tlemen, the lord mayor, aldermen, and citizens of London, a multitude of other good subjects and commons of the realm." This proclamation bore thirty-six signatures, the three first being those of Robert Lee, Lord Mayor of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Keeper Egerton; the three last, these of Secretary Sir Robert Cecil, Sir J. Fortescue, and Sir John Popham. It was signed and ready about five hours after Elizabeth's decease; and then those who had signed it went out of the council-chamber at Whitehall, with Secretary Cecil at their head, who had taken the chief direction of the business, and who, in the front of the palace, read to the people the proclamation, which assured them that the queen's majesty was really dead, and that the right of succession was wholly in James King of Scots, now King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. They then went to the High Cross in Cheapside, where Cecil again read the proclamation, most distinctly and audibly;" and when he had done, "the multitude with one consent cried aloud— God save King James!" for all parties, or rather the three great religious sects, High Churchmen, Puritans, and Papists, all promised themselves advantages from his accession. Cecil next caused three heralds and a trumpeter to proclaim the said tidings within the walls of the Tower, where the heart of many a state-prisoner leaped for joy, and where the Earl of Southampton, the friend of the unfortunate Essex, joined the rest in their signs of great gladness. After consulting for a time in Sheriff Pemerton's house, they sent notice of the happy and peaceable proceeding into the country, and to the authorities in the provincial towns; but notwithstanding the expedition of the messengers, many gentlemen got secret intelligence beforehand, and, in divers places, James had been proclaimed without order or warrant.' Of the other thirteen or fourteen conflicting claims to the succession which had been reckoned up at different times during Elizabeth's reign, not one appears to have been publicly mentioned, or even alluded to; and the right of James, though certainly not indisputable, was allowed to pass unquestioned.' 1 Stow.-Weldon.-Osborne.-Memoirs of Sir Robert Carey.

The only pretensions, however, that could with any show of law or reason come into competition with those of James, were those of the representative of Henry VIII.'s younger sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, to whose heirs Henry was affirmed by his will to have limited the succession, on failure of the heirs of his three children. But although this will, having been made under the authority of an Act of Parliament, would have been legally valid if authentic, it is more than doubtful if it ever really received the royal signature. (See in support of its authenticity the reasoning of Mr. Hallam, Const. Hist., vol. i. pp. 307-317; and the apparently conclusive reply of Dr. Lingard, Hist. Eng., vol. vi. note L., edit. of 1838.) At the time of the death of Queen

Elizabeth, the supposed representative of the Duchess of Suffolk was the son of her granddaughter Catherine, by Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, to whom it was asserted that she had been privately mar

ried. But that any such marriage took place was never satisfactorily proved. The boy in question, however, was called by his father's second title of Lord Beauchamp; and his eldest son, previously known as Earl and Marquis of Hertford,-the same who married the Lady Arabella Stuart, to be presently mentioned,-was restored to the title of Duke of Somerset in 1660. Whatever claim the House of Suffolk might have to the crown was afterward transferred to the present Duke of Northumberland, by the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of the eighth Duke of Somerset, with Sir Hugh Smithson, the first Duke of Northumberland of the last creation

Such had been the able management of Cecilsuch was the readiness of the nation to acknowl edge the Scottish king, or their laudable anxiety to avoid a disputed succession and civil war.

There was one person, however, whose claim excited uneasiness in the cautious mind of Cecil,this was the Lady Arabella Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Lennox, younger brother of James's father, Darnley, and descended equally from the stock of Henry VII. This young lady was by birth an Englishwoman, a circumstance which had been considered by some as making up for her defect of primogeniture, for James, though nearer, was a born Scotchman and alien. Cecil for some time had had his eye upon the Lady Arabella, and she was now safe in his keeping. Eight hundred dangerous or turbulent persons, indistinctly described as " vagabonds," were seized in two nights in London, and sent to serve on board the Dutch fleet. No other outward precautions were deemed necessary by the son of Burghley, who calmly waited the coming of James and his own great reward, without asking for any pledge for the privileges of parliament, the liberties of the people, or the reform of abuses which had grown with the growing prerogative of the crown. But these were things altogether overlooked, not only by Cecil and Nottingham and those who acted with them, but also by the parties opposed to them, the most remarkable man among whom was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, like all the other courtiers or statesmen, looked entirely to his own interest or aggrandizement. Few or none could have been insensible to the advantage likely to accrue from the peaceful union of England and Scotland under one sovereign, with the cessation of those border wars which kept both sides of the Tweed in perpetual turmoil and confusion; and it may be that this bright prospect tended (together with the bright hope of personal advancement) to render the English statesmen subservient and careless at this important crisis.

Between the spiritual pride and obstinacy of his clergy, the turbulent, intriguing habits of his nobles, and his own poverty, James had led rather a hard life in Scotland. He was eager to take possession of England, which he looked upon as the very Land of Promise; but so poor was he that he could not begin his journey until Cecil sent him down money. He asked for the crown jewels of England for the queen his wife; but the council did not think fit to comply with this request; and, on the 6th day of April, he set out for Berwick, without wife or jewels. On arriving at that ancient town, he fired off, with his own hand, a great piece of ordnance, an unusual effort of courage on his part. On the same day he wrote to his "right trusty and right well beloved cousins and counselors, the lords and others of his privy council at London," thanking them for

1 James's claim, however, was not at all through his father, Lord Darnley, but through his mother, who, as the granddaughter of James IV, by his wife Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., was, after Elizabeth, the next representative of that king. The Lady Arabella and her uncle, Lord Darnley, were descended from the same Margaret Tudor, but by her second marriage with Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox.