INTRODUCTORY 3! 



rapacious, more unscrupulous, more treacherous, and more 

 malignant as the boy grew up. They loaded themselves with 

 wealth and titles. Their first act, as I have already said, was 

 to confiscate the guild lands, and thus to destroy what were the 

 benefit societies of the artisans in the towns. They soon quar- 

 relled over plunder and power. The first victim was Seymour 

 of Sudeley, one of the most arrogant and rapacious of the crew. 

 Later on came the struggle between Somerset and Northum- 

 berland, between the king's uncle and the son of Henry the 

 Seventh's extortionate minister, the father of Elizabeth's worth- 

 less favourite. Somerset perished and Northumberland became 

 all powerful. The reforming party, whose hopes lay in the 

 king's life, and failing him, in the exclusion of Mary Tudor 

 from the throne, were obliged, or thought themselves obliged, to 

 ally themselves with this bad man, and to further or acquiesce 

 in his schemes. There was some plausibility in the project 

 of setting Jane Grey on the throne. She was the descendant 

 of Henry's favourite sister, had been designated for the suc- 

 cession after her cousin, was amiable, capable, and dignified. 

 She could be trusted to carry out the Reformation which 

 Edward had begun and the reformers were furthering over- 

 hastily. But everything that Northumberland touched was 

 tainted. In the last year of Edward's reign, he had procured 

 the surrender of the See of Durham with all those regalian 

 rights which belonged to the county Palatine, some of which 

 remained to the days of Charles II, a few even to the present 

 generation. He intended to procure a grant of the county 

 Palatine, and undoubtedly to dismember northern England, by 

 erecting an independent principality for himself, which should 

 include the northern counties, and probably Yorkshire, in 

 which he could strengthen himself by the aid of the Scots, 

 perhaps procure the young Queen of Scotland for his son 

 Robert it was seriously suggested afterwards by Elizabeth 

 and defy all attempts to dispossess him. The only bishop who 

 resisted this project was Archbishop Cranmer. 



The king died on July 6th, and Jane was proclaimed on the 



