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ANNE OF DENMARK. 449 the second of the following March, she died at Hampton Court of dropsy, in the forty-third year of her age. Her death was lamented as premature and sudden ; but it saved her from witnessing many family sorrows, which her memory might have embittered by connecting with many family sins.*

  • It is a singular fact that during this reign of extravagance, debauch-

ery, and almost unbridled licentiousness, the weak and cowardly king should have authorized the translation of the Bible, and recommended that it be read in all churches. But it is not so astonishing that the influence of that reign should have caused the Pilgrim Fathers to take that Bible, and sailing from old Plymouth, 1620, seek a new land with freedom to worship God.