Edward. By an angel stirred.”
An answer no less just than felicitous.
Again, in the same scene, the guilelessness of her soul shines out in her protest against being made heir to the crown. The pretext put forth by Northumberland and Cranmer for persuading Edward to sign away the throne from his sisters is the safety of the Protestant cause—what Anglicans impudently call “the true church.” Jane, though an earnest adherent of the new religion, will have nothing to do with evil measures in its behalf.
“Jane. O no! not me! This remediless wrong
I have no part in. Edward, you have sisters.
Great Harry’s daughters, England’s manifest heirs.
Leave right its way, and God will guard his own.”
But now it is Mary’s turn to win our admiration. She comes upon the scene the moment after the weak Edward has signed away the kingdom to Jane. Unaware of the injury that has been done her, she greets her “dear lost brother” with true sisterly affection, but, in another minute, shows the Tudor in her veins by the courage with which she confronts Dudley and tells the traitor she knows him at his worth. Then, discovering the plot against her, she rises—suddenly but with calmest dignity—to the attitude of queen, as though the crown had just been placed upon her head instead of stolen for another’s.
“Edward. It is now too late—too late!
I have done what it were well had ne’er been done.