EDWARD VI. 



EDWARD VI. 



Tyrrel's examination, we may observe, appean to hare taken place in 

 1493, but be wa* not executed till 1603. He was committed to the 

 Tower in tbe first of these yean on the appearance of Perkin Warbeck, 

 expressly that be might be examined touching the murder; and it 

 wai on quit* another charge that he wai executed ten yean after. 

 More's account therefore of the circumstances of his confession is 

 lightly inaccurate. He does not however expressly say, as Sir James 

 Mackintosh makes him do (' Hut. Eng.,' ii. 59), that Tyrrel " confessed 

 hi* guilt tcke ke wai executed twenty yean after for concealing the 

 murder of the Earl of Suffolk." Bacon himself, who relates, in their 

 proper places, both his first imprisonment and his execution, says, 

 inaccurately, that he was beheaded "soon after" the examinations. 

 [RICHARD III.] 



EDWARD VL, the only son of Henry VIII. who survived him, 

 was born at Hampton Court 1 2th of October 1537. His mother, queen 

 Jane Seymour, died on the twelfth day after giving him birth. The 

 child had three stepmothers in succession after this; but he was 

 probably not much an object of attention with any of them. Sir John 

 Hayward, who has written the history of his life and reign with great 

 fulness, says that he " was brought np among nurses until he arrived 

 to tbe age of six years." He was then committed to the care of Dr. 

 (afterwards Sir Anthony) Cooke, and Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Cheke, 

 the former of whom appears to have undertaken his instruction in 

 philosophy and divinity, the latter in Greek and Latin. The prince 

 made great proficiency under these able masters. Henry VIII. died 

 at his palace at Westminster early in the morning of Friday the 28th 

 of January 1547 ; but it is remarkable that no announcement of his 

 dermssn appears to have been made till Monday the 31st, although the 

 parliament met and transacted business on the intervening Saturday. 

 Edward, who was at Hatfield when the event happened, was brought 

 thence in the first instance to the residence of his sister Elizabeth at 

 Enfield, and from that place, on the 31st, to tbe Tower at London, 

 where he was proclaimed the same day. The council now opened the 

 will of the late king (executed on the 30th of December preceding), 

 by which it was found that he had (according to the powers granted 

 him by the acts 23 Hen. VIII., ch. 7, and 35 Hen. VIII., ch, 1) appointed 

 sixteen persons under the name of executors, to exercise the powers of 

 the government during the minority of his son. One of these, the 

 king's maternal uncle, Kdward Seymour, earl of Hertford, was imme- 

 diately elected by the rest their president, and either received from 

 them in this character, or assumed of his own authority, the titles of 

 governor of his majesty, lord protector of all his realms, and lieu- 

 tenant-general of all his armies. He was also created Duke of Somer- 

 set, and soon after took to himself the office of lord high treasurer, 

 and was further honoured by being made earl marshal for life. About 

 the same time his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, was created Baron 

 Seymour of Sudley, and appointed lord high admiral The elevation 

 of Somerset had been opposed by the lord chancellor Wriothesley (now 

 Earl of Southampton) ; but the protector in a few weeks got rid of 

 his further interference by taking advantage of an informality into 

 which the earl had fallen in the execution of his office of chancellor, 

 and frightening him into a resignation both of the seals and of his 

 seat in the executive council. 



The period of the administration of the protector Somerset forms 

 the first of the two parts into which the reign of Edward VI. divides 

 itself. The character of tbe protector has been the subject of much 

 controversy ; but opinions have differed rather as to the general esti- 

 mate that is to be formed of him, or the balance of his merits and 

 defects, than as to the particular qualities, good and bad, by which he 

 was distinguished. It may be said to be admitted on all bauds that 

 he was a brave and able soldier, but certainly with no pretensions in 

 that capacity to a humanity beyond his age ; that as a statesman he 

 was averse to measures of severity, and fond of popular applause, 

 bat unstable, easily influenced by appeals either to his vanity or his 

 fears, and without any fertility of resources, or political genius of a 

 high order. It must be admitted also that he was both ambitious and 

 rapacious in no ordinary degree. Add to all this, that with one of 

 the two great parties that divided the country he had the merit, with 

 the other the demerit, of being a patron of tbe new opinions in reli- 

 gion and it becomes easy to undentand the opposite feelings with 

 which he was regarded in his own time, and the contradictory repre- 

 sentations that have been given of him by party writers since. 



One of the first acts of his administration was an expedition into 

 Scotland, undertaken with the object of compelling the government 

 of that country to fulfil the treaty entered into with Henry VIII. in 

 1643 for the marriage of the young Queen Mary to Edward. The 

 Scottish forces wire tignally defeated by the English protector at the 

 battle of 1'iukie, fought 10th of .September 1547; but the state of 

 politic*, as bearing upon his personal interests in England, compelled 

 Somerset to hasten back to the south without securing any of the 

 advantages of bis victory. He returned to Scotland in the summer of 

 the following year ; l.ut he wholly failed in attaining any of the object* 

 of th* war. The young queen was conveyed to France ; and the 

 ascendancy of th* r'rench or Catholic party in the Scottish government 

 was confirmed, and continued unbroken during all the rest of the reign 

 of Edward. 



