Then Athaliah, seeing that her son was dead, determined to reign for herself. She was one of those masculine spirits, one of those heroines of pride and crime, who can brook no puny, infant sovereigns; she could not live to be ruled by a grandchild; and so she took the decisive step of _destroying all the seed royal_, after which, it is said, _Athaliah_, late the queen-mother, _did reign over the land_. But it is seldom, on this earth—which is still God’s, however much, at certain times, the devil may claim it for his own—it is seldom, I say, that crime is quite prosperous, quite thorough: something is forgotten in every murder, which rises at last into a testimony; and some one, some little babe perhaps, is overlooked in every massacre; there is a sister, it may be, or an aunt—as it was here—whose heart yearns over that little cradle, and who contrives to rescue its unconscious occupant to be the heir of the throne and the avenger of the family. Such was King Joash; rescued by his aunt Jehosheba from her own mother’s fury, and by her hidden, during six years of earliest childhood, in one of the chambers of the Temple—for she was the wife of Jehoiada, the High Priest. In his seventh year, there was a conspiracy, a revolution, and a coronation. The little King was _shown_ to the people in the temple-court, the crown was put upon him, the testimony (or book of the law) was given him, he was made and he was anointed, and all the people _clapped their hands_, _and said_, _God save the king_. And when the usurping grandmother, attracted by the tumult, came upon the scene, with the cry, _Treason_, _treason_! the High Priest _had her forth without the ranges_; she was allowed to pass unmolested through the crowd and through the guard, till she was outside the consecrated ground; and there she was slain.