The master and fellows of his old college, St. John’s, too, were anxious to propitiate the rising official and to bespeak his interest in favour of their foundation,[15] and the widowed Duchess of Suffolk (Lady Willoughby) consulted him in all her difficulties. The war with France was suspended, though the English forces holding Boulogne were closely beleaguered, and Somerset’s greed was diverting the money which should have been spent in war preparations; but in pursuance of the traditional policy of England, it became a question almost of national existence when it was seen that the French intrigues for the marriage of the child Queen of Scots and the final suppression of the rising reform party in Scotland were likely to succeed. Arran had signed the treaty with Henry for the marriage of Edward and Mary; but he, and especially the Queen-mother, Mary of Lorraine, had resisted the deportation of the infant Queen to England. It is possible that some arrangement might have been arrived at had not the ill-advised murder of Cardinal Beaton and the subsequent anarchy given to the new King of France, Henry II., an excuse for armed interference in protection of the Catholic party. Then it became incumbent upon the Protector to fight the Scots at all hazards, or French influence over the Border threatened to become permanent; a double danger, now that the religious question tended to alienate England from her secular alliance with the House of Burgundy. When Somerset made his rapid march upon Scotland with an army of 18,000 men, supported by a powerful fleet, in September 1547, his trusted Cecil attended him in the capacity apparently of provost-marshal, in conjunction with the chronicler of the campaign, William Patten.[16] The decisive battle of Pinkie was fought on the 10th September 1547, and was in a great measure won by the dash, at a critical moment, of the Spanish and Italian auxiliaries whom Somerset had enlisted. According to the “household” historian so often quoted,[17] Cecil narrowly escaped death from a cannon shot at Pinkie, but no other mention of the fact is to be found. It has been doubted whether at this time he held still the office of Master of Requests, in which he is said to have been succeeded by his old college friend Sir Thomas Smith,[18] but there was no break in his close connection in some capacity with the Protector. About five months after Pinkie, in a letter to Lord Cobham, Somerset calls him “my servant William Cecill,”[19] and refers to letters written to him on his behalf; and in June 1548 the powerful Earl of Warwick, who was soon to supplant Somerset, writes to Cecil, almost humbly thanking him for forwarding some request of his to the Protector.[20]
Cecil’s position, however, shortly after this becomes clearly defined, and his personality emerges into full daylight. Against the year 1548 in his journal, the only entry is as follows: “Mes. Sep. co-optatus sū in ofᵐ Secretarij.” This has often given rise to confusion as to the date of his first appointment as Secretary of State, but there is now no room for doubt that the office to which this entry refers is that of Secretary to Somerset; and the appointment, like that of Master of Requests, was part of the Protector’s system of surrounding himself with a household as near as possible modelled on that of the King.
Thenceforward everything that did not strictly appertain to the official Secretaries of State went through the hands of Cecil, who in the meanwhile was imbibing the traditions of statecraft which were to guide him through life. Already the cabal against Somerset had been in progress before he went to Scotland, and had caused him to hurry back before he gained the full fruits of his victory at Pinkie. Mary of Lorraine and the Scottish nobles had almost unanimously rallied now to the French side, and had agreed to give the young Queen in marriage to the Dauphin, whilst strong reinforcements were sent to Scotland from France. Bound though he was to the extreme Protestant party, Somerset was therefore obliged to turn to the arch-enemy of Protestantism, the Emperor, for support and assistance. Charles had his hands full with his vast new projects of universal domination for his son, and was postponing the inevitable war with France as long as possible, and consequently turned a deaf ear to Somerset’s approaches. Public discontent, artfully encouraged by the Protector’s enemies, grew daily more dangerous. His brother, the Lord Admiral, had sought to depose him, and fell a victim to his own foolishness and ambition (20th March 1549). The attempt to interfere with the religious service in the house of the Princess Mary made Somerset even more unpopular, alienated the Emperor still further, and enraged those who yet clung to the remnants of the old faith. Then came the great rising in the West, the revolt of the commons throughout Eastern and Central England against the enclosures carried out by the land-grabbing crew that surrounded Somerset. In April 1549 Cecil was trying to obtain a grant of the rectory and manor of Wimbledon, in which he eventually succeeded, and he appears to have purchased at the same time some fen lands near Spalding; but although he was in the midst of affairs, and must have been the Protector’s right hand in most things, he was sagacious enough at so dangerous a time to keep to the routine work of his office, and avoided all responsibility on his own account.
