earnestly dissuaded him "from writing of such sharp and unsavoury letters to my lord-protector's grace," but without effect. It is asserted that, seeing he could not otherwise achieve his object, he resolved to seize the king's person, and to carry him away to his castle of Holt, in Denbighshire, one of the properties he had acquired by the late royal grant; that for the furtherance of this and his ulterior designs, he had confederated with various noblemen and others; that he had so travailed in the matter as to have put himself in a condition to raise an army of 10,000 men out of his own tenantry and other Mrs. Ashley professes to have been duly shocked, | who held an office in his establishment, stated to and to have rebuked the admiral as he deserved. | the council that he and others of his friends had Other instances of the admiral's audacity are given, but these may serve as sufficient specimens. Mrs. Ashley admits she had reason to suppose that the queen was jealous of the familiarity betwixt her husband and the princess; and "she saith also, that Mr. Ashley, her husband, hath divers times given this examinate warning to take heed, for he did fear that the Lady Elizabeth did bear some affection to my lord-admiral; she seemed to be well pleased therewith; and sometimes she would blush when he were spoken of." Elizabeth also makes her "Confession" among the rest; but it relates merely to what had passed between her and Mrs. | immediate adherents, in addition to the forces Ashley after the queen's death, on the subject of the lord-admiral's wish to marry her, and, as might be expected, contains nothing to her own disadvantage. She maintains that Mrs. Ashley never advised the marriage except on condition it should prove agreeable to the protector and the council. In a letter, however, which she wrote from Hatfield to the protector in January, 1549, while the proceedings against Seymour were in progress, she mentions a circumstance which we should not otherwise have knownnamely, that rumours had got abroad that she was "in the Tower and with child by my lordadmiral." These imputations she declares to be "shameful slanders," and requests that, to put them down, she may be allowed to come immediately to court. It appears, however, that all these examinations gave her no little disturbance and alarm, though, young as she was-only entering upon her sixteenth year-she bore herself, in the delicate and difficult position in which she was thereby placed, with a wonderful deal of the courage and politic management that she evinced on so many occasions in her after life. The lord-admiral's renewal of his pretensions to the hand of Elizabeth after the death of his queen, seems to have at once brought matters to another open quarrel between him and his brother. The Marquis of Northampton, one of the persons whom he had sought to seduce to a participation in his designs, relates in his examination, or confession, that Seymour had told him "he was credibly informed that my lord-protector had said he would clap him in the Tower if he went to my Lady Elizabeth. These threats, and the obstacle that presented itself to his schemes in the clause of the late king's will, which provided that, if either of the princesses should marry without the consent of the council, she should forfeit her right of succession, roused all the natural impetuosity and violence of his temper, and drove him again to intrigues and plots, and other measures of desperation. One Wightman, 12 193 of his friends; and that he had got ready money 1 Articles of High Treason, &c., 12-18. 2 Ibid. 29. admiral was instantly (19th January, 1549) sent the lord-admiral was brought into the House of to the Tower. Lords; all the judges and the king's council gave it as their opinion that the articles amounted to treason; various lords, who had already made depositions against the accused repeated their evidence; and the bill was at last passed without a division. Somerset himself was present at each reading. On the same day (the 27th) it was sent down to the commons. But here it encountered, at first, considerable opposition. "Many argued against attainders in absence, and thought it an odd way, that some peers should rise up in their places in their own house, and relate somewhat to the slander of another, and that he should be thereupon attainted; therefore it was pressed that it might be done by a trial, and that the admiral should be brought to the bar, and be heard plead for himself." This hesitation was at first attempted to be met by a message from the other house, repeating, what had been intimated when the bill was first sent down, that the lords who were acquainted with the facts would, if required, repeat their evidence before the commons. But it was not deemed requisite even to go through this formality. On the 4th of March a message came from the king, which stated that "he thought it was not necessary to send for the admiral;" and thereupon the bill was agreed to, in a house of about 400 members, not more than ten or twelve voting in