Chapter XXXIV: Edward VI (2)

The people were at that time extremely distracted by the opposite opinions of their preachers; and as they were totally unable to judge of the reasons advanced on either side, and naturally regarded every thing which they heard at church as of equal authority, a great confusion and fluctuation resulted from this uncertainty. The council had first endeavored to remedy the inconvenience by laying some restraints on preaching; but finding this expedient ineffectual, they imposed a total silence on the preachers, and thereby put an end at once to all the polemics of the pulpit.[****] By the nature of things, this restraint could only be temporary. For in proportion as the ceremonies of public worship, its shows and exterior observances, were retrenched by the reformers, the people were inclined to contract a stronger attachment to sermons, whence alone they received any occupation or amusement. The ancient religion, by giving its votaries something to do, freed them from the trouble of thinking: sermons were delivered only in the principal churches, and at some particular fasts and festivals: and the practice of haranguing the populace, which, if abused, is so powerful an incitement to faction and sedition, had much less scope and influence during those ages.

* Burnet, vol. ii.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 60. Collier, vol. ii. p. 241. Heylin,
p. 55.

*** Burnet, vol. ii.

**** Fuller. Heylin. Burnet.

The greater progress was made towards a reformation in England, the farther did the protector find himself from all prospect of completing the union with Scotland; and the queen dowager, as well as the clergy, became the more averse to all alliance with a nation which had so far departed from all ancient principles. Somerset, having taken the town of Haddington, had ordered it to be strongly garrisoned and fortified by Lord Grey: he also erected some fortifications at Lauder; and he hoped that these two places, together with Broughty and some smaller fortresses which were in the hands of the English, would serve as a curb on Scotland, and would give him access into the heart of the country.

Arran, being disappointed in some attempts on Broughty, relied chiefly on the succors expected from France for the recovery of these places; and they arrived at last in the frith, to the number of six thousand men; half of them Germans. They were commanded by Dessé, and under him by Andelot, Strozzi, Meilleraye, and Count Rhingrave. The Scots were at that time so sunk by their misfortunes, that five hundred English horse were able to ravage the whole country without resistance, and make inroads to the gates of the capital:[*] but on the appearance of the French succors, they collected more courage; and having joined Dessé with a considerable reënforcement, they laid siege to Haddington.[**] This was an undertaking for which they were by themselves totally unfit; and even with the assistance of the French, they placed their chief hopes of success in starving the garrison. After some vain attempts to take the place by a regular siege, the blockade was formed, and the garrison was repulsed with loss in several sallies which they made upon the besiegers.

* Beagué, Hist. of the Campaigns, 1548 and 1549. p. 6.

** Holingshed, p. 993.

The hostile attempts which the late king and the protector had made against Scotland, not being steady, regular, nor pushed to the last extremity, had served only to imitate the nation, and to inspire them with the strongest aversion to that union which was courted in so violent a manner. Even those who were inclined to the English alliance were displeased to have it imposed on them by force of arms; and the earl of Huntley in particular said, pleasantly, that he disliked not the match, but he hated the manner of wooing.[*] The queen dowager, finding these sentiments to prevail, called a parliament in an abbey near Haddington; and it was there proposed that the young queen, for her greater security, should be sent to France, and be committed to the custody of that ancient ally. Some objected that this measure was desperate, allowed no resource in case of miscarriage, exposed the Scots to be subjected by foreigners, involved them in perpetual war with England, and left them no expedient by which they could conciliate the friendship of that powerful nation. It was answered, on the other hand, that the queen’s presence was the very cause of war with England; that that nation would desist when they found that their views of forcing a marriage had become altogether impracticable; and that Henry, being engaged by so high a mark of confidence, would take their sovereign under his protection, and use his utmost efforts to defend the kingdom. These arguments were aided by French gold, which was plentifully distributed among the nobles. The governor had a pension conferred on him of twelve thousand livres a year, received the title of duke of Chatelrault, and obtained for his son the command of a hundred men at arms.[**] And as the clergy dreaded the consequences of the English alliance, they seconded this measure with all the zeal and industry which either principle or interest could inspire. It was accordingly determined to send the queen to France; and, what was understood to be the necessary consequence, to marry her to the dauphin. Villegaignon, commander of four French galleys lying in the Frith of Forth, set sail as if he intended to return home; but when he reached the open sea he turned northwards, passed by the Orkneys, and came in on the west coast at Dunbarton; an extraordinary voyage for ships of that fabric.[***] The young queen was there committed to him; and, being attended by the lords Ereskine and Livingstone, she put to sea, and, after meeting with some tempestuous weather, arrived safely at Brest, whence she was conducted to Paris, and soon after she was betrothed to the dauphin.

* Heylin, p. 46. Patten.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 83. Buchanan, lib. xv. Keith, p. 55.
Thuanus, lib. v. c. 15.

*** Thuanus, lib. v. c. 15.

Somerset, pressed by many difficulties at home and despairing of success in his enterprise against Scotland, was desirous of composing the differences with that kingdom, and he offered the Scots a ten years’ truce; but as they insisted on his restoring all the places which he had taken, the proposal came to nothing. The Scots recovered the fortresses of Hume and Fastcastle by surprise, and put the garrisons to the sword: they repulsed with loss the English, who, under the command of Lord Seymour, made a descent, first in Fife, then at Montrose: in the former action, James Stuart, natural brother to the queen, acquired honor; in the latter, Ereskine of Dun. An attempt was made by Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Thomas Palmer, at the head of a considerable body, to throw relief into Haddington; but these troops, falling into an ambuscade, were almost wholly cut in pieces.[*] And though a small body of two hundred men escaped all the vigilance of the French, and arrived safely in Haddington with some ammunition and provisions, the garrison was reduced to such difficulties, that the protector found it necessary to provide more effectually for their relief. He raised an army of eighteen thousand men, and adding three thousand Germans, who, on the dissolution of the Protestant alliance, had offered their service to England, he gave the command of the whole to the earl of Shrewsbury.[**] Dessé raised the blockade on the approach of the English; and with great difficulty made good his retreat to Edinburgh, where he posted himself advantageously. Shrewsbury, who had lost the opportunity of attacking him on his march, durst not give him battle in his present situation; and contenting himself with the advantage already gained of supplying Haddington, he retired into England.

* Stowe, p. 595. Holingshed, p, 994.

** Hayward, p. 291.

Though the protection of France was of great consequence to the Scots in supporting them against the invasions of England, they reaped still more benefit from the distractions and divisions which have crept into the councils of this latter kingdom. Even the two brothers, the protector and admiral, not content with the high stations which they severally enjoyed, and the great eminence to which they had risen, had entertained the most violent jealousy of each other; and they divided the whole court and kingdom by their opposite cabals and pretensions. Lord Seymour was a man of insatiable ambition; arrogant, assuming, implacable; and though esteemed of superior capacity to the protector, he possessed not to the same degree the confidence and regard of the people. By his flattery and address, he had so insinuated himself into the good graces of the queen dowager, that, forgetting her usual prudence and decency, she married him immediately upon the demise of the late king; insomuch that, had she soon proved pregnant, it might have been doubtful to which husband the child belonged. The credit and riches of this alliance supported the ambition of the admiral, but gave umbrage to the duchess of Somerset, who, uneasy that the younger brother’s wife should have the precedency, employed all her credit with her husband, which was too great, first to create, then to widen the breach between the two brothers.[*]

* Hayward, p. 301. Heylin, p. 72. Camden. Thuanus, lib. vi.
p. 6. Haynes, p. 69.

