In this year the sweating sickness paid one of its desolating visits to England; first shewing itself at Shrewsbury, in the middle of April, and being last heard of in the North, at the beginning of October. This contagious malady is believed to have made its earliest appearance in our island, in the year 1486 ", and thence to have found its way to the continent. Foreigners usually called it the English Sweat, and it is said to have

"" Then beheld as a presage of that troublesome and laborious reign which after followed: the King being for the most part in continual action, and the subjects either sweating out their blood or treasure." (Heylin, Hist. Ref. 111.) In the same spirit, Sanders speaks of the sweating sickness raging in 1551. He introduces his observations with his usual accuracy, by saying, that the disorder had been hitherto unknown to the medical world. (Sudatorius quidem pestifer morbus, nunquam antea medicis cognitus. De Schism. Angl. 233.) His inference, of course, from this statement is, that the pestilence was a judicial visitation of Providence intended to warn England of her enormous sin in spurning the unwritten traditions of interested men as a foundation for articles of faith. (Nec tamen ullam pestis naturam refercbat, sed plane miraculo prodigioque datum est; quo Dei bonitas Anglos admonere voluit peccati maximi quod in ipsum peccaverunt. Ibid.) These passages have been extracted chiefly with a view to shew an author's imprudence in attributing particular events to an especial Providence. Objections have been made to the former volumes of this work, because the hand of God has not been confidently traced in some of the leading transactions which they record. Inspired historians, however, alone have a right thus to dignify their pages. Of other writers it may be sufficient to say, that in mentioning a Divine agency, they are wielding a two-edged sword equally fitted to support and to invalidate their own opinions.

seized rym Largisi costatics more readily dian aciers Persus macked by it burst out ita 1 vicient perspiratio, tended by a burning first må in perpovering drowsiness. If, however. Dey reided to sleep, they awoke no more; for vis i esteemed sue to drink a larger quansity than more abstimay required. It also appeared indispensible for safety, that nothing should be dice rely to close the pores. Hence immediately after a seire by the epidemic, peopie were buried to bed, there carefully covered up, and retained in the same position until the paroxysm abated. While thus awaiting a favourable change, if a patient, oppressed by a sense of intolerable beat, thrust his hand or foot from bereath the clothes, his indulgence was generally fatal. In the course of twenty-four hours the disorder usually had reached its height, and those who were so fortunate as to struggle through that space of time, seldom failed of becoming convalescent. The principal victims of this epidemic were men in the prime and vigour of life. Females, boys, and old men appeared to be very little susceptible of the contagion'. Among males, however, of adult age, and robust constitutions, the ravages of this pestilence were frightful: especially in London, which being crowded by a population of no very cleanly habits, and being then but ill supplied with conveniences for

* Godwin, Annal. 98.

carrying off offensive matters, was fatally adapted for the nurture of a contagious virus. In the metropolis, accordingly, was passed a summer of unceasing anxiety and grief. On the 10th of July, one hundred persons were there hurried out of life. On the following day, one hundred and twenty fell, and a single week numbered. eight hundred with the dead". Of residents in the country whom this malady consigned to an early tomb, the young Duke of Suffolk and his brother were the most illustrious. These noble youths were at the Bishop of Lincoln's house, at Buckden, when the fatal epidemic seized the peer. Within four and twenty hours of his decease, the younger brother died upon the same bed, a victim to the same disorder. The dukedom of Suffolk was now extinct; a circumstance which appears to have given a new impulse to the Earl of Warwick's towering ambition. The King was a good deal alienated from the Lady Mary in consequence of her obstinate adherence to Romanism. He was, therefore, not unlikely to receive an impression, that having been solemnly pronounced illegitimate in Parliament, she was of right incapacitated from inheriting the crown. It was, indeed, true that the Lady Elizabeth had never shewn any disposition for a traditional creed, but upon her birth also had been cast a legislative stigma. Besides, it was now pro

Strype, Eccl. Mem. II. 491.

* Burnet, Hist. Ref. II. 284. Strype, Eccl. Mem. ut supra.

posed to remove her out of the way, by means of a marriage with the King of Denmark's eldest son. After his daughters, the late King had bequeathed the crown to the posterity of his two nieces, by the French Queen; an arrangement which he was empowered to make under an act of Parliament. Of these ladies, Frances, the elder, was married to Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset; Eleanor, the younger, to Henry Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. The Marchioness of Dorset had three daughters, the Ladies Jane, Catharine, and Mary. The eldest of these young females was the heir to the crown under the late King's will, after the two Princesses, Mary and Elizabeth. For it is remarkable, that Henry limited the succession to the heirs of his two nieces, passing by those ladies themselves. If, there-fore, legislative authority were obtained for excluding from the succession the bastardised daughters of the last monarch, (an object which powerful influence might reasonably calculate upon effecting, in those obsequious times,) the Lady Jane Grey might advance very plausible pretensions to the throne. Upon this amiable and accomplished person, accordingly, Warwick now fixed his attention. At once to gratify and elevate her family, he first obtained for her father the title of the Duke of Suffolk, recently borne by her mother's brother. His own importance was augmented by his advancement, upon the same

Burnet, Hist. Ref. II. 285.

Ibid. 286.

day, to the dukedom of Northumberland. Three of his sons were already married, but his fourth, now become the Lord Guilford Dudley, was at liberty. For this youth Northumberland resolved upon demanding as a wife the Lady Jane Grey, and thus, he flattered himself, that in case of the King's demise, his own family would easily mount to the honours of royalty.

Nothing, however, was more evident than that Somerset might prove a serious obstacle in the way of realising these ambitious visions. That nobleman enjoyed opportunities of access to his royal nephew, and a high degree of popularity, which rendered him a dangerous political rival ; especially as there was reason to believe, that he constantly fed himself with hopes of regaining that ascendancy from which the artifices of faction had driven him. In the April of this year he appears to have entered upon some intrigues for getting the King again into his power, and there is little doubt, that he was engaged in laying plans for resuming the protectorate when the Parliament should reassemble. Aware that such designs could not succeed while Northum

• October 11. Henry Percy, the last Earl of Northumberland had died without issue, and since that event the title had lain dormant: the children of Thomas Percy, the Earl's brother, being incapable of inheriting, because their father had been attainted for his share in the Yorkshire rebellion.

• "Which the Earl of Rutland did positively affirm, and the Duke did so answer it, that it is probable it was true." Burnet, Hist. Ref. II. 287.