ing their enterprise, a cannon that chanced to be pointed upon the gate was fired off against his countrymen by a French deserter who served within the town, which made such slaughter among them as to drive them back in disorder; and although D'Esse thrice gallantly led back his men to the encounter, they were finally foiled and beaten off with great loss. On this, the French commander retired to Leith, and fortified himself in that town.

The English parliament re-assembled at Westminster on the 24th of November, having been prorogued to that day from the 15th of October, in consequence of the plague then being in London. The first question of importance that was brought forward was that of the marriage of the clergy. A proposition in favour of this innovation having been submitted to the lower house of convocation during the last session of parlia

Scottish historians assert that the slain and the prisoners on the part of the English in this affair exceeded 1000 men. Immediately upon receipt of the intelligence at the English court, orders were given for the advance across the Borders of an army of 22,000 men, which had been raised and put under the command of Francis Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, as the lieutenant of the Duke of Somerset. Lord Clinton, at the same time, put to sea with a formidable fleet. On the approach of Shrewsbury, the besieging army retired from Haddington, and the earl entered that town, the gallant defenders of which were now reduced to the utmost extremity.' The earl left abundant supplies, not only of "victuals, munition, and all other things convenient," but likewise of healthy and strong men to assist in maintaining the defence. He then set forth to seek the Scots and French, whom he found posted some ten or twelve miles off, at Musselburgh. They would not, how-ment, had been carried in that assembly by a ever, leave their intrenchments, and the English did not venture to attack them. In fact, the earl and his great army forthwith turned round, and began their march back to England. The only other exploit they performed was to set fire to Dunbar, as they passed by that town on their retreat. Nor were the achievements of Lord Clinton and the fleet more considerable. Balfour informs us that Clinton landed some 5000 men on the coast of Fife, to spoil the country; "but before they did much harm, they were rencountered by the Laird of Wemyss and the barons of Fife, all well horsed, who rode them flat down with their horses, and having killed above 700 of them, forced the remnant to save themselves by wading in the sea to the necks, before they could gain their flat-bottomed boats, having purched (acquired) no better booty than their backful of strokes and wet skins." They afterwards made a descent during the night at Montrose, where in like manner they were driven off by the peasantry, headed by Erskine of Dun; of 800 who had landed, scarcely one in three getting back safe to the ships. "So," it is added, "the admiral returned, having got nothing but loss and disgrace by the expedition." After the Earl of Shrewsbury had returned home, Lord Gray, who had been left as lieutenant of the north, made an inroad into Scotland, and, without encountering any opposition, burned and wasted Teviotdale and Liddesdale for the space of about twenty miles. On the other hand, not long after this, on Tuesday the 9th of October, an attempt was made by D'Esse to surprise the town of Haddington, up to the very gate of which he had got with his men, at an early hour in the morning, before his presence was suspected. But when the assailants were on the point of complet

VOL. II.

1 Holinshed.

majority of nearly two to one; and a bill to carry
it into effect had been actually introduced in the
House of Commons, though it was not proceeded
with. A similar bill was now again brought
forward, and, although it met with considerable
opposition, was finally passed and sent up to the
lords on the 13th of December.
In the upper
house it was allowed to lie unnoticed till the 9th
of February, 1549; but, being then taken up, was,
after it had undergone some alterations, to which
the commons eventually assented, read a third
time on the 19th, and passed, by a majority of
thirty-nine to twelve. This was followed by an
act establishing the use of the reformed Liturgy
lately drawn up. Against both of these bills
many of the bishops, and a few also of the lay
lords, entered protests. The only other enact-
ment of this session on the subject of religion
that requires to be here noticed, is one that was
passed "touching abstinence from flesh in Lent
and other usual times." The preamble of this
statute declares, that "one day or one kind of
meat of itself is not more holy, more pure, or
more clean than another;" but, nevertheless, con-
demns those who, "turning their knowledge to
satisfy their sensuality," had, "of late time more
than in times past, broken and contemned such
abstinence which hath been used in this realm
upon the Fridays and Saturdays, the embering
days, and other days commonly called vigils, and
in the time commonly called Lent, and other ac-
customed times." The regulations with regard to
the observance of fish-days which are laid down,
and which need not be detailed, are then ushered
in by a statement of the considerations that had
been kept in view in framing them, which "glances
from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,"
with a most edifying impartiality and compre-
hensiveness of regard.