The first symptoms of this misunderstanding appeared when the protector commanded the army in Scotland. Secretary Paget, a man devoted to Somerset, remarked that Seymour was forming separate intrigues among the counsellors; was corrupting by presents the king’s servants; and even endeavoring, by improper indulgences and liberalities, to captivate the affections of the young monarch. Paget represented to him the danger of this conduct; desired him to reflect on the numerous enemies whom the sudden elevation of their family had created; and warned him, that any dissension between him and the protector would be greedily laid hold of to effect the ruin of both. Finding his remonstrances neglected, he conveyed intelligence of the danger to Somerset, and engaged him to leave the enterprise upon Scotland unfinished, in order to guard against the attempts of his domestic enemies. In the ensuing parliament, the admiral’s projects appeared still more dangerous to public tranquillity; and as he had acquired many partisans, he made a direct attack upon his brother’s authority. He represented to his friends, that formerly, during a minority, the office of protector of the kingdom had been kept separate from that of governor of the king’s person; and that the present union of these two important trusts conferred on Somerset an authority which could not safely be lodged in any subject.[*] The young king was even prevailed on to write a letter to the parliament desiring that Seymour might be appointed his governor; and that nobleman had formed a party in the two houses, by which he hoped to effect his purpose. The design was discovered before its execution; and some common friends were sent to remonstrate with him, but had so little influence, that he threw out many menacing expressions, and rashly threatened that, if he were thwarted in his attempt, he would make this parliament the blackest that ever sat in England.[**] The council sent for him to answer for his conduct; but he refused to attend: they then began to threaten in their turn, and informed him that the king’s letter, instead of availing him any thing to the execution of his views, would be imputed to him as a criminal enterprise, and be construed as a design to disturb the government, by forming a separate interest with a child and minor. They even let fall some menaces of sending him to the Tower for his temerity; and the admiral, finding himself prevented in his design, was obliged to submit, and to desire a reconciliation with his brother.

The mild and moderate temper of Somerset made him willing to forget these enterprises of the admiral; but the ambition of that turbulent spirit could not be so easily appeased. His spouse, the queen dowager, died in childbed; but so far from regarding this event as a check to his aspiring views, he founded on it the scheme of a more extraordinary elevation. He made his addresses to the lady Elizabeth, then in the sixteenth year of her age; and that princess, whom even the hurry of business and the pursuits of ambition could not, in her more advanced years, disengage entirely from the tender passions, seems to have listened to the insinuations of a man who possessed every talent proper to captivate the affections of the fair.[***]

* Haynes, p. 82, 90.

** Haynes, p. 75.

*** Haynes, p. 95, 96, 102, 108.

But as Henry VIII. had excluded his daughters from all hopes of succession if they married without the consent of his executors, which Seymour could never hope to obtain, it was concluded that he meant to effect his purpose by expedients still more rash and more criminal. All the other measures of the admiral tended to confirm this suspicion. He continued to attack, by presents, the fidelity of those who had more immediate access to the king’s person: he endeavored to seduce the young prince into his interest, he found means of holding a private correspondence with him; he openly decried his brother’s administration; and asserted that, by enlisting Germans and other foreigners he intended to form a mercenary army, which might endanger the king’s authority, and the liberty of the people: by promises and persuasion he brought over to his party many of the principal nobility; and had extended his interest all over England: he neglected not even the most popular persons of inferior rank; and had computed that he could, on occasion, muster an army of ten thousand men, composed of his servants, tenants, and retainers:[*] he had already provided arms for their use; and having engaged in his interests Sir John Sharington, a corrupt man, master of the mint at Bristol, he flattered himself that money would not be wanting. Somerset was well apprised of all these alarming circumstances, and endeavored, by the most friendly expedients, by entreaty, reason, and even by heaping new favors upon the admiral, to make him desist from his dangerous counsels: but finding all endeavors ineffectual, he began to think of more severe remedies. The earl of Warwick was an ill instrument between the brothers; and had formed the design, by inflaming the quarrel, to raise his own fortune on the ruins of both.

* Hayne, p. 105, 106.

