THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SOMERSET
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.
[Illustration: 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.
Accordingly, on 16th October 1551, the Duke of Somerset was suddenly
re-arrested in the Council Chamber[175] at Hampton Court, and taken
to the Tower to await his trial on charges made against him to
Northumberland by Sir Thomas Palmer, “a brilliant but unprincipled
soldier.” Palmer asserted that Somerset and his friends had plotted
to raise the North of England against Northumberland; that he had
intended to secure the Tower, to incite the populace of London to
revolt, to seize the Great Seal, with the aid of the City apprentices,
and, finally, to murder the Duke and his principal supporters at a
supper in Lord Paget’s house. There would seem to have been but little
truth in these charges; Northumberland at a later date, at any rate,
confessed that they were fabrications, and Palmer, before his death,
described them as the products of Northumberland’s fertile imagination.
This second trial of the Lord Protector took place on 1st December in
Westminster Hall. The judges were seven and twenty peers, amongst
them all the prisoner’s enemies--Northumberland, Northampton, and
Pembroke, with the Marquis of Winchester as President. The business
was conducted with the unfairness which distinguished nearly all the
political trials of this period; no witnesses for the prosecution were
produced in person, but their depositions were read. The indictments
accused Somerset of plotting to lay hands on Northumberland and others,
to seize the Great Seal and the Tower, and to deprive the sovereign of
his kingly power; he was also charged with having incited the citizens
of London to rebel against the King. The official indictment made no
mention of his supposed intention of assassinating Northumberland;
neither was Paget, in whose house it was alleged the murder was to have
taken place, ever tried for his share in the plot. This melodramatic
accusation would, in fact, seem to have been entirely dropped at the
last moment. Somerset, who denied the charges, was acquitted of treason
on the first count, but found guilty on that of felony for inciting
the citizens to revolt. There is ample evidence that he never did
anything of the kind. Winchester, a few months back his enthusiastic
ally, pronounced the death sentence on the unhappy man. Its effect upon
him was sudden and staggering. He became pale, and fell upon his knees
before Northumberland, Northampton, and Pembroke, who turned their
backs whilst he besought the people to pray for him and his family. And
so he was ordered back to the Tower to prepare for death. The count
of treason not having been proved, the axe did not face the prisoner
on the way back to his cell, and “the people, supposing he had been
clerely quitt, when they see the axe of the Tower put downe, made such
a shryke [shriek] and castinge up of caps, that it was heard into the
Long Acre beyonde Charing crosse.”[176] This must have cheered him
greatly. He may have thought and hoped that the people loved him still.
King Edward is said to have expressed considerable anxiety on his
uncle’s account, but his distress did not prevent him from indulging,
according to his own statement, notwithstanding his delicate health, in
exceptionally riotous Christmas festivities.[177] The popular joy over
his acquittal on the charge of treason proved fatal to Somerset, for it
convinced Northumberland more than ever of the necessity of destroying
his rival. Holinshed sarcastically informs us that “Christmas being
thus passed and spent with much mirth and pastime, it was thought now
good to proceed to the execution of the judgment against the Duke of
Somerset.” Notwithstanding the frequency of such events, the execution
of so great a nobleman produced a considerable impression throughout
London. Though every precaution was taken to prevent the assembling of
an unusual crowd, Tower Hill was black with people long before dawn on
22nd January 1552, the day of doom. The vast assembly had gathered in
the expectation of the Duke’s reprieve rather than of his death. There
was an extraordinary muster of halberdiers, men-at-arms, sheriffs and
their officers. At eight o’clock Somerset was brought forth. He faced
the axe manfully, knelt down and said his prayers, and then, rising
to his feet, made a speech. Unlike most of his peers, he did not deny
with his last breath the religion he had helped to promulgate; there
was nothing he regretted less, said he, when on the brink of his bloody
fate, than his endeavours “to reduce religion to its present state,
and he exhorted the people to continue steadfast in the Reformation
principles, and thereby escape the wrath of God.” Just as he was
about, according to custom, to take formal leave of the crowd, great
confusion was caused by the arrival of a body of soldiers with bills
and halberds, who had received orders to attend the execution. Arriving
late, these men dashed towards the scaffold, and their onrush, combined
with some noise as of thunder,--“a great sound which appeared unto many
above in the element as it had been the sound of gunpowder set on fire
in a close house bursting out,”--terrified the mob, and an awful panic
ensued: spectators standing on the edge of the Tower moat lost their
balance and fell into the water, and not a few were trampled underfoot
and others broke their necks. Presently, in the midst of the hubbub,
during which Somerset was left so unguarded that, it is said, he might
easily have escaped, Sir Anthony Browne was seen riding towards the
spot. The mob, somewhat recovered from its consternation, imagined he
was bringing a reprieve, and shouted, “A pardon, a pardon!” casting
their caps and cloaks into the air. But Sir Anthony brought no message
of mercy with him. The doomed Duke had been standing quietly on the
edge of the scaffold, watching the turmoil. He too, when he heard the
shouts of “Pardon!” imagined his nephew had remembered him; but he soon
realised his error. The hectic colour which for a moment had flushed
his cheeks with the gleam of hope faded as, in a ringing voice, he
concluded his interrupted speech; and that done, he bestowed his rings
on the headsman, said a few words to the Dean of Christchurch, bared
his neck, knelt on the straw, and laid his head on the block. Another
instant and the axe had fallen. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and
first Lord Protector of England, was buried in the Church of St.
