In the earlier stages of his struggle for power, when he felt himself insecure with the Protestant party, Warwick had endeavoured to secure Catholic support by promising the old religion a satisfactory amount of freedom; but no sooner was he safe in his saddle, during Somerset’s imprisonment (1549–50), than he became its inveterate enemy. The Protector had made an effort to liberate Gardiner, but Warwick kept him more closely confined than ever. During the new ruler’s term of office, the internal disorders of the country continued as acute, in every detail, as under Somerset’s régime; all military works fell into decay, no new ships of war were built, fortifications came to a standstill, and many troops were disbanded. The coinage was debased, though the Protector had worked hard to improve it; the tribunals were as corrupt as at any period. To ensure the passing of his vigorous religious measures, and carry on his administration, Warwick “packed” both Parliament and Council with his own staunchest followers. It was almost a piece of good fortune for him when Somerset was released from the Tower, for so great was the general dissatisfaction with his administration that he would probably have been overthrown in his turn.
EDWARD SEYMOUR, DUKE OF SOMERSET
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY HOLBEIN
During the winter of 1549–50, Somerset, confined in the gloomy old fortress, was striving to retrieve his tottering fortunes. His first move was to sign (in December) a confession of “his guilt, presumption, and incapacity.” Early in January 1550, a bill, brought before Parliament and passed in both Houses, promised him his life, on condition that he forfeited his estates to the King, gave up his positions, and paid a fine of £2000 a year in land. He attempted to appeal against the extent of the forfeiture, but the Council grew so menacing that the fallen Protector, with visions, it may be, of Tower Hill and the block before his eyes, thought it best to pocket his grievance. So on 2nd February he wrote to the Council expressing his gratitude to the King for sparing his life and treating him so leniently. According to a letter from Ab Ulmis to Bullinger, dated from Oxford, 4th December 1551, Warwick generously made an effort to save the Duke by imploring him in court to throw himself upon the mercy of the King, which he did. On the 4th of that same month he was released, after giving a bond of £10,000 as a guarantee of good behaviour, and on the peculiar conditions that he should not go more than four miles away from the Council, nor yet come to the meetings unless summoned; further, if the King went near the palace at Sheen or Somerset’s own house at Sion (in one or other of which two places he was to abide), the former Protector was to depart instantly. The Duke’s full pardon was given on 16th February. At the same time, all those who had been imprisoned with him were released, after being mulcted in heavy fines.
Immediately after his liberation Somerset joined the Court at Greenwich, and was shortly afterwards made a Privy Councillor! Indeed, before many months were over he had regained his former position and influence over the King so completely that Warwick considered it safer to become, at least publicly, reconciled to him. For this purpose he arranged a marriage between John, Viscount Lisle,[171] his own eldest son, and the Lady Ann Seymour, Somerset’s eldest daughter. This marriage took place on 3rd June (1550) at the royal palace at Sheen, and in the King’s presence. On the following day occurred yet another aristocratic wedding, also attended by His Majesty, that of Warwick’s third son, Sir Robert Dudley, afterwards famous as the Earl of Leicester of Elizabeth’s reign, with that renowned heroine of romance, Amy Robsart. Sir Walter Scott, in his Kenilworth, falls into the error—unless, indeed, he wilfully disregarded facts for the sake of artistic effect—of placing the scene of this marriage in Devonshire, and of describing it as clandestine. On the contrary, it was quite an open affair, mentioned by King Edward in his Diary in the already quoted entry for 4th June 1550, relating to the cruel sport of duck-pulling. The King seems to have attended this wedding, but he was too ill to be present at the far more important marriages of his two cousins three years later. About this time, the summer of 1550, the ex-Protector’s forfeited lands were restored to him, and he was allowed to reconstitute his household as in the past.
In February 1550 a proposal was brought before Parliament for the restoration of Somerset to the office and title of Lord Protector, and was only quashed by the prorogation of that body. He seemed in a fair way of regaining his old position of power, and the Dorsets, thinking no doubt that it would be well to be on friendly terms with him, began to bethink themselves once more of the old project of marriage between their eldest daughter, Lady Jane Grey, and young Hertford, who had once been on such intimate terms in their family circle that, as we have seen, the Lady Frances had on more than one occasion called him her “son.” She now wrote to Cecil[172] referring to some service Somerset had rendered her—this may have been her reason for reviving the matrimonial project—and stated incidentally that she much desired a match between his (Somerset’s) son and her daughter, but “that she wished to let the parties have their free choice.” Somerset does not, however, appear to have approved of the plan, for there is no evidence that he did anything now to further it, and when it was originally proposed he had allowed the matter to fall into abeyance. It is not at all improbable that the lady’s letter, if communicated to him, put him on his guard against traps such as the wily Dorsets might set for him and his son. The incident is not devoid of interest, as demonstrating how the Dorsets never ceased their intrigues and matrimonial schemes, and also how even Warwick’s best friends were none too sure of his eventual success, now his rival was again at large. The Dorsets were evidently anxious to have a foot in each camp; but this time they failed, and ended by falling back on Northumberland’s youngest son as a husband for the much-enduring Jane.