the negative. The parliament having been prorogued on the 14th-on which day the royal assent was given to the bill -on the 17th the council issued the warrant for the admiral's execution. Burnet notices it as “a little odd," that this order of blood should be Seymour had now no chance of escape. Abandoned by every friend on earth, he lay passive and helpless in his prison-house, while "many complaints," as Burnet observes, "being usually brought against a sinking man," all who sought to make their own positions more secure, or to advance themselves in court favour, hastened to add their contribution to the charges or the evidence by which he was to be destroyed. Attempts were made to persuade him to submit himself, by working both upon his fears and his hopes: but he would confess no part of the treasonable designs imputed to him. There is, indeed, no proof or probability whatever that his views extended to anything beyond the supplanting of Somerset; it was a struggle for ascendency between the two brothers, and nothing more. The proceedings taken against the accused were, from the beginning to the end, a flagrant violation of all law and justice. After he had been several times secretly examined, without anything material being extracted from him, by deputations of the privy council, on the 23d of February the whole council proceeded in a body to the Tower, with the charges against him drawn out in thirtythree articles, to endeavour to bring him to submission. But to all their threats and persuasions he insisted, as he had all along done, upon an open trial, and being brought face to face with his accusers. At last he so far yielded to their importunities as to say that, if they would leave the articles with him, he would consider of them; but even with this proposal they refused to comply. The next day, "after dinner," the lord-chan-signed by Cranmer—a thing which he says was cellor, in the presence of the other councillors, contrary to the canon law; but he makes no "opened the matter to the king, and delivered remark upon what will appear to most persons a his opinion for leaving it to the parliament." It still stranger indecorum, and a violation almost is pretended that this was the first time the sub- of the law of nature-that the first name attached ject had been mentioned—at least at the council- | to it should be that of the condemned man's own board-to Edward; and, therefore, the greater brother! The Bishop of Ely was immediately admiration was called forth by the prompt judg- sent to convey to Seymour the determination of ment of the youthful sovereign, and the equani- the government, and "to instruct and teach him mity with which he consented to sacrifice his the best he could to the quiet and patient sufferuncle to the public weal. After each of the othering of justice." The bishop reported to the councouncillors had expressed his approbation of the course recommended by the chancellor, and, last of all, the protector, who protested "this was a most sorrowful business to him, but were it son or brother, he must prefer his majesty's safety to them, for he weighed his allegiance more than his blood," his majesty answered, "We perceive that there are great things objected and laid to my lord-admiral, my uncle, and they tend to treason; and we perceive that you require but justice to be done; we think it reasonable, and we will that you proceed according to your request." Records. The very next day, a bill of attainder against cil that the prisoner "required Mr. Latimer to come to him; the day of execution to be deferred; certain of his servants to be with him; his daughter to be with my Lady Duchess of Suffolk to be brought up; and such like." To these requests the council instructed their secretary to write 1 Burnet. 2 Strype, in his notes to Hayward, has given a full account of these proceedings from the Journals of the two houses, to prove "how fairly he (the admiral) was judged and dealt with in the parliament." 3 See it as published by Burnet himself in his Collection of Entry in Council Book, printed by Strype, Eccles. Mem. "their resolute answer to the said lord-admiral ;' by which appears to be meant that they put their negative upon most of them. The execution took place on Wednesday, the 20th, on Tower-hill, when Seymour died protesting that he had never committed or meant any treason against the king or the realm.' It should appear that he was attended, as he had requested, in his last moments by Latimer, who made some extraordinary remarks, both on his death and his life, in a sermon he preached before the king, a few days after. It was commonly observed, it seems, that the admiral had died very boldly, and that "he would not have done so, had he not been in a just quarrel." This Latimer declares to be "a deceivable argument." "This I will say," he proceeds, "if they ask me what I think of his death, that he died very dangerously, irksomely, horribly." "He was," concludes the zealous orator, "a man farthest from the fear of God that ever I knew or heard of in England. . I