Meanwhile great changes were effected in the domestic state of 

 England. The renunciation of the supremacy of the pope, the disso. 



lution of the religious house*, and the qualified allowance of the 

 reading of the Scripture* in English, were the principal alteration* in 

 religion that bad been made up to the death of the late king. Only a 

 few months before the close of the reign of Henry, Protestants as well 

 as Catholics had been burned in Smitbfield. Under Somerset and the 

 new king measure* were immediately taken to establish Protestantism 

 as the religion of the state. Even before the meeting of Parliament, 

 the practice of reading the service in English was adopted in the royal 

 chapel, and a visitation, appointed by the council, removed the images 

 from the churches throughout the kingdom. Bishops Gardiner of 

 Winchester and Bonner of London, who resisted these measures, were 

 committed to the Fleet, The parliament met in November, when bills 

 were passed allowing the cup to the laity, giving the nomination of 

 bishops to the king, and enacting that all processes in the ecclesiastical 

 court* should run in the king's name. The statute of the Six Articles, 

 commonly called the Bloody Statute, passed in 1539, was repealed, 

 along with various other acts of the preceding reign for the regulation 

 of religion. By the parliament of 1548 the use of the Book of Com- 

 mon Prayer was established, and all laws prohibiting spiritual persons 

 to marry were declared void. At the same time an act was psssod 

 (2 and 3 Ed. VI., c. 19) abolishing tho old laws against eating flesh on 

 certain days, but still enforcing the observance of the former practice 

 by new penalties, " the king's majesty," says the preamble, " consider- 

 ing that due and godly abstinence is a mean to virtue, and to subdue 

 men's bodies to their soul and spirit, and considering also specially 

 that fishers, and men using the trade of living by fishing in the sea, 

 may thereby the rather be set on work, and that by eating of fish much 

 flesh shall be saved and increased." 



But Somerset's path was now crossed by a new opponent, in tho 

 person of his own brother, Lord Seymour. That nobleman, equally 

 ambitious with the protector, but of a much more violent and unscru- 

 pulous temper, is supposed to have formed the design, very soon after 

 the king's accession, of disputing the supreme power with his brother. 

 It is said to have been a notice of his intrigues that suddenly recalled 

 Somerset from Scotland after the battle of Pinkie. The crime of 

 Seymour does not appear to have gone farther than caballing against 

 bis brother ; but Somerset contrived to represent it as amounting to 

 high treason. On this charge he was consigned to the Tower ; a bill 

 attainting him was brought into tho House of Lords, and read a first 

 time on the 25th of February 1549 ; it was passed unanimously on 

 the 27th. The accused was not heard in his own defence, nor were 

 any witnesses examined against him ; the House proceeded simply on 

 the assurance of his brother, and of other memben of the council, that 

 he was guilty. The bill was afterwards passed, with little hesitation, 

 by the House of Commons ; it received the royal assent on the 14th 

 of March ; and on the 20th Lord Seymour was beheaded on Tower- 

 hill, with his last breath solemnly protesting his innocence. 



During the summer of this year the kingdom was disturbed by 

 formidable insurrections of the populace in Somerset, Lincoln, Keut, 

 Essex, Suffolk, Devon, Cornwall, and especially in Norfolk, whore a 

 tanner of the name of Kett opposed the government at the head of 

 a body of 20,000 follower*. The dcaraess of provisions, the lownesa 

 of wages, the enclosure of common fields, and in some places the abo- 

 lition of the old religion, with its monasteries where the poor used to 

 be fed, and its numerous ceremonies and holidays that used to gladden 

 labour with so much relaxation and amusement, were the principal 

 topics of the popular clamour. It is worth noticing that the agency 

 of the press was on this occasion employed, probably for the first time, 

 as an instrument of government. Holinshed records that " while 

 these wicked commotions and tumult*, through the rage of the undia- 

 erect commons, were thus raised in sundry parts of the realm, sundry 

 wholesome and godly exhortations were published, to advertise them 

 of their duty, and to lay before them their heinous offence*." Among 

 them was a tract by Sir John Cheke, entitled ' The Hurt of Sedition, 

 how grievous it is to a Commonwealth,' which is a very able and 

 vigorous piece of writing. It was found necessary however to call 

 another force into operation : the insurgents were not put down with- 

 out much fighting and bloodshed ; and many of the rebels wore 

 executed after the suppression of tho commotions. The iusUlution of 

 lords-lieutenants of counties arose out of these disturbances. 



A few mouth* after these events brought Somerset's domination to 

 a close. His new enemy, John Dudley, formerly Viscount Lisle, and 

 now Earl of Warwick, the son of that Dudley whose nam is infamous 

 in history for his oppressions in tbe reign of the seventh Henry, had 

 probably been watching his opportunity, and carefully maturing hi* 

 designs against the protector for a long time. It is supposed to have 

 been through his dark and interested counsel that Somerset wss 

 chiefly impelled to take the course which he did against his brother ; 

 Warwick's object was to destroy both, and he probably counted that 

 by the admiral's death, and the part which the protector was made to 

 take in it, he both removed one formidable rival, and struck a fatal 

 blow at the character and reputation of another. He himself mean- 

 while had been industriously accumulating popularity and power. 

 He bad greatly distinguished himself at the battle of 1'inkie, and in 

 other passage* of the Scotch war ; and it had been chiefly by him 

 that the lute insurrection in Norfolk had been so effectually quelled. 

 The energy which he showed on this occasion wo* contrasted by the 

 enemies of the protector with what they represented as the feebleness 



