It had got abroad that some of the King's advisers, and even the King himself, had meditated schemes for defrauding the Lady Mary, either wholly or in part, of her rightful inheritance.

A suspicion, not indeed well founded, but by no means so absurd as is commonly supposed, took possession of the public mind.

The folly of some Roman Catholics confirmed the vulgar prejudice.

They spoke of the auspicious event as strange, as miraculous, as an exertion of the same Divine power which had made Sarah proud and happy in Isaac, and had given Samuel to the prayers of Hannah.

Mary's mother, the Duchess of Modena, had lately died.