have heard say he was of the opinion that he believed not the immortality of the soul-that he was not right in the matter." Some additional touches are given to the picture in another sermon:-"I have heard say, when that good queen (Catherine Parr) that is gone, had ordained in her house daily prayer both | before noon and after noon, the admiral gets him out of the way, like a mole digging in the earth. He shall be Lot's wife to me as long as I live. He was a covetous man, an horrible covetous man; I would there were no mo in England. He was an ambitious man; I would there were no mo in England. He was a seditious man, a contemner of Common Prayer; I would there were no mo in England. He is gone; I would he had left none behind him." In ambition and covetousness, if not in contempt of the Common Prayer, Seymour, it is to be feared, did leave at least one man behind him who was fully his match. His daughter, of whom Queen Catherine had died in childbed, was an infant of scarce six months old when she lost her second parent; soon after which event she was, as her father had requested, committed to the charge of the Duchess of Suffolk. As the child was utterly penniless, as well as an orphan, her uncle, the wealthy and powerful lord - protector, in thus consigning her to the hands of strangers, promised that an annual sum should be allowed for her maintenance, and that a quantity of plate and other furniture which she had had in her nursery should be sent along with her to the house of the Duchess of Suffolk. It will hardly be believed that neither the allowance in money, nor even the plate and other articles, could be got for many months out of the hard grip of Somerset and his duchess: indeed, it is probable they never were obtained. But if Somerset ever did make any allowance for the support of his niece, he was very soon delivered from the burden, for in a few months more the poor child followed its parents to the grave. CHAPTER X.-CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY.-A.D. 1549–1553. EDWARD VI. l'opular tumults in England-Their causes-Religious character imparted to them-Their progress in Devonshire -Their suppression-Rebellion in Norfolk-Its violence and excesses-It is suppressed by the Earl of Warwick-Peculiar character of these insurrections-State of Scotland-Quarrels between the Scots and their allies the French-Dissatisfaction against the Protector Somerset-Offence occasioned by his arrogance and rapacity-The Earl of Warwick and the nobles combine against him-He is placed under arrest-He is imprisoned, tried, and fined-Peace concluded with France and Scotland-Trial and execution of Joan of Kent -Bishop Bonner sent to prison-Ecclesiastical events-Opposition of the Princess Mary-The Duke of Somerset intrigues to regain power and office-The Earl of Warwick created Duke of Northumberland-The Duke of Somerset arrested on a charge of treason-Accusations brought against him-His trial and execution-Proceedings of parliament-Ambition of the Duke of Northumberland-He strengthens himself by family alliances-Endeavours to procure the succession to the throne for his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey-Edward in his last illness moved to that effect-His consent obtained-Death of Edward V1. HE tragedy of the lord-admiral was followed by a summer of popular tumult and confusion, such as had not been known in England since the rebellion of Jack Cade, almost exactly 100 years before. Several Causes of various kinds concurred at this crisis VOL. II. to throw the peasantry in all parts of the country into a state of extraordinary excitability, or what may be called a predisposition to disorder and insurrection. The following passage occurs in a 1 Stow. 2 Latimer's Fourth Sermon, in the first edition of his sermons, 8vo. The passage is erased in subsequent editions. 110 letter written by the protector himself:-"The | employment thence arising, with the nearly causes and pretences of these uproars and risings equally loud and frequent complaints which are are divers and uncertain, and so full of variety almost in every camp (as they call them), that it is hard to write what it is; as ye know is like to be of people without head and rule, and that would have they wot not what. Some crieth, Pluck down inclosures and parks; some for their commons; others pretend the religion; a number would rule another while, and direct things as the gentlemen have done; and, indeed, all have conceived a wonderful hate against gentlemen, and taketh them all as their enemies. The ruffians among them and the soldiers, which be the chief doers, look for spoil. So that it seemeth no other thing but a plague and a fury amongst the vilest and worst sort of men." The discontent of the people, in fact, as usually happens, appears to have originated in their actual sufferings, although it may have been blown into a flame by provocations addressed chiefly to their fancies and prejudices, and, of course, would then be apt to catch at whatever principle or arrangement chanced to come in its way in