When Warwick came back from his ruthless campaign against the peasants of Norfolk, flushed with an easy victory, the idol of a discontented and partly foreign soldiery, the time was ripe for him to strike his blow. Gardiner and Bonner were in the Tower, the Catholic party were being harried and persecuted throughout the country, the French and Scots in Scotland were now strong and invincible, the French fleet dominated the Channel, the town of Boulogne was known to be untenable; and, above all, an unpaid victorious soldiery looked to Warwick as their champion. Warwick himself laid the blame for all troubles and shortcomings upon the Protector, and summoning the officers of his army to Ely Place, constituted himself their spokesman for obtaining their pay. Through Wriothesley—now Southampton—Somerset’s enemy, he persuaded the Catholics that he disapproved of the religious pressure that was being exercised. The first step taken openly for the overthrow of the Protector appears to be a letter written by Warwick to Cecil,[21] on the 14th September 1549, which shows, amongst other things, the high esteem in which the secretary was held. “To my very loving friend, Mr Cecille,” it runs,—“These shall be to desire you to be an intercessor to my Lord’s Grace that this bearer, Thomas Drury, captain of nine-score footmen, serving the King’s Majesty in Norfolk, should receive for them his pay for the space of two months.” Warwick knew full well that no money would be forthcoming for these men’s pay, and that the Protector was already being deserted by the councillors, who were finding excuses for meeting with Warwick at Ely Place rather than with Somerset at Hampton Court. At length the Protector could shut his eyes no longer to the desertion. The only councillors who were at Hampton Court with him were Cranmer, Sir William Paget, Sir William Petre, and Sir Thomas Smith, Secretaries of State, and his own secretary, William Cecil. The meetings at Ely Place and the growing storm against him found Somerset unprotected and unprepared. On the 1st October he issued a proclamation calling upon the lieges to muster and defend the King; but most of his advisers near him deprecated the use of force, which they knew would be fruitless against Warwick and the troops, and his divided councils only resulted in the dissemination of anonymous handbills and circulars stating that the King’s person was in danger from Warwick, and the summoning of such nobles as were thought most likely to be favourable to the Protector’s cause. Secretary Petre, who had advocated an agreement, was on the 7th October sent to London to confer with Warwick, but he betrayed his trust and returned no more. The King and the Protector had in the meanwhile removed to Windsor for greater security; but Warwick had gained the Tower and had conciliated the city of London, and it was clear to all now, that Somerset’s power was gone. All fell away from him, except only Sir Thomas Smith. The two principal generals in arms, Lords Russell and Herbert, rallied to Warwick. Cranmer and Paget, it is true, remained by the side of the Protector, but, like Petre, they played him false. No word or sign is given of Cecil, though he too remained with his master; but it is significant that all the letters to Warwick at the time are in the handwriting of Sir Thomas Smith, and at this moment of difficulty and danger sagacious Cecil recedes into the position of a private secretary, sheltered behind the responsibility of his master.
In vain Somerset, at the prompting of Cranmer and Paget, sought to make terms with Warwick. Finding that Petre did not return to Windsor, but that the Lords in London demanded unconditional submission, the Protector, in the name of the King, sent Sir Philip Hoby on the 8th October with an appeal ad misericordiam to Warwick. “Marry,” says the letter, “to put himself simply into your hands, having heard as he and we have, without knowing upon what conditions, is not reasonable. Life is sweet, my Lords, and they say you do seek his blood and his death.… Wherefore, good my Lords, we beseech you again and again, if you have conceived any such determination, to put it out of your heads, and incline your hearts to kindness and humanity, remembering that he hath never been cruel to any of you, and why should you be cruelly minded to him.”[22]
This appeal was supported by a passionate prayer from Smith to Petre for clemency to the Protector. But Hoby also played false, and delayed his return until Warwick had secured the formal adhesion of Russell and Herbert. He then returned to Windsor with Warwick’s secret ultimatum to Cranmer, Smith, and Paget, warning them to desert the Protector, or be prepared to share his fate. Cranmer and Paget gave way, and washed their hands of the betrayal; Smith stood firm, and faced the consequence; whilst Cecil discreetly retired into the background, and apparently did nothing, though he was certainly present when Hoby delivered his official message, solemnly promising that no harm was intended, or would be done, to Somerset or his friends; “upon this all the aforenamed there present wept for joy, and prayed for the Lords. Mr. Comptroller (Paget) fell down on his knees, and clasped the Duke about the knees, and weeping said, ‘O! my Lord, ye see now what my Lords be.’” Paget’s crocodile tears were hardly dry before he sent a servant post-haste to London, saying that the Protector was now off his guard, and might easily be seized. The next day Somerset was a prisoner, and three days afterwards was in the Tower. Smith, Cecil, Thynne, and Stanhope were placed under arrest in their own apartments, whilst Cranmer, Paget, and Petre reaped the reward of their apostasy.[23]
When the Protector was sent to the Tower, all of his friends were made his fellow-prisoners except Cecil. Smith was dismissed from his offices, and threatened with the extreme penalty for treason; but Cecil, the Protector’s right hand, through whom all his patronage had passed, escaped punishment at the time[24] (13th October 1549). Warwick was apparently an old friend of his father,[25] and had unquestionably a great opinion of Cecil’s own application and sagacity. This may have inclined him to leniency in his case, but for some reason not disclosed he was certainly a prisoner in the Tower in the following month. In a letter from his friend the Duchess of Suffolk, dated 16th November 1549 (Lansdowne MSS., 2, 24), she condoles with him for “the loss of his place in the Duke of Somerset’s family,”[26] but says nothing to lead to the idea that he is in prison. But in the holograph journal already quoted, there is an entry—although, curiously enough, out of its proper position, and opposite the year 1547, saying, “Mēse Novēb aₒ 3ᵒ E vi. fui in Turre;” and his household biographer also records the fact as follows: “In the second year of K. Edward VI. he (Cecil) was committed to the Tower about the Duke of Somerset’s first calling in question, remaining there a quarter of a year, and was then enlarged;” but, as has already been explained, this life was written in the minister’s old age, and as he certainly was not in the Tower as a prisoner twice, the imprisonment referred to must have been that of November 1549 (3rd Edward VI.). There is, in any case, a gap in all known records with regard to Cecil for several months after Somerset’s disgrace, and he evidently had no share in public affairs for nearly a year after Warwick’s (now Northumberland’s) rise, during which time Sir William Petre and Dr. Wotton—who succeeded Smith—were joint Secretaries of State.