Note 118 — Chapter II

I can hardly avoid doubting, whether Edward VI.'s journal, published in the second volume of Burnet, be altogether his own; because it is strange for a boy of ten years old to write with the precise brevity of a man of business. Yet it is hard to say how far an intercourse with able men on serious subjects may force a royal plant of such natural vigour; and his letters to his young friend Barnaby Fitzpatrick, published by H. Walpole in 1774, are quite unlike the style of a boy. One could wish this journal not to be genuine; for the manner in which he speaks of both his uncles' executions does not show a good heart. Unfortunately, however, there is a letter extant, of the king to Fitzpatrick, which must be genuine, and is in the same strain. He treated his sister Mary harshly about her religion, and had, I suspect, too much Tudor blood in his veins. It is certain that he was a very extraordinary boy, or, as Cardan calls him, monstrificus puellus; and the reluctance with which he yielded, on the solicitations of Cranmer, to sign the warrant for burning John Boucher, is as much to his honour, as it is against the archbishop's.