28 WAR WITH FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. [1549. brother were conveyed to London; and being convicted of treason, were hanged at Norwich. Others were hanged upon the oak of reformation. But more were spared than was agreeable to the terror-stricken landlords of EastAnglia. Warwick answered their exhortations to revenge with a sagacious reference to their own interests: "Is there no place for pardon? What shall we do? Shall we hold the plough ourselves; play the carters and labour the ground with our own hauds ?" Hob and Dick were to be accounted as of some value in the commonwealth. After Somerset had gained the battle of Pinkie, in the autumn of 1547, he returned, as we have seen, suddenly to London, leaving to others to reap the harvest of his victory, if any were to be reaped. The results of that great scattering of the Scottish power were not favourable to the English influence. The nobility of Scotland resolved to apply for assistance to France; and at the instigation of the queen-dowager, the young queen Mary was offered in marriage to the Dauphin of France. In 1548 Haddington was taken by the English under lord Gray of Wilton; and several other minor successes were accomplished. But in June a large force, partly French and partly German, arrived at Leith; and an army of Scots, with these auxiliaries, marched to recover Haddington. A parliament, or convention, that was hastily assembled, ratified the treaty for the marriage; and the child-queen was received at Dunbarton on board a French vessel which had entered the Clyde and then sailed to France. In August, Mary was solemnly contracted to the Dauphin. The war was continued with various success; but on the whole was unfavourable to the English. Haddington was relieved, after the garrison had endured the greatest. suffering by famine. The English fleet was repulsed by the peasantry in several attacks upon the Scottish coast. At the time of the insurrections of 1549, the government of Somerset was preparing to carry on the contest with renewed vigour. The French 1549.] SCOTTISH SUCCESSES. 29 29 auxiliaries who remained in Scotland had become distasteful to the people, and the king of France was more intent upon recovering Boulogne than of aiding his Scotch allies. The war with Scotland was, however, too burdensome to be vigorously pursued by England; the Scots recovered many of their strong places; and even Haddington was evacuated on the 1st of October, in the year of England's domestic troubles. 800 a, dag; b. pistol; time of Edward VI. Position of domestic affairs after the suppression of the insurrections-Somerset accused of lenity-Confederacy against the power of Somerset-Edward carried from Hampton Court to Windsor-Somerset deserted-Lord Russell with the army of the West takes part against him-He is conveyed to the Tower-Articles exhibited against him-His humiliation and release-Parliament assembled-Law against unlawful assemblies-Anabaptists excepted from a general pardon-Burning of Joan Bocher-Cranmer and the kingArticles of belief-Canon law-Bonner, Gardiner, and other bishops deprived and imprisoned-Resistance of the Princess Mary to the new Services-Release of SomersetHis second fall-His execution-Foreign Churches in England-Peace with France and Scotland-Power of Northumberland-Illness of king Edward-Marriage of Northumberland's son to Lady Jane Grey-Edward determines to alter the succession-His death. WARWICK has returned to London. The slaughter of Dussin-dale has given him political power as well as military renown. If Somerset had listened to the advice of Paget to go himself against the rebels with four thousand Almain horsemen-to give them no good words or promisesto hang the disaffected in every shire without redemption-he might have held his office in safety. But Paget knew the nature of the man: "Your grace may say, I shall lose the hearts of the people." Somerset clung to his popularity and fell from his high place, on the first assault of a faction that he had mortally offended by the "lenity" and "softness" with which Paget reproaches him. This frank monitor imputes to these qualities that the king's subjects were "out of all discipline, out of obedience, caring neither for Protector nor king, and much less for any other mean officer. And what is the cause? Your own lenity, your softness, your opinion to be good to the poor; the opinion of such as saith to your grace, oh, sir, there was never man had the hearts of the poor as you have. Oh, the commons pray for you, sir; they say, God save your life. I know your gentle heart right well, and that 1549.] SOMERSET OBNOXIOUS TO THE NOBLES. 31 your meaning is good and godly; however some evil men list to prate here, that you have some greater enterprize in your head that lean so much to the multitude."