CHAPTER I 

 Rise of the Somersets 



THE founder of the Somerset family was born 

 at a remarkable period of English history. 

 When his father, the third Duke of Somerset, died 

 at Hexham, feudal and mediaeval England was pass- 

 ing away. The age of faith and chivalry was 

 nearing its close. The worldliness of Wolsey, the 

 polite scepticism of Erasmus, and the wilfulness 

 and extravagance of Henry VHI. were in the 

 near future to show the hollowness of the one and 

 the weakness of the other. 



The Crusades had become a fanciful aspiration, 

 or a diplomatic fiction. Protestantism, that spirit of 

 democracy touched with religious emotion, was to 

 shake the foundations of Church and Monarchy. 

 The kindred ideas of direct approach to heaven 

 and direct government by the people were in the 

 air. Both were as yet immature. The seeds al- 

 ready sown required time to grow up. This was 

 given by the resolute monarchy of the Tudors, 

 and the crushing first of the old historical nobles 

 and secondly of the ecclesiastical power of Rome. 



3 