Meanwhile, Warwick was contemplating, by no means complacently, the honours and favour heaped upon the rival for whose ruin he was only awaiting some favourable opportunity. His first chance of proving his unvarying hatred of the Protector came on 15th October of the year 1550, on the occasion of the death of the aged Lady Seymour. This event placed her son, as we have already seen, in a quandary—a State funeral, such as was due to the King’s grandmother, would have enabled Warwick to accuse him of a fresh assumption of regal dignity; a private funeral, on the other hand, might be maliciously construed into disrespect shown to the sovereign. Wherefore Somerset consulted the Council as to what should be done. The reply, as already mentioned, was that a State funeral was not at all necessary, nor even any formal Court mourning, since such observances served “rather to pomp than to any edifying,” an opinion peculiar to the Council, for in the preceding August a State funeral (that of Lord Southampton) had been organised with all possible “pomp.” This denial of the honour due to Lady Seymour’s remains did not, of course, proceed from any idea of economy or Puritanism, but merely from the Council’s desire to insult Somerset and his family. It was an opportunity neglected, for if Seymour had insisted upon a State funeral, the events of the following year might have been anticipated, and the accusation of usurping regal honours brought against him at once. Another curious fact in connection with this funeral is that Somerset—a shining light amongst Reformers—wrote to ask Gardiner to “offer up Mass for the health of his mother’s soul after her death” (!)[173]
Another method adopted by Warwick was that already employed by Sudeley in his struggle with his elder brother, of spreading calumnies against his rival through the agency of a third person, and ensuring their reaching the King’s ears. After a time these tales began to make their impression on his juvenile Majesty, though Somerset, for his part, was working hard to recover the King’s favour entirely, and consolidate his own position. Rich, the Lord Chancellor, an infamous traitor, gave him his aid and acted as his spy, keeping him informed of every movement made by Warwick and his party. One of Rich’s letters on this subject, addressed merely “To the Duke,” was handed by mistake to the Duke of Norfolk, next to Warwick, Somerset’s bitterest enemy; thus each opponent had some idea of his adversary’s plans. Still, so subtle was Warwick’s work that there was no movement against Somerset visible enough to justify him in taking open measures; there was nothing for it but to bide his time, and do his best, meanwhile, to ingratiate himself with the King. In public, the rivals appeared the best of friends, and, to maintain this pleasant fiction, Somerset, on 11th October 1551, attended what must have been a painful ceremony to him—the investiture of Warwick with the title of Duke of Northumberland in the Great Hall of Hampton Court.[174] The mortification caused by this evidence of his rival’s growing power, a power he could not openly attack, must have been bitter indeed.
Side by side with Northumberland’s intrigues, the national discontent, of which we have already given instances, and which had been intensified by Northumberland’s brief term of office, was a potent factor in the eventual ruin of the Protector: for we may be sure Somerset’s enemies took good care to father Northumberland’s misrule on his rival. It would be useless for our purpose, though easy indeed, to cite further and numerous instances of the universal disorder into which the realm had fallen. Suffice to say that the England of this period strongly resembled France under the Directory. Everything was upside down. The faith of the people had received a staggering blow, from which it would take nearly a hundred years to recover, and then only in a measure, for to this day the masses of the lowest class of the people of England remain in terrible darkness, alike indifferent to influences religious and moral. In the reign of Henry VII, and in the first years of Henry VIII, no hale man or woman dreamt of missing Mass on a Sunday: under Edward VI, Latimer complained that the churches were deserted, and Gardiner describes the lower classes as gradually falling into a state of paganism. This relaxation of religious observance influenced the popular morals, and in every class the domestic habits of the country were most disreputable. So bad was the condition of things, in fact, that Northumberland and his party came to realise that Somerset’s worst enemy was himself; in other words, that the general discontent and misery arising from his maladministration—or, to be just, in some cases from causes over which he had no control—furnished a more powerful argument against him than the spiteful inventions of his opponents. They must have felt confident that any blow they struck at him would meet with little or no opposition, but rather with encouragement from the people, who had turned the cold shoulder on his appeal at Hampton Court some two years previously.