* Holingshed, p. 979
The removal of Southampton increased the protectors’ authority, as well as tended to suppress faction in the regency yet was not Somerset contented with this advantage; his ambition carried him to seek still further acquisitions. On pretence that the vote of the executors choosing his protector, was not a sufficient foundation for his authority, he procured a patent from the young king, by which he entirely overturned the will of Henry VIII., produced a total revolution in the government, and may seem even to have subverted all the laws of the kingdom. He named himself protector with full regal power, and appointed a council, consisting of all the former counsellors, and all the executors, except Southampton; he reserved a power of naming any other counsellors at pleasure; and he was bound to consult with such only as he thought proper. The protector and his council were likewise empowered to act at discretion, and to execute whatever they deemed for the public service, without incurring any penalty or forfeiture from any law, statute, proclamation, or ordinance whatsoever.[*] Even had this patent been more moderate in its concessions, and had it been drawn by directions from the executors appointed by Henry, its legality might justly be questioned; since it seems essential to a trust of this nature to be exercised by the persons intrusted, and not to admit of a delegation to others: but as the patent, by its very tenor, where the executors are not so much as mentioned, appears to have been surreptitiously obtained from a minor king, the protectorship of Somerset was a plain usurpation, which it is impossible by any arguments to justify. The connivance, however, of the executors, and their present acquiescence in the new establishment, made it be universally submitted to; and as the young king discovered an extreme attachment to his uncle, who was also, in the main, a man of moderation and probity, no objections were made to his power and title. All men of sense, likewise, who saw the nation divided by the religious zeal of the opposite sects, deemed it the more necessary to intrust the government to one person, who might check the exorbitancies of faction, and insure the public tranquillity. And though some clauses of the patent seemed to imply a formal subversion of all limited government, so little jealousy was then usually entertained on that head, that no exception was ever taken at bare claims or pretensions of this nature, advanced by any person possessed of sovereign power. The actual exercise alone of arbitrary administration, and that in many, and great, and flagrant, and unpopular instances, was able sometimes to give some umbrage to the nation.
* Burnet, vol. ii. Records, No. 6.
The extensive authority and imperious character of Henry had retained the partisans of both religions in subjection; but upon his demise, the hopes of the Protestants and the fears of the Catholics began to revive, and the zeal of these parties produced every where disputes and animosities, the usual preludes to more fatal divisions. The protector had long been regarded as a secret partisan of the reformers; and being now freed from restraint, he scrupled not to discover his intention of correcting all abuses in the ancient religion, and of adopting still more of the Protestant innovations. He took care that all persons intrusted with the king’s education should be attached to the same principles; and as the young prince discovered a zeal for every kind of literature, especially the theological, far beyond his tender years, all men foresaw, in the course of his reign, the total abolition of the Catholic faith in England; and they early began to declare themselves in favor of those tenets, which were likely to become in the end entirely prevalent. After Southampton’s fall, few members of the council seemed to retain any attachment to the Romish communion; and most of the counsellors appeared even sanguine in forwarding the progress of the reformation. The riches which most of them had acquired from the spoils of the clergy, induced them to widen the breach between England and Rome; and by establishing a contrariety of speculative tenets, as well as of discipline and worship, to render a coalition with the mother church altogether impracticable.[*] Their rapacity also, the chief source of their reforming spirit, was excited by the prospect of pillaging the secular, as they had already done the regular clergy; and they knew that while any share of the old principles remained, or any regard to the ecclesiastics, they could never hope to succeed in that enterprise.
* Goodwin’s Annals. Heylin.