any part of the whole machine of government or of society. One leading cause of the economical embarrassment and distress in which the kingdom was at this time involved, appears to have been the excessive depreciation which the currency had undergone in the course of the late and the present reigns. This must necessarily have enhanced the nominal prices of the necessaries of life, and, if wages did not rise in proportion, must have pressed with cruel severity upon the labouring classes. But the rise of the remuneration for labour which, in a natural and healthy state of things, would have accompanied the rise of the money prices of all other things, is asserted to have been prevented in the present case by certain peculiar circumstances, which acted partly so as to diminish employment or the demand for labour, partly so as to augment the numbers of persons dependent upon labour. The cause that principally diminished the demand for labour is affirmed to have been the conversion of land from tillage to pasturage, which was promoted by the increasing price of wool. It is certain that this change in the agriculture of the country was a subject of general complaint throughout a great part of the sixteenth century; and repeated attempts were even made by the legislature to restrain its progress, so that we must believe it to have actually, or at least apparently, taken place to some extent. But we are inclined to think that its real effect upon the market of labour was greatly exaggerated in the popular imagination. It is, at least, not very easy to reconcile the alleged evil of diminished 1 Printed by Burnet in Collection of Records, from original in Cottor MS. Galba B xii. at the same time made of the diminution of the population, which is asserted to have followed from the same cause. We may observe, that the number of persons having the commodity called labour to dispose of had, from a succession of causes, been on the increase in England for the last two centuries. So long as the system of villanage subsisted in its integrity, there coul 1, properly speaking, be no market of labour, in so far at least as regarded the business of agriculture, then constituting the great field of the national industry; the labourer then stood in the relation of a mere machine, requiring, indeed, like other machines, to be fed and maintained, but having nothing more to do with the disposal of his labour than a modern steam-engine. The decay, and eventually the extinction of villanage, first gave birth, as has been already shown, both to freedom of labour and to pauperism-called into being at once the two classes of labourers for hire, and paupers or beggars, which are really only the two divisions of one great class, that of the persons whose only exchangeable possession is their labour; the former being those who have been able to dispose of this commodity, the latter those who have not. Every change that afterwards snapped any of the old attachments that had kept men practically fixed to the land, though not perhaps by any absolutely legal bond, added to the number of both of these sections of the population. This was one of the effects of the breaking up of the old Norman feudalism in the reign of Henry VII., by the new facilities given to the great landholders of alienating their estates. It was also one of the effects of the overthrow of the old ecclesiastical system in the last and the present reign. The numerous monastic establishments all had, as well as the great landholders, their crowds of retainers and dependants-partly tenants and servants who lived upon their estates, partly paupers and mendicants, who were fed by their charity. There were also the inmates of the religious houses themselves, male and female, a far from insignificant addition. All these persons, or at least by far the greater number of them, were thrown loose from tenures of shelter and maintenance, which might, in the case of each of them, be considered more or less fixed and sure, and were sent to swell the overflowing stream of that labour which had nothing but the chances of the market to trust to. And along with the other causes contributing to the same state of things, may be mentioned even the uprooting of old feelings, habits, and connections, by the mere ferment excited in men's minds by the preaching of the new opinions in religion-fiercely resisted by many, eagerly received by others, and by not a few carried out into all the extravagances of | ditches, killed up the deer which they found in fanaticism and even of licentiousness. It could parks, spoiled and made havoc after the manner not be but that this general state of excitement, of an open rebellion." The narratives of the amounting in many cases to enthusiasm or deli- commencement of the disturbances are singularly rium, should have made numbers of people in various and contradictory. In fact, the convulpatient of all sober and regular industry, and set sion, which probably broke out in different places them adrift on the sea of life without either chart nearly at