Dudley, earl of Warwick, was the son of that Dudley, minister to Henry VII., who, having, by rapine, extortion, and perversion of law, incurred the hatred of the public, had been sacrificed to popular animosity in the beginning of the subsequent reign. The late king, sensible of the iniquity, at least illegality, of the sentence, had afterwards restored young Dudley’s blood by act of parliament; and finding him endowed with abilities, industry, and activity, he had intrusted him with many important commands, and had ever found him successful in his undertakings. He raised him to the dignity of Viscount Lisle, conferred on him the office of admiral, and gave him by his will a place among his executors. Dudley made still further progress during the minority; and having obtained the title of earl of Warwick, and undermined the credit of Southampton, he bore the chief rank among the protector’s counsellors. The victory gained at Pinkey was much ascribed to his courage and conduct; and he was universally regarded as a man equally endowed with the talents of peace and of war. But all these virtues were obscured by still greater vices; an exorbitant ambition, an insatiable avarice, a neglect of decency, a contempt of justice: and as he found that Lord Seymour, whose abilities and enterprising spirit he chiefly dreaded, was involving himself in ruin by his rash counsels, he was determined to push him on the precipice, and thereby remove the chief obstacle to his own projected greatness.

When Somerset found that the public peace was endangered by his brother’s seditious, not to say rebellious schemes, he was the more easily persuaded by Warwick to employ the extent of royal authority against him; and after depriving him of the office of admiral, he signed a warrant for committing him to the Tower. Some of his accomplices were also taker into custody; and three privy counsellors, being sent to examine them, made a report, that they had met with very full and important discoveries. Yet still the protector suspended the blow, and showed a reluctance to ruin his brother. He offered to desist from the prosecution, if Seymour would promise him a cordial reconciliation, and, renouncing all ambitious hopes, be contented with a private life, and retire into the country. But as Seymour made no other answer to these friendly offers than menaces and defiances, he ordered a charge to be drawn up against him, consisting of thirty-three articles;[*] and the whole to be laid before the privy council. It is pretended, that every particular was so incontestably proved, both by witnesses and his own handwriting, that there was no room for doubt; yet did the council think proper to go in a body to the Tower, in order more fully to examine the prisoner. He was not daunted by the appearance: he boldly demanded a fair trial; required to be confronted with the witnesses; desired that the charge might be left with him, in order to be considered; and refused to answer any interrogatories by which he might accuse himself.

* Buruet, Tol. ii. coll. 31. 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. 18.

It is apparent that, notwithstanding what is pretended, there must have been some deficiency in the evidence against Seymour, when such demands, founded on the plainest principles of law and equity, were absolutely rejected. We shall indeed conclude, if we carefully examine the charge, that many of the articles were general, and scarcely capable of any proof many of them, if true, susceptible of a more favorable interpretation; and that though, on the whole, Seymour appears to have been a dangerous subject, he had not advanced far in those treasonable projects imputed to him. The chief part of his actual guilt seems to have consisted in some unwarrantable practices in the admiralty, by which pirates were protected and illegal impositions laid upon the merchants.

But the administration had at that time an easy instrument of vengeance, to wit, the parliament; and needed not to give themselves any concern with regard either to the guilt of the persons whom they prosecuted, or the evidence which could be produced against them. A session of parliament being held, it was resolved to proceed against Seymour by bill of attainder; and the young king being induced, after much solicitation, to give his consent to it, a considerable weight was put on his approbation. The matter was first laid before the upper house; and several peers, rising up in their places, gave an account of what they knew concerning Lord Seymour’s conduct, and his criminal words or actions.

