Excerpt from A History of England, Vol. 5: From the First Invasion by the Romans James VI. of Scotland was by descent the A. D. 1603. next heir; but the exclusion of the Scottish line in the will of Henry VIII. had thrown some doubt on his right, and it was generally believed that his pretensions would meet with opposition from the fears of the blemen whose hands had been stained with the blood of his unfortunate mother; from the jealousy of the churchmen, who must fear the accession of a prince educated in the principles of Calvin; and from the intrigues of the Catholics, whoso interest it was to seek relief from the penal laws by supporting a Catholic successor. For years the public mind had been agitated with predictions of the fearful consequences to be apprehended on the death of Elizabeth; predictions which the event proved to have been better than the dreams of timid or designing politicians. Not a voice was raised in favour of an other claimant. The supposed enemies of James had long ago made their peace with their future sovereign; the clergy gave credit to his assurances that he loathed a form of religion which led to the depression, if t the extinction, of the royal authority; and the Catholics, flattered by the reports of their agents, hailed width joy the succession of a prince who was said to have promised the toleration of their worship, in return for the attachment which they had so often displayed for the house of Stuart. By the address of Cecil the accession of the Scottish king was proclaimed, before the death of the late queen had become publicly kwn. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.