King Edward, in the meantime, remained at the Tower until his official progress thence to Westminster for his coronation. Although Somerset and his brother were in office, and the Marquis of Dorset in great favour with them, it is not probable that his cousin, the Lady Frances, or her daughters were brought to see him. His boyish Majesty was left, according to custom, in complete isolation, seen and influenced alone by his uncles, the Seymours, and by his numerous tutors (for even after his accession his lessons were continued with curious punctuality), so that, what with State functions and his education, the unfortunate lad had very little or no time for physical exercise or recreation.
On 19th February His Majesty rode from the Tower in the usual procession to Westminster before the coronation which formed a part of our regal ceremonial until the reign of James I, when it was omitted on account of the plague. Edward, garbed in silver, with a white velvet waistcoat and a cloak slashed with Venetian silver brocade, embroidered with pearls, cantered on a milk-white pony under a white silk canopy edged with silver. On either side of him rode his two uncles, the Lord Protector and the Lord High-Admiral, whilst Cranmer, dumbly riding with the Emperor’s Envoy, went between him and the Venetian Ambassador. They passed through streets gay with tapestry and cloth of gold; whilst at the Conduit in Cornhill white and red wine ran free for the people to drink at their will, and children dressed as angels sang a quaint greeting:—
“Hayle, Noble Edward, our Kynge and soveraigne,
Hayle, the cheffe comfort of your communaltye:
Hayle, redolent rose, whose sweetness to reteyne,
Ys unto us all such great comodity,
That earthly joy no more to us can be.”
At the Standard in the Chepe an erection, “like unto a tower,” and hung with cloth of gold, was surmounted by trumpeters, who, after a flourish, recited the following poetic (!) effusion:—
“Ye children that are towardes, sing up and downe,
And never play the cowardes to him that weareth the crowne,
But always doo your care his pleasure to fulfyll,
Then shall you keep right sure the honour of England still.
Sing up heart, sing up heart,
Sing no more downe,
But joy in King Edward that wereth the crowne.”
Outside the Metropolitan Cathedral there was an acrobatic display: “An argosine [Ragusan] came from the batilment of Saint Poule’s Church, upon a cable, beyng made faste to an anker at the deane’s doore, liying uppon his breaste, aidyng himself neither with hande nor foote, and after ascended to the middes [middle] of the same cable, and tumbled and plaied many pretie toies [tricks], wherat the Kyng and other of the peres and nobles of the realme laughed hartely.” In Fleet Street the King was met by Faith, Justice, and Truth, the first holding a Bible conspicuously in her hands: each of these damsels recited a long poem in His Majesty’s honour. Temple Bar having been “new painted in dyvers colours,” was garnished with cloth of arras and standards and flags, and seven French trumpeters “blew sweetly” to the singing of an anthem by a group of children. The customary banquet was served in the Great Hall, Westminster, and was attended by Archbishop Cranmer, most of the bishops, the ambassadors, and envoys, the nobility, the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs.
King Edward stayed at Westminster Palace until the coronation, which took place on the following Sunday in Westminster Abbey. On account of the King’s poor health, the service was slightly abridged, otherwise the old Catholic form was throughout adhered to; for though Cranmer preached a sermon in refutation of Petrine claims and urged the young monarch to abolish “idolatry,” he celebrated High Mass, and the incongruous function concluded with the King’s “offering,” as had always been done in Catholic times, at St. Edward’s shrine! After the coronation there were public jousts and tournaments; and the King and Court attended at Blackfriars those very performances by the “players” which had roused the ire of Bishop Gardiner and had been postponed at his request.[126] We may be certain that the Marchioness of Dorset witnessed the procession and coronation, together with her two elder daughters, Jane and Katherine, from some place of vantage set apart for the ladies of the royal family, who, however, took no active part in either the procession or the actual ceremony, it not being customary for ladies to be officially present at the coronation of a bachelor King.
Notwithstanding that Edward VI is always connected in the popular mind with Protestantism, and notwithstanding Cranmer’s attack on “Popery” at the coronation, for quite eighteen months, if not two years, after Henry VIII’s death the Church in England remained exactly as he left it. True it is, that the first Book of Common Prayer was issued in 1548, but, on the other hand, Mass was said daily in the Royal Chapel (Low Mass every day and High Mass on festivals) for the first two or three years of Edward’s reign; an MS. account book of “the Treasurer of the Chamber” in the Trevelyan Papers reveals the fact that the boy-King himself heard Mass almost daily until 1549. There is every reason to believe that Mass continued to be said or sung in the parish churches also until the same year; certainly the old feasts were still observed for the first two years of King Edward’s reign, especially in London. These feasts were much more numerous than those retained by the Established Church; there were the first three days in Easter Week, Corpus Christi,—when there was the usual procession with the Host through the streets,—the “Days” of St. John, SS. Peter and Paul, St. Mary Magdalen, St. James the Apostle, the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Conception, and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, All Hallows’ Day, All Souls’ Day, St. Edward Confessor, Christmas Day, and the three following holy-days. High Mass of the Holy Ghost was said in St. Stephen’s Chapel when Parliament met for the first time after Henry’s death, the King and both Houses attending in State. All the same, things ecclesiastical were not as they used to be; there was in different churches much diversity in the matter of details—one priest would use incense, another not, and so on. In 1548, however, Compline was sung in English and the Litany of the Saints also in the vernacular.
So soon as the news that King Henry was dead was authenticated abroad, an army of foreign Reformers—Swiss, German, French, and Italian—poured into England, as a secure refuge from the persecution they endured in their respective countries. These worthies held the most varied opinions, some even casting doubt on the Divinity of Christ, and the Lutherans hating the Calvinists as cordially as they both detested the Papists. The Londoners in general, who, when not Catholics, were mostly schismatics and ever jealous of foreigners, did not relish this sudden invasion; but the leaders of politics and religion in England welcomed the Reformers with open arms, even overlooking their doctrinal shortcomings for the sake of their hatred of “the Scarlet Lady.” Some of them—for instance, Bucer, Peter Martyr, and perhaps Paul Fagius—were awarded chairs at the Universities; whilst others, such as John ab Ulmis, Conrad Pellican, Oswald Geisshaüsler (better known as Myconius), Bullinger, Martin Micronius, Bartholomew Traheron, John Stumphius, Christopher Froschover, Bernardine Ochinus, Peter Bizarro of Perugia,[127] etc., were received into the houses of some of the aristocracy to teach their children “the new learning.” The Marquis of Dorset, as already noted, welcomed these foreign Reformers with enthusiasm, and we shall presently learn more concerning his relations with them. He did not confine his intercourse to a mere empty display of hospitality, but kept up a regular correspondence with many of them after their return to their homes. Letter-writing seems, indeed, to have been a passion with the Reformers, and their voluminous correspondence, arranged, translated, and published by the Parker Society,[128] throws much valuable light on their private characters, their politics, and their singular theological opinions. It is mostly addressed to their brethren in Basle, Zurich, Geneva, and Strasburg, or to their English patrons. According to some authorities, there were from ten to twenty thousand foreign adherents of the “new learning”—or as we might still better say, new learnings, so many and diverse were their opinions—in England during Edward VI’s reign, but the former figure is the more likely to be correct. Very many of these learned men scattered themselves abroad again when the Catholic reaction set in under Mary; but doubtless a few remained, whose descendants to this day worship in the Église Reformée Française, l’Église Protestante Suisse, the Dutch Church, and in the other foreign Protestant churches which are sprinkled over the metropolis, but whose congregations were materially increased after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.