109

occasion of some new complaints; and this time | abled to take by the affair ended by his being sent to the Tower. them by the Fren The council here seem to have proceeded with as little regularity as legal right; for it appears that the order for the bishop's imprisonment was not signed when it was made, but only some years after; as entered on the council-book, it has attached to it the names of Somerset, Cranmer, St. John, Russell, and Cheyney; but Lord Russell had, in the first instance, subscribed himself "Bedford," till, recollecting that he had not that title at the time of making the order, he drew his pen through the word, and substituted "J. Russell!" Gardiner, however, was thus once more placed where he could give no active annoyance; and he remained in close confinement throughout the reign, steadily refusing all proposals of submission or compromise, till at last he was deprived of his bishopric.

On

June, the squadr
eign auxiliaries a
sisted of about s
French, partly G
D'Esse D'Espany
try and experien
ceeding to activ
that the first ente
be the recovery
an army compos
and of about ei
command of Ar
It was in the ca
parliament or co
which ratified,
arms, and agai

treaty with the
had brought ov
mained in the I
and proceeded
French coast, b
sight of land i
sailed round b
the Clyde, and
received on bo
tendants.3 M
in safety on th
diately conduc
she was cont
Dauphin of F
age, she herse
Meanwhile, I
though still in
sharply cann
been made in
think it prud
resolved to tr
rison into a
of the latter,
by the arriva
countrymen,
pass through
the Scots lay
ing with the

All this time the war in Scotland had not ceased to give both anxiety and occupation to the government, though the military operations that took place were not attended with any very important results. In an assembly of the Scottish nobility held at Stirling soon after the battle of Pinkie, a resolution had been adopted on the suggestion of the queen-dowager to apply for the assistance of France, and with that object to offer their infant queen in marriage to the dauphin, and even to propose to send her immediately to be educated at the French court. This was, in other words, an offer to the French king of the Scottish crown. It was at once accepted by Henry, nor did he lose a moment in making preparations for the vigorous defence of a kingdom which he might now consider as his own. learning what had been done, Somerset published an earnest address in English and Latin, to the people of Scotland, pointing out to them all the advantages they were throwing away by the rejection of the matrimonial alliance with England, as well as the loss of their independence and the other evils that were sure to follow from the French marriage, and calling upon them to draw back from the ruinous course on which their government was leading them. This appeal was followed up by the arrival, towards the end of necessaries, April, of a powerful English army under the encouraged conduct of the Lord Gray of Wilton, which ad- | account of vanced straightway upon the neighbourhood of tempt that the capital. The town of Haddington was taken 1300 horse and fortified, a garrison of two thousand men of Sir The being left to hold it; some isolated castles were The Englisì battered down, or compelled to surrender; Dal- Scots under keith and Musselburgh were burned; but all these completely terrors had no effect in damping the spirit of the Scots-buoyed up as they were by the highest hopes of the revenge they were soon to be en

1 Burnet.

2 Curiously t shouldiours," auxiliaries we 3 Balfour,

19

uit in which Seymour's al advantages, enabled h himself, was that of th women was so brililar reputation of catchHe now resolved that as pleasure should wait career; and it is alleged , he aspired so high as pe of gaining the hand Cary or of her sister Elias next in the order of e. His views seem also ime directed to the Lady entiment that hers might the head upon which the He found, however, that in the way of each of these resent he contented himself therine Parr, the queenmarried," say the council soon after the late king's conceived straight after, it ceat doubt whether the child on accounted the late king's 1 a marvellous danger and like to have ensued to the accession and quiet of the Catherine appears to have his arms.