The numerous and burdensome superstitions with which the Romish church was loaded had thrown many of the reformers by the spirit of opposition, into an enthusiastic strain of devotion; and all rites, ceremonies, pomp, order, and exterior observances were zealously proscribed by them, as hinderances to their spiritual contemplations, and obstructions to their immediate converse with Heaven. Many circumstances concurred to inflame this daring spirit; the novelty itself of their doctrines, the triumph of making proselytes, the furious persecutions to which they were exposed, their animosity against the ancient tenets and practices, and the necessity of procuring the concurrence of the laity by depressing the hierarchy, and by tendering to them the plunder of the ecclesiastics. Wherever the reformation prevailed over the opposition of civil authority, this genius of religion appeared in its full extent, and was attended with consequences, which, though less durable, were, for some time, not less dangerous than those which were connected with the ancient superstition. But as the magistrate took the lead in England, the transition was more gradual; much of the ancient religion was still preserved, and a reasonable degree of subordination was retained in discipline, as well as some pomp, order, and ceremony in public worship.
The protector, in his schemes for advancing the reformation, had always recourse to the counsels of Cranmer, who, being a man of moderation and prudence, was averse to all violent changes, and determined to bring over the people, by insensible innovations, to that system of doctrine and discipline which he deemed the most pure and perfect. He probably also foresaw, that a system which carefully avoided the extremes of reformation, was likely to be most lasting; and that a devotion, merely spiritual, was fitted only for the first fervors of a new sect, and upon the relaxation of these naturally gave place to the inroads of superstition. He seems therefore to have intended the establishment of a hierarchy, which, being suited to a great and settled government, might stand as a perpetual barrier against Rome, and might retain the reverence of the people, even after their enthusiastic zeal was diminished, or entirely evaporated.
The person who opposed with greatest authority any further advances towards reformation, was Gardiner, bishop of Winchester; who, though he had not obtained a place in the council of regency, on account of late disgusts which he had given to Henry, was entitled, by his age, experience, and capacity, to the highest trust and confidence of his party. This prelate still continued to magnify the great wisdom and learning of the late king, which, indeed, were generally and sincerely revered by the nation; and he insisted on the prudence, of persevering, at least till the young king’s majority, in the ecclesiastical model established by that great monarch. He defended the use of images, which were now openly attacked by the Protestants; and he represented them as serviceable in maintaining a sense of religion among the illiterate multitude.[*] He even deigned to write an apology for “holy water,” which Bishop Ridley had decried in a sermon; and he maintained that, by the power of the Almighty, it might be rendered an instrument of doing good, as much as the shadow of St. Peter, the hem of Christ’s garment, or the spittle and clay laid upon the eyes of the blind.[**] Above all, he insisted that the laws ought to be observed, that the constitution ought to be preserved inviolate, and that it was dangerous to follow the will of the sovereign, in opposition to an act of parliament.[***]
But though there remained at that time in England an idea of laws and a constitution, sufficient at least to furnish a topic of argument to such as were discontented with any immediate exercise of authority; this plea could scarcely, in the present case, be maintained with any plausibility by Gardiner. An act of parliament had invested the crown with a legislative power; and royal proclamations, even during a minority, were armed with the force of laws. The protector, finding himself supported by this statute, was determined to employ his authority in favor of the reformers; and having suspended, during the interval, the jurisdiction of the bishops, he appointed a general visitation to be made in all the dioceses of England.[****] The visitors consisted of a mixture of clergy and laity, and had six circuits assigned them. The chief purport of their instructions was, besides correcting immoralities and irregularities in the clergy, to abolish the ancient superstitions, and to bring the discipline and worship somewhat nearer the practice of the reformed churches. The moderation of Somerset and Cranmer is apparent in the conduct of this delicate affair. The visitors were enjoined to retain for the present all images which had not been abused to idolatry; and to instruct the people not to despise such ceremonies as were not yet abrogated, but only to beware of some particular superstitions, such as the sprinkling of their beds with holy water, and the ringing of bells, or using of consecrated candles, in order to drive away the devil.[v]
* Fox, vol. ii. p. 712.
** Fox, vol. ii. p. 724
*** Collier, vol. ii. p. 228. Fox, vol. ii.
**** Mem. Cranm. p. 146, 147, etc.
v Burnet, vol. ii. p. 28.