* Strype observes upon this letter," Paget's temper, naturally disposed to severity, and confirmed therein by the methods he had observed in bishop Gardiner, under whom he had been bred, led him to principles of government perhaps too rigorous, and by some wise men in those days disliked; as thinking it not safe to hold such a strait hand over the commons, and to press and keep them under in a kind of slavery, which English spirits would not, nor could, digest." + The temper thus imputed to Paget is one that has always found favour amongst the large class who see, or affect to see, nothing but evil in strengthening the influence of the democratic principles of our English constitution; and thus it has been somewhat the fashion, even with historians who write without a strong religious bias, to impugn the character of Somerset. But in an age in which the humblest were trampled upon without mercy or justice, it is something to find one in the highest place earning the hatred of the great by his desire to have "the hearts of the poor." The rarity of the example ought to make us examine with a charitable caution the motives and actions of a man who almost stood alone in the attempt, however impolitic, to build up the state upon a broader foundation than the interests of the privileged classes. The favourite doctrine which was inculcated upon the young king was that "the ambition and tyranny of the nobility were much more tolerable than the insolence, inconstancy, peril, and ignorance of the multitude . . . . . In the monarchy or estate of a prince, if the prince be good, like as he keepeth his commons void of power, even so he preserveth them from the tyranny of the nobility . . . . If the tyranny of the nobility be more tolerable than the insolence of the multitude, much more tolerable then is the prince's tyranny than the commons' power." These maxims are from a discourse made by William Thomas, clerk of the council, "for the king's use." They were the maxims which had been gradually raising up the ancient limited monarchy of England into a despotism; after the organised power of the feudal nobility, which had held the monarchy in check, had been destroyed. They were the maxims which endured for a century longer, till the other dreaded power had become organised; and a terrible experience of their fallacy became a warning for all after ages. The record in Edward's Journal of this period of his reign is evidently retrospective. It was written after the power of his uncle had passed away; and when the king was under opposite influences. The coldness with which he speaks of the transactions of 1549 is very remarkable; and if this does not manifest the truth of Mr. Hallam's suspicion that he had "not a good heart,” it somewhat establishes the other belief that he had "too much Tudor blood in his veins." S Edward's narrative is very compact; and we may as well follow it, giving illustrations as we proceed. "In the mean season in England rose great stirs, like to increase much if it had not been well foreseen. The council, about nineteen of them, were gathered in London, thinking to meet with the Lord Protector, and to make Strype, Eccles. Mem., vol. ii. part ii. p. 431. 32 CONFEDERACY AGAINST SOMERSET. [1549. him amend some of his disorders." Holinshed has related in what manner the council were gathered in London: "Many of the lords, as well counsellors as others, misliking the government of the Protector, began to withdraw themselves from the court; and, resorting to London, fell to secret consultation for redress of things, but namely for the displacing of the Lord Protector. And suddenly, upon what occasion many marvelled but few knew, every lord and counsellor went through the city weaponed; and had their servants likewise weaponed, attending upon them in new liveries, to the great wondering of many. And at the last a great assembly of the said counsellors was made at the earl of Warwick's lodging, which was then at Ely-place in Holborn, whither all the confederates in this matter came privily armed.' After this demonstration the rival powers instantly came into collision. The documents in the State-paper Office connected with this story, bearing date from the 1st to the 14th of October, are no less than forty-six in number.† In these is to be traced the authentic history of the most rapid and complete revolution that was ever effected in the government-a revolution which was accomplished with consummate boldness, and with an equal amount of craft and treachery. Before the publication of the more interesting of these papers, very little precise information of this event was to be found in our most popular general historians, or even in the pages of Burnet, Strype, or Fuller." On Chronicle, p. 1057. 66 + See the List, analysed in "Calendar of State Papers." Tytler, vol. i. p. 252. Mr. Tytler justly claims the merit of thus opening the historical truth "in the original letters of the times." |