England, in fact, was tired out when Henry the Eighth died.
It was, at any rate, a change for them to find that their new king was in every respect the opposite of his father.

Instead of the burly, hot- headed, self-willed, cruel Henry, they were now to be ruled by a frail, delicate, mild boy of nine, inheriting neither his father's vices nor his faults, and resembling him as little in mind as in body.

But the chief difference of all was this--that this boy-king was _good_.
A _good_ King of England.

It was indeed and, alas! a novelty.

How many, counting back to the day when the country first knew a ruler, could be so described?
Had not the sceptre of England passed, almost without exception, down a line of usurpers, murderers, robbers, and butchers, and was it not a fact that the few kings who had not been knaves had been merely fools?
But now England had a good king and a clever king, what might not be expected of him?
On the day of his coronation all sorts of rumours were afloat respecting young Edward.