{1549.} These narratives were received as undoubted evidence; and though the prisoner had formerly engaged many friends and partisans among the nobility, no one had either the courage or equity to move, that he might be heard in his defence, that the testimony against him should be delivered in a legal manner, and that he should be confronted with the witnesses. A little more scruple was made in the house of commons: there were even some members who objected against the whole method of proceeding by bill of attainder passed in absence; and insisted, that a formal trial should be given to every man before his condemnation. But when a message was sent by the king, enjoining the house to proceed, and offering that the same narratives should be laid before them which had satisfied the peers, they were easily prevailed on to acquiesce.[*] The bill passed in a full house. Near four hundred voted for it; not above nine or ten against it.[**] The sentence was soon after executed, and the prisoner was beheaded on Tower Hill. The warrant was signed by Somerset, who was exposed to much blame, on account of the violence of these proceedings. The attempts of the admiral seem chiefly to have been levelled against his brother’s usurped authority; and though his ambitious, enterprising character, encouraged by a marriage with the lady Elizabeth, might have endangered the public tranquillity, the prudence of foreseeing evils at such a distance was deemed too great, and the remedy was plainly illegal. It could only be said, that this bill of attainder was somewhat more tolerable than the preceding ones, to which the nation had been inured; for here, at least, some shadow of evidence was produced.

* 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. 18.

** Burnet vol. ii. p. 99.

All the considerable business transacted this session, besides the attainder of Lord Seymour, regarded ecclesiastical affairs, which were now the chief object of attention throughout the nation. A committee of bishops and divines had been appointed by the council to compose a liturgy; and they had executed the work committed to them. They proceeded with moderation in this delicate undertaking; they retained as much of the ancient mass as the principles of the reformers would permit: they indulged nothing to the spirit of contradiction, which so naturally takes place in all great innovations: and they flattered themselves, that they had established a service in which every denomination of Christians might without scruple concur. The mass had always been celebrated in Latin; a practice which might have been deemed absurd, had it not been found useful to the clergy, by impressing the people with an idea of some mysterious unknown virtue in those rites, and by checking all their pretensions to be familiarly acquainted with their religion. But as the reformers pretended in some few particulars to encourage private judgment in the laity, the translation of the liturgy, as well as of the Scriptures, into the vulgar tongue, seemed more conformable to the genius of their sect; and this innovation, with the retrenching of prayers to saints, and of some superstitious ceremonies, was the chief difference between the old mass and the new liturgy. The parliament established this form of worship in all the churches, and ordained a uniformity to be observed in all the rites and ceremonies.[*]

* 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. 1.

There was another material act which passed this session. The former canons had established the celibacy of the clergy; and though this practice is usually ascribed to the policy of the court of Rome, who thought that the ecclesiastics would be more devoted to their spiritual head, and less dependent on the civil magistrate, when freed from the powerful tie of wives and children, yet was this institution much forwarded by the principles of superstition inherent in human nature. These principles had rendered the panegyrics on an inviolate chastity so frequent among the ancient fathers, long before the establishment of celibacy. And even this parliament, though they enacted a law permitting the marriage of priests, yet confess in the preamble, “that it were better for priests and the ministers of the church to live chaste and without marriage, and it were much to be wished they would of themselves abstain.” The inconveniences which had arisen from the compelling of chastity and the prohibiting of marriage, are the reasons assigned for indulging a liberty in this particular.[*] The ideas of penance also were so much retained in other particulars, that an act of parliament passed, forbidding the use of flesh meat during Lent and other times of abstinence.[**] [20]

The principal tenets and practices of the Catholic religion were now abolished, and the reformation, such as it is enjoyed at present, was almost entirely completed in England. But the doctrine of the real presence, though tacitly condemned by the new communion service, and by the abolition of many ancient rites, still retained some hold on the minds of men: and it was the last doctrine of Popery that was wholly abandoned by the people.[***] The great attachment of the late king to that tenet might, in part, be the ground of this obstinacy: but the chief cause was really the extreme absurdity of the principle itself, and the profound veneration, which, of course, it impressed on the imagination. The priests, likewise, were much inclined to favor an opinion which attributed to them so miraculous a power; and the people, who believed that they participated of the very body and blood of their Savior, were loath to renounce so extraordinary, and, as they imagined, so salutary a privilege. The general attachment to this dogma was so violent, that the Lutherans, notwithstanding their separation from Rome, had thought proper, under another name, still to retain it; and the Catholic preachers in England, when restrained in all other particulars, could not forbear, on every occasion, inculcating that tenet. Bonner, for this offence among others, had been tried by the council, had been deprived of his see, and had been committed to custody. Gardiner, also, who had recovered his liberty, appeared anew refractory to the authority which established the late innovations; and he seemed willing to countenance that opinion, much favored by all the English Catholics, that the king was indeed supreme head of the church, but not the council during a minority. Having declined to give full satisfaction on this head, he was sent to the Tower, and threatened with further effects of the council’s displeasure.