vofold object in this marriage ion of the wealth Catherine hile she was queen, and the was now entitled; secondly, the easier access to the king, ble to win him over to his purfluence of Catherine, to whom s been accustomed to look up fection. In the first of these Ls in part disappointed, by his led to surrender certain jewels ch Henry had given to her, but or and the council insisted that to retain, after she had ceased sort. In a letter to Seymour of this and other points in which was ill-used, she seems to impute he had received to Somerset's nt wife. Whether it was the 3, however, or whether the same uld have followed without that or Catherine soon became little y to any of her sex; the husband, d given herself with such preci

ed from papers left by William Cecil, Lord Latfield House, in the library of the Earl of av. Samuel Haynes, A. M., fol. London, 1740. the Burghley Papers extends from A.D. 1542 olume, extendin to 1596, was pub

But an affair of another kind was also brought | Somerset himself had held, but which he now before the parliament in the course of this session, exchanged for those of lord high-treasurer and the history of which, from its commencement earl-marshal, forfeited by the attainder of the nearly two years before, now falls to be related. Duke of Norfolk; and he was furthermore, by a The Earl of Hertford and his younger brother royal grant, in August, 1548, put in possession Sir Thomas Seymour do not appear to have lived of the lordship of Sudley, in Gloucestershire, on other than friendly terms down to the close and of other lands and tenements in no fewer of the late reign, during which the terrific temper than eighteen counties.' But a temper and views of Henry made the fiercest and haughtiest spirits such as his were not to be thus satisfied. Though quail, and suppress the breath of their mutual resembling each other in ambition and rapacity, animosities and rivalries. But as soon as the in most of the other points that marked their furious old despot was dead, and the throne characters the two brothers were very unlike came to be filled by the child, whose near rela- The protector, slenderly endowed either with tionship to the two brothers combined with his capacity or with moral courage, and probably years and his disposition to throw him entirely conscious of these deficiencies, was in the habit into their hands, and to make him the puppet of of trusting in all things more to his instruments whichsoever of the two should succeed in getting than to himself, and of seeking a support for his before the other in their struggle for the prize, greatness in any prop he could find to lean upon. the natural opposition of their interests, and of This timidity and want of self-dependence, tothe circumstances in which they were placed, gether with his vanity, made him on all occasions dashed them against each other like two meeting an anxious affecter of popular applause, although tides. Both were ambitious, by nature as well his whole course demonstrates him to have been as by the temptations of their position; and he in reality one of the most self-regarding men that not the least so who, by the arrangements made ever lived, and one of the most unscrupulous in on the accession of the new king, found himself the pursuit of his own aggrandizement. His without any share in the government, while the anxiety, however, to stand well in the public esother had contrived to concentrate in himself timation, and perhaps a natural coldness of temnearly all the powers of the state. The protector perament, preserved him from some of those tried to purchase the acquiescence of his brother, private irregularities which, more than anything both by honours and more substantial benefits: else, destroy reputation, though the mischief they occasion bears no proportion in extent to that inflicted by some other vices of character which are not so immediately offensive; and there was little or nothing to be objected to in his life and conversation under any of the heads of that household morality which is very generally regarded as the whole code of morals. He was no' only cautiously decent in his private demeanour within this circle of duties, but he was a conspicuous professor of religion and piety; and it is probable that he did take a considerable interest in those high questions by which all minds were more or less agitated, and certain strong views in regard to what constituted the peculiar badge and the great cementing element and lifespirit of his party. But although he was extremely cautious of doing anything likely to place him in an unfavourable light with the popular sentiment, it would be a mistake to imagine that he did not give loose to his natural temper, where there was no such risk, in the most violent fashion. While he was all subservience to the huzzaing populace, and was at home completely under the government of his wife-a proud, coarse, cunning woman-at the council-table and elsewhere, to all who were dependent upon him, not excepting the men to whom in great part he owed his elevation, he soon became the most imSee notice of the grant in Strype, Eccles. Mem. ii. 202.

Sir Thomas, as we have seen, was raised to the peerage, with the title of Baron Seymour of Sudley; he was also made high-admiral, the patent of that place being resigned to him by the new Earl of Warwick, who was, in turn, compensated with that of lord great-chamberlain, which