A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



privately to Enfield by the earl of Hertford and Sir Anthony Browne. 188 

 There he and his sister Elizabeth heard with many tears the news of their 

 father's death, and on the following day (31 January), Edward made his 

 state entry into London. 184 



Edward VI spent the summers of his reign at Hampton Court. He 

 was there also in the October of 1 549 when Somerset's ecclesiastical and 

 economic policy brought his Protectorate to a close. The council was 

 assembled in London ' thinking to meet with the Lord Protector to make 

 him amend his disorders.' m Somerset wrote from Hampton Court in 

 Edward's name asking why they gathered together their ' powers ' and 

 requesting that they should come peaceably to consult with him. But 

 the following day, having heard how closely the council consulted 

 together, 188 and guessing the hostility of their intentions towards him, he 

 made ready to defend himself at Hampton Court. He had the palace 

 gates repaired and brought down about five hundred * harnesses ' from the 

 armoury for his own and the king's men. 187 He raised the country side, 

 summoning all the king's loving subjects to repair to Hampton Court, 

 ' in most defensible array, with harness and weapons to defend his most 

 royal person and his most entirely beloved uncle, the Lord Protector,' 

 against whom a conspiracy was suspected. 188 He requested the aid of 

 the earl of Oxford's servants, asked Sir Henry Seymour to levy horse and 

 foot, and wrote under the king's signet to the mayor, aldermen and 

 citizens of London to send one thousand men ' well harnessed and with 

 good and convenient weapons ' to Hampton Court. 189 Then not content 

 with these precautions, he decided to remove the king to Windsor. 170 

 Accordingly they set out between nine and ten o'clock of the same 

 evening (6 October). He was subsequently charged with having alarmed 

 the king by telling him that his life was in danger, and with having 

 injured his health by the hasty removal to Windsor. 171 Somerset treated 

 with the council by letter, 178 but on 14 October the lords came in person 

 to the castle and carried him a prisoner through Holborn to the Tower. 178 

 The king returned the same day to Hampton Court, seemingly little 

 affected by his uncle's fate, and the council met on 15 October to 

 reorganize the government in the favour of Warwick. One of those 

 who gained by this coup <Tttat was Sir Thomas Wroth of Durrants near 

 Enfield, who was then made one of the four principal gentlemen of the 

 king's privy chamber. It was the duty of two of these gentlemen to 

 be always with the king, and in consideration of ' the singular care and 

 travail that they should have about the king's person,' and also to secure 



* Literary Remains of Edw. VI (ed. J. G. Nichols), 210. 

 141 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Engl. vi, 20-1. 

 ** Edw. VI's Journal in Literary Remains of Edw. VI, 233. 



" Tytler, Engl. under Edw. VI and Mary, i, 249. Somerset's suspicions were aroused by hearing 

 that the councillors dined every day at one another's houses. 



47 Literary Remains of Edw. VI, 235. * Ibid. ; Tytler, op. cit. i, 205. 



'* Str 7P e > El- Mem. ii, App. 44 ; Ellis, Letters, i (2), 166. 



"* Literary Remains of Edw. VI, 235. 



171 Acts of the P.C. 1547-5, PP- 34i-z- '" Ibid. 333, 337-40. 



171 Literary Remains of Edw. VI, 255. 



30 