* 2 and 3 Edward VI. cap. 21.

** 2 and 3 Edward VI. cap. 19. See note T. at the end of the
volume.

*** Burnet, vol. ii, p 104.

These severities, being exercised on men possessed of office and authority, seemed in that age a necessary policy, in order to enforce a uniformity in public worship and discipline; but there were other instances of persecution, derived from no origin but the bigotry of theologians; a malady which seems almost incurable. Though the Protestant divines had ventured to renounce opinions deemed certain during many ages, they regarded, in their turn, the new system as so certain, that they would suffer no contradiction with regard to it; and they were ready to burn in the same flames from which they themselves had so narrowly escaped, every one that had the assurance to differ from them. A commission, by act of council, was granted to the primate and some others, to examine and search after all Anabaptists, heretics, or contemners of the Book of Common Prayer.[*]

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 3. Rymer, tom. xv. p. 181.

The commissioners were enjoined to reclaim them, if possible; to impose penance on them, and to give them absolution; or, if these criminals were obstinate, to excommunicate and imprison them, and to deliver them over to the secular arm: and in the execution of this charge, they were not bound to observe the ordinary methods of trial; the forms of law were dispensed with; and if any statutes happened to interfere with the powers in the commission, they were overruled and abrogated by the council. Some tradesmen in London were brought before these commissioners, and were accused of maintaining, among other opinions, that a man regenerate could not sin, and that, though the outward man might offend, the inward was incapable of all guilt. They were prevailed on to abjure, and were dismissed. But there was a woman accused of heretical pravity, called Joan Bocher, or Joan of Kent, who was so pertinacious, that the commissioners could make no impression upon her Her doctrine was, “that Christ was not truly incarnate of the Virgin, whose flesh, being the outward man, was sinfully begotten, and born in sin, and, consequently, he could take none of it; but the Word, by the consent of the inward man of the Virgin, was made flesh.”[*] This opinion, it would seem, is not orthodox; and there was a necessity for delivering the woman to the flames for maintaining it. But the young king, though in such tender years, had more sense than all his counsellors and preceptors; and he long refused to sign the warrant for her execution. Cranmer was employed to persuade him to compliance; and he said, that there was a great difference between errors in other points of divinity, and those which were in direct contradiction to the apostles’ creed: these latter were impieties against God, which the prince, being God’s deputy, ought to repress, in like manner, as inferior magistrates were bound to punish offences against the king’s person. Edward, overcome by importunity, at last submitted, though with tears in his eyes; and he told Cranmer, that if any wrong were done, the guilt should lie entirely on his head. The primate, after making a new effort to reclaim the woman from her errors, and finding her obstinate against all his arguments, at last committed her to the flames. Some time after, a Dutchman, called Van Paris, accused of the heresy which has received the name of Arianism, was condemned to the same punishment. He suffered with so much satisfaction, that he hugged and caressed the fagots that were consuming him; a species of frenzy of which there is more than one instance among the martyrs of that age.[**]

These rigorous methods of proceeding soon brought the whole nation to a conformity, seeming or real, with the new doctrine and the new liturgy. The lady Mary alone continued to adhere to the mass, and refused to admit the established modes of worship. When pressed and menaced on this head, she applied to the emperor, who, using his interest with Sir Philip Hobby, the English ambassador, procured her a temporary connivance from the council.[***]

* Burnet, vol. ii. coll. 35 Strype’s Mem. Cranm. p. 181.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 112. Strype’s Mem. Cranm. p. 181.

*** Heylin, p. 102