The most important event, of a political character, was a War with Scotland. war with Scotland, growing out of the attempts of the late king to unite both nations under one government. In consequence, Scotland was invaded by the Duke of Somerset, at the head of eighteen thousand men. A great battle was fought, in which ten thousand of the Scots were slain. But the protector was compelled to return to England, without following up the fruits of victory, in consequence of cabals at court. His brother, Lord Seymour, a man of reckless ambition, had married the queen dowager, and openly aspired to the government of the kingdom. He endeavored to seduce the youthful king, and he had provided arms for ten thousand men.
The protector sought to win his brother from his treasonable designs by kindness and favors; but, all his measures proving ineffectual, he was arrested, tried, and executed, for high treason.
But Somerset had a more dangerous enemy than his brother; and this was the Earl of Warwick, who obtained great popularity by his suppression of a dangerous insurrection, the greatest the country had witnessed since Jack Cade's rebellion, one hundred years before. Rebellions and Discontents. The discontent of the people appears to have arisen from their actual suffering. Coin had depreciated, without a corresponding rise of wages, and labor was cheap, because tillage lands were converted to pasturage. The popular discontent was aggravated by the changes which the reformers introduced, and which the peasantry were the last to appreciate. The priests and ejected monks increased the discontent, until it broke out into a flame.
The protector made himself unpopular with the council by a law which he caused to be passed against enclosures; and, as he lost influence, his great rival, Warwick, gained power. Somerset, at last, was obliged to resign his protectorship; and Warwick, who had suppressed the rebellion, formed the chief of a new council of regency. He was a man of greater talents than Somerset, and equal ambition, and more fitted for stormy times.
As soon as his power was established, and the country was at peace, and he had gained friends, he began to execute those projects of ambition which he had long formed. The earldom of Northumberland having reverted to the crown, Warwick aspired to the extinct title and the estates, and procured for himself a grant of the same, with the title of duke. But there still remained a bar to his elevation; and this was the opposition of the Duke of Somerset, who, though disgraced and unpopular, was still powerful. It is unfortunate to be in the way of a great man's career, and Somerset paid the penalty of his opposition—the common fate of unsuccessful rivals in unsettled times. He was accused of treason, condemned, and executed, (1552.)
Northumberland, as the new dictator, seemed to have attained the highest elevation to which a subject could aspire. In rank, power, and property, he was second only to the royal family, but his ambition knew no bounds, and he began his intrigues to induce the young king, whose health was rapidly failing, and who was zealously attached to Protestantism, to set aside the succession of his sister Mary to the throne, really in view of the danger to which the reformers would be subjected, but under pretence of her declared illegitimacy, which would also set aside the claims of the Princess Elizabeth. Mary, Queen of Scots, was to be set aside on the ground of the will of the late king, and the succession would therefore devolve on the Lady Jane Grey, granddaughter of the Duke of Suffolk and of the French queen, whom he hoped to unite in marriage with his son. This was a deeply-laid scheme, and came near being successful, since Edward listened to it with pleasure. Northumberland then sought to gain over the judges and other persons of distinction, and succeeded by bribery and intimidation. At this juncture, the young king died, possessed of all the accomplishments which could grace a youth of sixteen, but still a tool in the hands of his ministers.
Such were the political movements of this reign—memorable for the Rivalry of the Great Nobles. rivalries of the great nobles. But it is chiefly distinguished for the changes which were made in the church establishment, and the introduction of the principles of the continental reformers. Religious Reforms. No changes of importance were ever made beyond what Cranmer and his associates effected. Indeed, all that an absolute monarch could do, was done, and done with prudence, sagacity, and moderation. The people quietly—except in some rural districts—acquiesced in the change. Most of the clergy took the new oath of allegiance to Edward VI., as supreme head of the church; and very few suffered from religious persecution. There is no period in English history when such important changes were made, with so little bloodshed. Cranmer always watched the temper of the nation, and did nothing without great caution. Still a great change was effected—no less than a complete change from Romanism to Protestantism. But it was not so radical a reform as the Puritans subsequently desired, since the hierarchy and a liturgy, and clerical badges and dresses, were retained. It was the fortune of Cranmer, during the six years of Edward's reign, to effect the two great objects of which the English church has ever since been proud—the removal of Roman abuses, and the establishment of the creed of Luther and Calvin; and this without sweeping away the union of church and state, which, indeed, was more intimate than before the reformation. The papal power was completely subverted. Nothing more remained to be done by Cranmer. He had compiled the Book of Common Prayer, abolished the old Latin service, the worship of images, the ceremony of the mass, and auricular confessions. He turned the altars into communion tables, set up the singing of psalms in the service, caused the communion to be administered in both kinds to the laity, added the litany to the ritual, prepared a book of homilies for the clergy, invited learned men to settle in England, and magnificently endowed schools and universities.
The Reformation is divested of much interest, since it was the work of authority, rather than the result of popular convictions. But Cranmer won immortal honor for his skilful management, and for making no more changes than he could sustain. A large part of the English nation still regard his works as perfect, and are sincerely and enthusiastically attached to the form which he gave to his church.
The hopes of his party were suddenly dispelled by the death of the amiable prince whom he controlled, 6th of July, 1553. The succession to the throne fell to the Princess Mary, or, as princesses were then called, the Lady Mary; nor could all the arts of Northumberland exclude her from the enjoyment of her rights. This ambitious nobleman contrived to keep the death of Edward VI. a secret two days, and secure from the Mayor and Alderman of London a promise to respect the will of the late king. In consequence, the Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England. "So far was she from any desire of this advancement, that she began to act her part of royalty with many tears, thus plainly showing to those who had access to her, that she was forced by her relations and friends to this high, but dangerous post." She was accomplished, beautiful, and amiable, devoted to her young husband, and very fond of Plato, whom she read in the original.
But Mary's friends exerted themselves, and her cause—the cause of legitimacy, rather than that of Catholicism—gained ground. Northumberland was unequal to this crisis, and he was very feebly sustained. His forces were suppressed, his schemes failed, and his hopes fled. From rebellion, to the scaffold, there is but a step; and this great nobleman suffered the fate of Somerset, his former rival. Execution of Northumberland. His execution confirms one of the most striking facts in the history of absolute monarchies, when the idea of legitimacy is firmly impressed on the national mind; and that is, that no subject, or confederacy of subjects, however powerful, stand much chance in resisting the claims or the will of a legitimate prince. A nod or a word, from such a king, can consign the greatest noble to hopeless impotence. And he can do this from the mighty and mysterious force of ideas alone. Neither king nor parliament can ever resist the omnipotence of popular ideas. When ideas establish despots on their thrones, they are safe. When ideas demand their dethronement, no forces can long sustain them. The age of Queen Mary was the period of the most unchecked absolutism in England. Mary was apparently a powerless woman when Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen by the party of Northumberland, and still she had but to signify her intentions to claim her rights, and the nation was prostrate at her feet. The Protestant party dreaded her accession; but loyalty was a stronger principle than even Protestantism, and she was soon firmly established in the absolute throne of Henry VIII.