The day, the festival of Corpus Christi, is the first of June, 1553. King Edward the Sixth is on the throne--a white-faced, grave, reserved boy of fifteen years, whose life is to close about five weeks thereafter. But beside the throne, and on it in all but name--his hand firmly grasping the reins of power, his voice the living law of the State--stands John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland; a man whose steel-blue eyes are as cold as his heart, and whose one aim in every action of his life is the welfare and aggrandisement of John Dudley. He professes himself a Lutheran: at heart, if he care at all for religion of any kind, he is a Papist. But it will not be of service to John Dudley at the present moment to confess that little fact to the world. Grouped around these two are men of all types--Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, true Nature's gentleman, leal-hearted Gospeller, delicate in mind, clear in intellect, only not able, having done all, to stand; Ridley, Bishop of London, whose firm, intelligent, clear-cut features are an index to his character--perhaps a shade too severe, yet as severe to himself as any other; Hugh Latimer, blunt, warm-hearted old man, who calls a spade a spade in the most uncompromising manner, and spares not vice, though it flaunt its satin robes in royal halls; William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, the mean-spirited time-server who would cry long life to a dozen rival monarchs in as many minutes, so long as he thought it would advance his own interests; Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, who spends his life in a fog of uncertainty, wherein the most misty object is his own mind; William Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, who always remembers his motto, "I bend, but break not;" Richard Lord Rich, the sensual-faced, comfortable-looking, stony-hearted man who pulled off his gown the better to rack Anne Askew, of old time; and, behind them all, one of whom they all think but little--a young man of short stature, with good forehead, and small, wizened features--Mr Secretary Cecil, some day to be known as the great Earl of Burleigh, who holds in his clever hands, as he sits in the background with his silent face, the strings that move most of these puppets, and pulls them without the puppets knowing it, until, on the accession of Mary, the Tower gates will be opened, and Stephen Gardiner will walk forth, to take the reins into his hands, and to steep England in blood. Of public events, there have been few since the general confiscation of church plate in the preceding month.