Nor was it Warwick only whom Southampton stimulated to enmity against Somerset. He had arguments adapted to all; and where he found any seemingly resolved to stand by the Protector, he would significantly ask what friendship they hoped from a man who had murdered his own brother. Little art was needed to influence the old nobility against Somerset, and his hostility to the enclosures had raised up a host of enemies amongst the new, who should have been his natural friends. The people he had lost favour with, from his total want of success against the enemies of the country, and if there were any whom all these causes had not alienated, these were disgusted with his insolence and rapacity. He had bargained for large slices from the manors of bishoprics and cathedrals as the price of promotion to the clergy. He had obtained from the puppet king in his hands, grants of extensive Church lands for his services in Scotland, services which now were worse than null; and in the patent which invested him with these lands, drawn up under his own eye, he had himself styled "Duke of Somerset, by the grace of God," as if he were a king. He was accused of having sold many of the chantry lands to his friends at nominal prices, because he obtained a heavy premium upon the transaction; but what more than all shocked the public sense of religious decorum was that he had erected for himself a splendid palace in the Strand, where the one called from him Somerset House now stands, and had spared no outrage upon public rights and decencies in its erection. Not only private houses, but public buildings, and those of the most sacred character, had been displaced to make room for his proud mansion. To clear the ground for its site and to procure materials for its building, he pulled down three episcopal houses and two churches on the spot, St. Mary's and a church of St. John of Jerusalem, also a chapel, a cloister, and a charnel-house in St. Paul's Churchyard, and he carted away the remains of the dead by whole loads, and threw them into a pit in Bloomsbury. When he attempted to pull down St. Margaret's Church in Westminster, for the stones, the parishioners rose in tumult and drove his men away. Whatever profession of Reformed religion he might make, such proceedings as these stamped it as a pretence, hollow and even impious, in the minds of the public.
The feeling (which originated out of doors) had now made its way into the heart of the Council. Somerset's friends were silenced. His enemies spoke out boldly. During September there were great contentions in the Council; and by the beginning of October the two parties were ranged in hostile attitudes under their chiefs. Warwick and his followers met at Ely Place; the Protector was at Hampton Court, where he had the king. On the 5th of October, Somerset, in the king's name, sent the Secretary of the Council to know why the lords were assembling themselves in that manner, and commanding them, if they had anything to lay before him, to come before him peaceably and loyally. When this message was despatched, Somerset, fearful of the spirit in which this summons might be complied with, ordered the armour to be brought down out of the armoury at Hampton Court, sufficient for 500 men, to arm his followers, and had the doors barricaded, and people fetched in for the defence. But, instead of coming, Warwick and his party ordered the Lieutenant of the Tower, and the Lord Mayor and aldermen, to be summoned, who duly attended and proffered their obedience. They then despatched letters to the nobility and gentry in different parts of the kingdom, informing them of their doings and the motives for them. Alarmed at the aspect of affairs, Somerset conveyed the king to Windsor, under escort of 500 men; Cranmer and Sir William Paget alone, of all the Council, accompanying them. Finding himself rapidly deserted by his friends, Somerset judiciously submitted and signed a confession of his guilt, his presumption, and incapacity. Having signed this, he was promised his life, on condition that he should forfeit all his appointments, his goods and chattels, and so much of his estates as amounted to £2,000 a year. A bill to this effect passed both Houses of Parliament in January, 1550. Somerset remonstrated against the extent of this forfeiture, but the Council replied to him with so much sternness that the abject-spirited man shrank in terror, and on the 2nd of February signed a still more ignominious submission, disclaiming all idea of justifying himself, and expressing his gratitude to the king and Council for sparing his life and being content with a fine. On the 6th of February he was discharged from the Tower, and ten days after received a formal pardon. His officers and servants, who had been imprisoned, also recovered their liberty, but were heavily fined.
Warwick had humbled Somerset, but he could not prevent the country from being humbled with him. His party had blamed the Protector for proposing to surrender Boulogne, but they were now compelled, by the exhausted and disordered state of the nation, to accept even more disgraceful terms. During the winter the French had cut off all communication between Boulogne and Calais, and the Earl of Huntingdon found himself unable to re-open it, though he led against the enemy all his bands of mercenaries and 3,000 English veterans. His treasury and his storehouses were empty, and the French calculated confidently on taking the place at spring. Unable to send the necessary aid, a fresh proposal was made to the Emperor to occupy it, and this not tempting him, the Council next offered to cede it to him in full sovereignty, on condition that it should never be surrendered to France. Charles declined, and as a last resource a Florentine merchant, Antonio Guidotti, was employed to make the French aware that England was not averse from a peace. The French embraced the offer, but under such circumstances they were not likely to be very modest in their terms of accommodation.
The conference between the ambassadors was opened on the 21st of January, and the English proposed that, as an equivalent for the surrender of Boulogne, Mary of Scotland should be contracted to Edward. To this the French bluntly replied that that was impossible, as Henry had already agreed to marry her to the Dauphin. The next proposition was that the arrears of money due from the Crown of France should be paid up, and the payment of the fixed pension continued. To this the ambassadors of Henry replied, in a very different tone to that which English monarchs had been accustomed to hear from those of France, that their king would never condescend to pay tribute to any foreign Crown; that Henry VIII. had been enabled by the necessities of France to extort a pension from Francis; and that they would now avail themselves of the present difficulties of England to compel Edward to renounce it. The English envoys appeared, on this bold declaration, highly indignant, and as if they would break off the conference; but every day they receded more and more from their pretensions, and they ended by subscribing, on the 24th of March, to all the demands of their opponents.