the same time, seems to have rapidly or aim. It is easy, from all this, to understand spread in all directions, till it had extended itself how the present insurrection took the shape and over the greater part of the kingdom. Accordthe spirit it did. Its chief cry soon came to be ing to Burnet, the protector's proclamation against the restoration of the old religion, and vengeance the inclosures, which was "set out contrary to against those who had wrought and profited by the mind of the whole council," appeared after its downfall. The priests, of course, and other the first risings in Wilts and elsewhere; it was leaders of the Popish party, found it easy to turn designed to pacify the people, and was accomthe gaze of the exasperated people upon the most panied with another, indemnifying or pardoning immediate and obvious sources of their sufferings, the insurgents for what was past, provided they or what could be plausibly represented as such; should carry themselves obediently for the future. and did not neglect so favourable an occasion of "Commissions," proceeds the historian, "were stirring up their most energetic feelings in behalf also sent everywhere, with an unlimited power of the ancient system and against the innovations, to the commissioners to hear and determine all which seemed only to have benefited a few of the causes about enclosures, highways, and cottages. upper classes at the expense of the great mass of The vast power these commissioners assumed the nation. was much complained of; the landlords said it was an invasion of their property, to subject them thus to the pleasure of those who were sent to ordinary courts according to law." A more illegal and arbitrary act, indeed, than the issuing of these commissions never was attempted in the most despotic times. Nor, prompted as it was by a weak or interested craving after popularity, did it succeed in the only object it proposed to have, and for which all other considerations were disregarded-the satisfying of the popular clamour. "The commons," proceeds Burnet, "being encouraged by the favour they heard the protector bore them, and not able to govern their heat, or stay for a more peaceable issue, did rise again, but were anew quieted. Yet the protector being opposed much by the council, he was not able to redress this grievance so fully as the people hoped. So in Oxfordshire and Devonshire they rose again, and also in Norfolk and Yorkshire.”1 From Holinshed's account, it would appear that a proceeding on the part of the protector, of very questionable wisdom, or, at any rate, ma-examine the matters, without proceeding in the naged with but little discretion, was the spark that kindled the flame. This was a proclamation which he issued "against inclosures, and taking in of fields and commons that were accustomed to lie open for the behoof of the inhabitants dwelling near to the same, who had grievously complained of gentlemen and others for taking from them the use of those fields and commons." It is probable enough that some landholders may have acted in a harsh and oppressive manner in thus improving their estates; but it does not appear that any legal rights were generally violated; and, at all events, if they were, this royal proclamation itself was as illegal and unjust as anything that the landlords could have done. It settled the matter in a very summary way indeed -simply commanding that all commons that had been inclosed should, under a penalty, be laid open again by a certain day. "But how well soever," proceeds the chronicler, "the setters forth of this proclamation meant, thinking thereby, peradventure, to appease the grudge of the people that found themselves grieved with such inclo-" instigation and pricking forward" they are sures, yet verily it turned not to the wished effect, but rather ministered occasion of a foul and dangerous disorder. For whereas there were few that obeyed the commandment, the unadvised people presuming upon their proclamation, think-men. ing they should be borne out by them that had set it forth, rashly without order took upon them to redress the matter; and assembling themselves in unlawful wise, chose to them captains and leaders, broke open the enclosures, cast down It seems to have been in Devonshire that the religious cry was first raised. Here the commons, besides "Humphrey Arundel, Esq., governor of the Mount," and other laymen, had for their captains a number of Popish priests, by whose said to have been chiefly excited and directed in their proceedings. Their rising began on the 10th of June, on which day they assembled in armed array to the number of nearly 10,000 "At court," says Burnet, "it was hoped 1 See a long and interesting letter remonstrating with Somerset on the course he had taken in this instance, from his friend Paget, then ambassador at the court of the emperor, in Strype's Eccles. Mem. vi. 419-427. The writer points out, in strong terms, the ruinous tendency of the protector's mode of proceeding, an does not spare some explicit enough allusions to his motives. |