We are informed by Burnet, that at the coronation of EDWARD VI. the office for that ceremony was revised and much shortened; there being "some things that did not agree with" the existing "laws of the land, as the promise made to the abbotts for maintaining their lands and dignities;" and "for the tedious length of the same, which should weary and be hurtsome, peradventure, to the king's majesty, being yet of tender age, fully to endure and bide out[106]."--"The most material thing in it," he adds, "is the first ceremony, whereby the king being shewed to the people at the four corners of the stage, the archbishop was to demand their consent to it; and yet in such terms as to demonstrate he was no elective prince, for he being declared the rightful and undoubted heir, both by the laws of God and man, they were desired to give their good wills and assent to the same, as by their duty and allegiance they were bound to do." Yet 'King Edward's Journal,' preserved in the Appendix of this writer, says, "and it was asked of the people whether they would have him _to be the king_? Who answered, yea, yea." The young monarch did not, of course, understand the doctrine of his own "legitimacy" so well as his loyal courtiers. MARY, our first queen regnant, was crowned at Westminster, Oct. 1, 1553, by Gardiner, bishop of Winchester; the archbishops of Canterbury and York being both involved in the rigorous persecution of the Protestants which had now begun. In Cheapside the chamberlain of the city presented her majesty with a purse containing a thousand marks of gold. It is somewhat remarkable, that with all the personal fondness of Mary for her husband, Philip of Spain, she should never have proposed his coronation, in any form: it would have been quite as regular and constitutional, we imagine, as that of a queen consort, and much more so than many of her fruitless efforts to promote his influence and authority over her subjects. Queen ELIZABETH, according to the usual custom, resorted to the Tower at the death of her sister. Every part of her conduct, until finally established in the most unbounded sway over the hearts of her people, is from this moment interesting. On entering the Tower she is said to have been immediately impressed with the important change that had taken place in her condition since she was imprisoned in that fortress, and in constant danger of her life. She went on her knees in gratitude to Heaven, and spoke of her deliverance being as great as that of Daniel from the lions' den: an "act of pious gratitude," says Hume, "which seems to have been the last circumstance in which she remembered any past hardships or injuries." Cautious and temperate as she was in the restoration of Protestantism, the prelates almost entirely refused to grant her episcopal consecration. At length, Oglethorpe, bishop of Carlisle, was prevailed upon to officiate--but he was the only bishop present.