These conditions were that there should be peace and union between the two countries, not merely for the lives of the present monarchs, but to the end of time; that Boulogne should be surrendered to the King of France with all its stores and ordnance; and that, in return for the money expended on the fortifications, they should pay to Edward 200,000 crowns on the delivery of the place, and 200,000 more in five months. But the English were previously to surrender Douglas and Lauder to the Queen of Scots, or, if they were already in the hands of the Scots, to raze the fortresses of Eyemouth and Roxburgh to the ground. Scotland was to be comprehended in the treaty if the queen desired it, and Edward bound himself not to make war on Scotland unless some new provocation were given.
So disgraceful was this treaty, such a surrender was it of the nation's dignity, that the people regarded it as an eternal opprobrium to the country; and from that hour the boastful claims of England on the French Crown were no more heard of, except in the ridiculous retention of the title of King of France by our sovereigns.
Freed from the embarrassments of foreign politics, the Council now proceeded with the work of Church reform; and during 1550 and part of 1551 was busily engaged checking on the one hand the opposition of the Romanist clergy, and on the other the latitudinarian tendencies of the Protestants. Bonner and Gardiner were the most considerable of the uncomplying prelates, and they were first brought under notice. Bonner had been called before the Council in August of 1549, for not complying with the requisitions of the Court in matters of religion; and in April, 1550, he was deprived of his see of London, and remanded to the Marshalsea, where he remained till the king's death. Ridley was appointed to the bishopric of London. Gardiner and Heath, Bishop of Worcester, were also imprisoned.
From the bishops, the reforming Council proceeded to higher game. The Princess Mary, the king's eldest sister, from the first had expressed her firm resolution of not adopting the new faith or ritual. She had, moreover, declared to Somerset, that during Edward's minority things ought to remain as the king her father had left them. Somerset replied that, on the contrary, he was only carrying out the plans which Henry had already settled in his own mind, but had not had time to complete. On the introduction of the new liturgy, she received in June, 1549, an intimation that she must conform to the provisions of the statute. Mary replied with spirit, that her conscience would not permit her to lay aside the practice of the religion that she believed in, and reminded the lords of the Council that they were bound by their oaths to maintain the Church as left by her father; adding, that they could not, with any decency, refuse liberty of worship to the daughter of the king who had raised them to what they were. The appeal to the liberality, the consciences, or the gratitude of these statesmen producing no effect, she next applied to a more influential person, the Emperor, Charles V., her great relative. He intervened on her behalf with such vigour that war between England and Germany seemed at one time inevitable, and the Council gave way. The persecutions were shortly afterwards renewed, but Mary remained firm, and finally was completely victorious.
The ungenerous conduct of the Warwick party towards Mary, and the disgraceful conditions of the peace with France, naturally caused a considerable revival of Somerset's influence at Court, and the remainder of the summer was spent by him in intriguing for the increase of his favour. He surrounded himself with a strong body of armed men; there were secret debates among his friends on the possibility of raising the City in his behalf, and he did not hesitate to drop hints that assassination only could free him from his implacable enemies. But whilst the irresolute Somerset plotted, Warwick acted. He secured for himself the appointment of warden of the Scottish marches, thus cutting off the danger which had lately appeared of Somerset's retreat thither. Armed with the preponderating influence which that office conferred in the northern districts, on the 27th of September or the 17th of October he was announced as Duke of Northumberland, a title venerated by the Border people, and which had been extinct since the attainder of Earl Percy in 1527. In this formidable position of power and dignity he was strengthened by his friends and partisans being at the same time elevated in the peerage. The Marquis of Dorset was created Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Wiltshire, Marquis of Winchester, and Sir William Herbert, Baron of Cardiff and Earl of Pembroke. Cecil, Cheke, Sidney, and Nevil received the honour of knighthood.
This movement in favour of Warwick was followed by consequences of still more startling character to the Duke of Somerset. His enemies now felt safe, and on the 16th of October, 1551, the news flew through London that he was arrested on a charge of conspiracy and high treason, and committed to the Tower. He had been apprised that depositions of a serious character had been made against him by Sir Thomas Palmer, a partisan of Warwick's, whereupon he sent for Palmer, and strictly interrogated him, but on his positive denial, let him go. Not satisfied, however, he wrote to Cecil, telling him that he suspected something was in agitation against him. Cecil replied with his characteristic astuteness, that if he were innocent he could have nothing to fear; if he were guilty, he could only lament his misfortune. Piqued at this reply, he sent a letter of defiance, but took no means for the security of his person. Palmer, notwithstanding his denial, had, however, it seems, really lodged this charge against him on the 7th of the month with Warwick:—That in a conference with Somerset in April last, in his garden, the duke assured him that at the time that the solemn declaration of Sir William Herbert had prevented him from going northward, he had sent Lord Grey to raise their friends there; that after that he had formed the design of inviting Warwick, Northampton, and the chiefs of that party, and of assassinating them, either there, or on their return home; that at this very moment he was planning to raise an insurrection in London, to destroy his enemy, and to seize the direction of Government; that Sir Miles Partridge was to call out the apprentices of the City, kill the City guard, and get possession of the Great Seal; and that Sir Thomas Arundel had secured the Tower, and Sir Ralph Vane had a force of 2,000 men ready to support them.