Found Executed 12. Dudley executed and high-souled girl of sixteen but to assume the crown which the voice of her loved cousin, the late king, speaking from the grave, and the living voices of his councillor's, and of her own and her husband's parents, declared it to be both her right and her duty to accept. A few days after Edward's death in July, she assumed the fatal title of Queen of England; in November of that year she was, on her own confession, found guilty, A.D. 1553, guilty of high treason, and on the 12th of FebNovember. ruary in the next year, after Wyatt's insurrecA.D. 1554, tion, she was beheaded on Tower Green, the most February innocent, pure and noble victim whose head ever Guildford rolled on a scaffold. Her husband, Guildford Dudley, was executed on the same day, but before her, on Tower Hill, where, on the 24th of the same month of February, her father, the Duke of Suffolk, was also beheaded. On the 9th of the next month her mother, Lady Frances, astonished the Marriage of Duchess World by a second marriage with her youthful of Suffolk master of the horse, Adrian Stokes. It may be charitably supposed that, seeing the suspicion in which her two remaining daughters had been involved, she hoped for male offspring by her Her chil- second marriage. In fact she had by Adrian, dren by Adrian. beside a daughter, who was born and died on the 20th of November 1554, two sons, who, had they lived, would have been important members of the royal family, but who died in infancy. Some same day. Duke of 24. with Adrian Stokes, March 9. Edward other events concerning the younger stocks of the royal family occurred during Mary's reign. In 1556 Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, died at Death of Padua unmarried. After his death there remained Courtenay, no descendant of any of Edward IV.'s children A.d. 1556. except the issue of Elizabeth of York. In 1556 Birth of Margaret, Countess of Lennox, gave birth to a Stuart, second son, Charles Stuart. Her family now A.D. 1556. consisted of him and Lord Darnley, and she never had another child. Before this, on the 12th of Margaret Charles Clifford's 12. sertions. February 1555, Margaret Clifford had married marriage Lord Strange, eldest son of the Earl of Derby. with Lord Strange, Later, Lady Strange asserted that Catharine and A.D. 1555, Mary, the daughters of her aunt Frances, were February illegitimate, on the ground that their father had, Her asbefore his marriage with their mother, been precontracted to Lord Arundel's daughter. A contract between them had certainly once existed, but it does not appear to have continued at the time of the Marquis's marriage with Lady Frances. Lady Strange even threw doubts on the validity of the marriage of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, with the Princess Mary, the grandparents of herself and the Ladies Grey, on the score that at the time of the birth of Lady Frances there was living a former wife of the duke, who died before the birth of Lady Strange's mother, Eleanor. This was dangerous ground to take, as certainly Charles and Mary were not remarried after the death of Margaret Mortimer, the lady in question. But in fact it would appear that though he had gone through the ceremony of marriage with her, it was afterwards legally declared null. Besides this the rights of the issue of the Ladies Frances and Eleanor to the throne, under Henry VIII.'s last Act of Succession and his will, did not depend on the legitimacy of the ladies, as the limitation was to the issue of them by name. Lady Strange is said also to have suggested that Catharine and Mary Grey had lost their right of succession by participation in their sister Jane's treason. This could hardly have applied to Lady Mary, at all events, as she was only about eight years old at the time. But all these suggestions threw a cloud over the title of the Ladies Grey. A much more Queen of important event than those already mentioned, was the marriage, on the 24th of April 1558, of Mary Queen of Scots with Francis, the French Dauphin. To return to the Queen herself. female had hitherto been reckoned amongst the Tudor, sovereigns of England. Henry II. had reigned in regnant of the lifetime of the Empress Maud, and Henry VII. England. in that of Margaret of Richmond. The celeFortescue brated Chancellor Fortescue, writing in the inon female terests of the house of Lancaster, had maintained that females could neither succeed to the crown of England, nor transmit a right to it to their male descendants. He inculcates these views allegori Marriage of Mary Scots and the French Dauphin, A.D. 1558. April 24. Mary first Queen succession. No. cally in an account which he gives of an imaginary trial of the right of succession to the lately deceased "king of the Assyrians, Monarch of the whole of Asia Minor," in which the claimants are the late king's daughter, her son, and the late king's brother, and the right of inheritance is adjudged to be in the brother. This trial is to be found in the second part of a treatise on the law of nature, and Fortescue in the preface tells his readers that he wishes the second part to be called "A Treatise concerning the Right of Succession in Sovereign Kingdoms," thus implying by the title that the judgment in the case of the kingdom of " Assyria" was capable of wider application. However, at the time of State of Edward VI.'s death, it was generally admitted the questhat females could transmit the right of succession. Edward's It remained to be proved whether the nation would accept a female sovereign. What would have been their choice if there had been at Edward's death any male near in blood to the throne and of competent age cannot now be known. Of the Curiously enough, of the ten descendants of Henry royal VII. who were living at Edward's death, one only, Lord Darnley, was a male, and he was only eight years old. The other nine were, Henry VIII.'s two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, Margaret, Countess of Lennox, who was Darnley's mother, Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, her tion at death. family. 1 Mary, Session 2, c. 1. 1 Mary, Session 3, c. 1. Marriage of Mary and Philip, three daughters, and Lady Margaret Clifford. In point of fact, it is clear that as matters stood the bulk of the nation was resolved to uphold Henry VIII.'s settlement of the succession, and to this resolution, which established for ever the right of females to succeed to the English throne, we owe some of the brightest pages in the annals of the country. The first Act of the second Session of Mary's first Parliament was devoted to a purpose dear to the queen's heart, the vindication of the memory of her loved mother by a declaration that her marriage with Henry was lawful, and the sentence of divorce void. The case for Katharine is stated with great skill and moderation, and Henry's memory treated on the whole with tenderness. The effect of the Act was of course to place Mary in the position of the legitimate daughter of Henry, whilst Elizabeth remained subject to the brand of illegitimacy. But the Act was carefully drawn so as not to impair in any way Elizabeth's parliamentary right of succession. In the third Session of the same Parliament an Act was passed declaring that the kingly or regal office of the realm, and all the prerogative of the same, were vested in a queen as well as in a king. The marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain took place on the According to the marriage A.D. 1554, 28th of July 1554. July 28. articles, and an Act of Parliament confirming |