MOO. DIV. von. II.
his three children. Northumberland now applied himself to induce Edward to make a new settlement excluding Mary and Elizabeth, who had both been declared illegitimate by parliament, and to nominate Lady Jane Grey (in whose favour her mother the Duchess of Suffolk, still alive, agreed to renounce her claim) as his immediate successor. The interest of the Protestant religion, which it was argued would be more secure with a sovereign on the throne whose attachment to the principles of the Reformation was undoubted, and on whose birth there was no stain, than if the succession were left to be disputed between the king's two sisters, ono of whom was a bigoted Romau Catholic, and the legitimacy of either of whom almost implied the illegitimacy of the other, is believed to have been the chief considem tion that was urged upon the dying prince. Edward at all events was brought over to his minister's views. On the 11th of June, Montague, the chief justice of the Common Pleas, and two of his brethren, were sent for to Greenwich, and desired to draw up a settlement of the crown upon the Lady Jane. After some hesitation they agreed, on the 14th, to comply with the king's commands, on his assurance that a parliament should be immediately called to ratify what was done. When the settlement was drawn up, an engagement to sustain it was subscribed by fifteen lords of the council and nine of the judges. Edward sunk rapidly after this, and lived only till the evening of the 6th of July, when he expired at Greenwich. His death however was concealed for two days, and it was not till the 9th that Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed.
Edward VI. is stated by the famous Jerome Carden, who was brought to see him in his last illness, to have spoken both French and Latin with perfect readiness and propriety, and to have been also master of Greek, Italian, and Spanish. In his conversation with
Carden, which the latter has preserved, he showed an intelligence and dexterity which appear to have rather puzzled the philosopher. Walpole has set him down among his royal authors on the strength of his 'Diary,' printed by Burnet in his 'History of the Reformation,' and the original of which is still preserved among the Cottonian manuscripts ; a lost comedy which is attributed to him, called ' The Whore of Babylon ;' some Latin epistles and orations, of which speci mens are given by Strype ; a translation into French of several passages of Scripture, preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge; a tract in French against popery, entitled ‘L'Encontre des thus du monde ;' and a few other productions of a similar kind which have not been printed.
The act of the 1st Edward VI. gave to the king all the colleges, free chapels, chauntries, hospitals, &e., which were not iu the possession of his father by the act passed iu the 37th year of Henry's reign. This act was much abused ; for though one professed object of it was the encouragement of learning, many places of learning were actually suppressed under it. The king however afterwards founded a con siderable number of grammar-schools, which still exist, and are popularly known as King Edward's Schools.
In 1556, in the reign of Queen Mary, a boy of the name of William Fetherstone, or Constable, a miller's son, was hanged at Tyburn for giving himself out to be Edward VI.