Peter-ad-Vincula within the Tower on the north side of the choir,
between the coffins of the Queens Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard; the
funeral rites were those of the Church of England, as then constituted,
“but hurried and simple as for a pauper.”[178]
The character of Edward Seymour has been the subject of much
discussion; but it would seem fair to seek a _via media_ between
the over-severe condemnation of some historians and the exaggerated
praise of others. If we cannot exalt him to the high pedestal upon
which he has been set by Mr. Pollard, we need not fall into the error
of degrading him to the low level assigned him by eighteenth-century
historians. Somerset must not be judged by modern standards. If the
balance of good and evil in his character is considered, and we
contemplate him by the light of the middle sixteenth century, we
may even come to share the opinion of a large section of the London
populace of his day--mostly those of the Protestant party, be it
said--who looked on him as an admirable and God-fearing man,[179]
who did his best to free the people from much of the superstition,
oppression, and injustice from which it suffered. His faults, his
ambition and lust of power, were very human; and the evils of his
administration were largely due to the condition to which Henry VIII’s
misrule had reduced the country. The age in which he lived was very
unpropitious to statesmen and leaders of men, for, no matter how
intelligent they might be, some rival lurking in the shade was sure to
be ready to trip them up and take their place at the first opportunity.
On the whole, Somerset seems to have worked for what he believed to be
the interests of his King and the good of the Protestant religion, to
which he was consistently faithful. His domestic life was clean, and in
an age of place-hunters and libertines Edward Seymour was one of the
most respectable men. Neither entirely mediocre nor altogether great,
the Duke of Somerset may be described as _un grand homme manqué_--one
who just missed greatness.
* * * * *
NOTE.--A long letter from a Reformer named Francis Burgoyne, written
from London to John Calvin on 22nd January 1552, gives a most detailed
account of the Duke of Somerset’s execution, and an analysis of his
character which is of great interest. He says: “Hence arise our tears,
hence arises the all but universal distress, that on this very day,
about 9 o’clock, the Duke of Somerset of pious memory, when hardly
any person looked for or suspected such an event, was led out publicly
to execution. I myself was not present at the sight ... but many of
my friends related to me what they had seen and heard.” Then follows
a long account, given to Burgoyne by Utenhovius, of Somerset’s last
speech, continuing that “he spake all this ... with a look and gesture
becoming the firmness of a hero, and the modesty of a Christian; (they
say) that he was splendidly attired, as he used to be when about to
attend upon the King, or to appear in public on some special occasion;
that he gave the executioner some gold rings which he drew from his
fingers, together with all his clothes; only to a certain gentleman,
the Lieutenant of the Tower of London ... he gave his sword and upper
garment. What weeping, and wailing, and lamentation, followed upon the
death of this nobleman, it is as difficult to describe as to believe.
It is stated by some persons who belong to the household of some of the
Councillors ... that by the Royal indulgence the capital punishment had
been remitted, with a free pardon, while the Duke was yet in prison,
and that whole Council sent to inform him of it more than once; but
when he rejected with contempt the grace that was offered to him, (I
know not whether in reliance on his own innocence, or on the favour of
the King and some other parties, or on his own influence, and wealth,
and rank, or on some other delusive persuasion), the whole Council
were at length so irritated by this conduct, that they determined that
they would no longer endure that excessive arrogance of the man....
It is quite evident, in my opinion, that the deceased nobleman, like
other men, was not without his faults, and those perhaps more grievous
than could be passed over by God without punishment in this life....
This man was endowed and enriched with most excellent gifts of God
both in body and mind, but is not that the best gift, that God has
chosen the light of the Gospel to shine forth by his instrumentality
throughout this Kingdom.... I do not now mention how God had so exalted
him, from being born in a private station, that as the late King’s
brother-in-law, the brother of a Queen, the uncle of the present King,
he had no one here superior to him in any degree of honour, and then
especially, when appointed Lord Protector of the Realm, he was all
but King, or rather esteemed by everyone as the King of the King.”
Burgoyne then passes to the subject of Somerset’s religion: “During
almost the whole time when we were both of us here, he had become so
lukewarm in the service of Christ as scarcely to have anything less
at heart than the state of Religion in this country. Nor indeed did
he retain in this respect anything worthy of commendation, excepting
that, as far as words go, he always professed himself a Gospeller when
occasion required such acknowledgement.” “It is notorious to every
one in this Kingdom,” he continues, “that he was the occasion of his
brother’s death, who, having been convicted on a charge of treason
which no one could prove against him by legal evidence, and of which
when brought to execution he perseveringly denied the truth, was
beheaded owing to his information, instigated by I know not what hatred
and rivalry against his brother.... In fine, that very act, for which
he was last of all thrown into prison, was both unworthy of a Christian
such as he professed himself to be, and also sufficiently shews that
the most part of the crimes which I have laid to his charge, have
their foundation in truth. For he was himself the head and author of a
certain conspiracy against the Duke of Northumberland, lately called
the Earl of Warwick, whom he pursued with the most unrelenting hatred,
as having been foremost in depriving him of the rank of Protector,
and being himself regarded from that time by the King’s Councillors
as occupying that office; the Duke of Somerset, I say, gained over
some accomplices in this conspiracy even from among the Council itself
(who are now in prison awaiting the King’s pleasure respecting them),
by which it was agreed among them, that on the Duke of Northumberland
being dispatched (together with any of his friends who should oppose
their views) either by violence, or in secret, or in any other way,
they should place the entire administration of the Kingdom in their own
hands, but that the Duke of Somerset should be invested with the chief
authority, or even be restored to the order of Protector.” The writer,
after saying that “at his death he manifested some favourable marks of
Christian penitence,” concludes: “Two reasons are present to my mind
which increase my regret; one of them is, that we have lost so great a
man, and one who was not so entirely corrupted but that there remained
some hope both of his reformation, and also that the interest of the
Gospel would in any case be advanced by his authority and protection,
since there is certainly the greatest scarcity and want of such
characters in this country.”[180]