, one would wish to have the power to expunge from English history the record of Elizabeth's transactions with regard to Mary Stuart, from the period of Robert Dudley being proposed to her as a husband, to that well-acted scene of distress of mind when the royal victim had perished by her order.

CHAPTER XV.

"And some I see

That two-fold balls, and treble sceptres carry."

MACBETH.

From KENNETH MAC ALPINE in lineal descent to

HAY

King ROBERT the BRUCE.

AVING in the preceding chapters traced the sovereigns of England until the accession of the House of STUART in the person of JAMES, sixth of that name in Scotland, and FIRST in England, it becomes necessary to give his pedigree from the kings of Scotland, contenting ourselves with beginning at the reign of Kenneth Mac Alpine in the ninth century.

Of KENNETH Sir Walter Scott says, "he might justly be termed the first king of Scotland, being the first who possessed such a territory as had title to be termed a kingdom." He was the son of ALPINE, King of Scots, who was the son of AYCHA IV., the "Achaius" of some chroniclers, King of Scots, by Urgaria, sister of Ungus, King of the Picts. In 836,