Bromley was timid, Baker would go with Sir Edward, and Sir Edward was 'an old man without comfort.' They reflected that they could not be committing treason by obeying the King as long as the King was alive; and they satisfied their consciences by resolving to meddle no further after he was gone. They demanded for their greater security special instructions in writing, and a pardon if their consent should prove to have been a crime. This being granted, they complied. The remaining judges, who were next called in, agreed to the same terms, Sir James Hales, a Protestant, alone holding out to the last. The Solicitor-General Gosnold resisted long. 'How the Duke and the Earl of Shrewsbury handled him,' says Montague, 'he can tell himself.'[1] Gosnold, too, yielded at last, and the letters patent were drawn out, engrossed, and passed under the Great Seal. The King's sisters were declared incapable of succeeding to the Crown, as being both of them illegitimate With a strange inconsequence of reasoning, it was added that, even had their birth been pure, being but of half-
- ↑ It were curious to know—Shrewsbury had been active in opposition to the Duke, and, after Edward's death, was among the first to declare against him.
since his arrival. Their own explanation was that the King's health had improved. Noailles believed, however, that their satisfaction 'provenoit plus du contentement en quoy les milords se trouvent pour s'estre resolus tous en une opinion, où pour y parvenir ont tenu beaucoup de journées, estant resserrez et ne se pouvant accorder pour raison de ce que le milord trésorier et aucungs aultres estoient de contrarie volunté a celle du Due de Northumberland, lequel les avoit depuis unis et faict condescendre a la sienne.'—Noailles, vol. ii. p. 40. Scheyfne on the contrary, was assured, and believed, that the compliance was throughout assumed.
