140 JEROME CARDAN. 



been urged by his own natural sincerity, and by his love 

 for the king, to predict the fate then imminent, he 

 should have told all that he knew; and he thought, there- 

 fore, that he owed to his ignorance a most fortunate escape. 

 He thought it also in the same way a providential thing 

 that he had not agreed to stop in Scotland until April, 

 for he should then not have reached London till the king 

 was in his last disease, and so should have fallen upon evil. 

 The king, after Cardan's departure, kept too jovial a 

 Christmas, and in the first days of the succeeding February 

 there appeared the fatal cough, that never left him till 

 his death in the succeeding July. It was in April that 

 those matches were agreed upon which formed part of 

 Northumberland's designs, and it was on the llth of June 

 following that the Lady Jane Grey plot became manifest. 

 The king was induced to disinherit in favour of that un- 

 happy victim, not only his sister Mary, on account of her 

 religion, but also his sister Elizabeth, against whose creed 

 no fault could be objected. The part played by North- 

 umberland, as the first mover in these schemes and the 

 most powerful among the nobles, was no worthy one, 

 though there is much room for differences of opinion as 

 to the extent of his criminality and the exact aim of his 

 policy. Of course there is no just reason for supposing, 

 as Cardan and many others did, that King Edward was 

 poisoned. Cardan imputed too much evil to the duke; 



