By a very small minority the rumour was welcomed with joy.

The great body of the nation listened with mingled derision and fear.

There was indeed nothing very extraordinary in what had happened.
The King had but just completed his fifty-fourth year.

The Queen was in the summer of life.

She had already borne four children who had died young; and long afterwards she was delivered of another child whom nobody had any interest in treating as supposititious, and who was therefore never said to be so.