and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order; that doing these things you may be glorious in all virtue, and so faithfully serve our Lord Jesus Christ in this life that you may reign forever with Him in the life which is to come.” All through the Queen’s reign these words have been turned into actions; they have inspired her to do her duty faithfully and courageously and with unfailing self-sacrifice of her own inclinations and wishes. By so living she has revived the feeling of personal affection and loyalty to the throne on the part of her subjects which her immediate predecessors had done much to destroy. When we reflect upon the contrast which the pure-minded, pure-hearted girl presented to them we shall be able to understand something of the keen emotion of joyful loyalty which was evoked at her accession. But this will be the subject of the next chapter. [5] Life of the Prince Consort, vi. 280, 281. CHAPTER III. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. It is not easy to realize that in the lifetime of our own fathers and mothers there was in England a plot to change the succession and secure the crown for the “wicked uncle,” to the exclusion of the rightful heir. The whole story savors of romance, or at any rate of a much earlier period in our history, when John Lackland or Richard the Hunchback cheated their young nephews of crown and life. Yet the evidence of history on this point is unmistakable. In 1835 a plot was discovered and laid bare in Parliament, mainly by Joseph Hume, which had for its aim to secure the crown for the Duke of Cumberland and set aside the claims of Princess Victoria. The Duke, to do him justice, does not seem to have supposed that his personal merits and attractions would cause him to be made king by acclamation. But he appears to have thought he could ride in on the top of a wave of fanaticism got up over a No-popery cry. The passing of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 by the Tory Government of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel was not accomplished without a great deal of real terror and misgiving that this act of plain justice to their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects was a breaking down of the barriers against Papal aggression, and that it was merely a step towards undoing the work of the Reformation. Orange Lodges, which up to that time had little vigorous existence out of Ireland, spread all over England, and were formed even in the army. The Duke of Cumberland, a precious champion for any sort of religion, was their grand master. But he was not inconsistent: he had his own personal aggrandizement in view, and appealed to fanaticism, bigotry, and ignorance to help him to attain it. If he was acting a part, he understood his own character, and was not acting out of it. But he and the Orange Lodges too completely misunderstood the nation they were living in. The saying of Charles II. to his brother, afterwards James II., might have shown them their mistake: “They will never kill