"'The Council met to-day, and the deed of which you wot was signed and sealed—all the members consenting thereto. The Archbishop hesitated to the last, but His Grace of Northumberland would not be withstood—and so all signed. I hear that the King is sinking fast. From your chambers in Gray's Inn, June 21, 1553. J. W. TREMAYNE'" The brothers looked at each other with pallid faces. "So the 'letters patent' are issued," said Sir John, "and the irrevocable step is taken! 'Domine, dirige nos'! It is the beginning of strife of which no man can see the issue. Northumberland relies on aid from France; the Lady Mary places her hope on the Emperor. I bethink me of our blessed Lord's words: 'These things are the beginning of sorrows! Then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be.' And alas! for the poor young King, he hath none to comfort him; he is tasting of that unutterable loneliness that surrounds a throne! I think the end of his troubles is nigh at hand—and then the great strife will begin! "But the hour is growing late, William," said Sir John, "and I hear Susan's pretty voice below; she is singing one of those songs I love so well: let us join the young people, I have seen little of them to- night." -------------- A fortnight later, on July 6th, King Edward died at Greenwich in the sixteenth year of his age and the seventh of his reign. Sir John had tarried at Chiddingly until the end came; then he hastened up to London, where pressing duties called him. With him went the two boys—to begin their legal studies under the auspices of their uncle at Gray's Inn, for it was his wish that they should both enter the learned profession of the law. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II THE APPARITOR It was the year of grace 1556, the third year of the reign of Queen Mary. The forebodings of evil with which her reign had been ushered in were bitterly fulfilled. The headsman's axe had oft-times been in use on Tower Hill: Northumberland had gone to his doom with no man to pity him; his son Lord Guildford Dudley had followed him to the block, perhaps equally unlamented. But men were moved to deeper pity and compassion when the young, innocent, and hapless Lady Jane suffered for her kinsmen's crimes! The Reformation had found its "witnesses unto death" in the persons of Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer, and the flames of Smithfield aroused the horror of the people; the great "Marian Persecution" had begun, and already over a hundred victims had been offered up. Mary had married her Spanish husband, and England had witnessed the feeble and ineffectual rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt—a protest against the marriage which did not commend itself to the mass of the people.