These were ancient religious practices, now termed superstitions; though it is fortunate for mankind, when superstition happens to take a direction so innocent and inoffensive. The severe disposition which naturally attends all reformers prompted likewise the council to abolish some gay and showy ceremonies which belonged to the ancient religion.[*]
An order was also issued by council for the removal of all images from the churches; an innovation which was much desired by the reformers, and which alone, with regard to the populace, amounted almost to a total change of the established religion.[**] An attempt had been made to separate the use of images from their abuse, the reverence from the worship of them; but the execution of this design was found, upon trial, very difficult, if not wholly impracticable.
As private masses were abolished by law, it became necessary to compose a new communion service; and the council went so far, in the preface which they prefixed to this work, as to leave the practice of auricular confession wholly indifferent.[***] This was a prelude to the entire abolition of that invention, one of the most powerful engines that ever was contrived for degrading the laity, and giving their spiritual guides an entire ascendant over them. And it may justly be said, that, though the priest’s absolution, which attends confession, serves somewhat to ease weak minds from the immediate agonies of superstitious terror, it operates only by enforcing superstition itself, and thereby preparing the mind for a more violent relapse into the same disorders.
The people were at that time extremely distracted by the opposite opinions of their preachers; and as they were totally unable to judge of the reasons advanced on either side, and naturally regarded every thing which they heard at church as of equal authority, a great confusion and fluctuation resulted from this uncertainty. The council had first endeavored to remedy the inconvenience by laying some restraints on preaching; but finding this expedient ineffectual, they imposed a total silence on the preachers, and thereby put an end at once to all the polemics of the pulpit.[****] By the nature of things, this restraint could only be temporary. For in proportion as the ceremonies of public worship, its shows and exterior observances, were retrenched by the reformers, the people were inclined to contract a stronger attachment to sermons, whence alone they received any occupation or amusement. The ancient religion, by giving its votaries something to do, freed them from the trouble of thinking: sermons were delivered only in the principal churches, and at some particular fasts and festivals: and the practice of haranguing the populace, which, if abused, is so powerful an incitement to faction and sedition, had much less scope and influence during those ages.
The greater progress was made towards a reformation in England, the farther did the protector find himself from all prospect of completing the union with Scotland; and the queen dowager, as well as the clergy, became the more averse to all alliance with a nation which had so far departed from all ancient principles. Somerset, having taken the town of Haddington, had ordered it to be strongly garrisoned and fortified by Lord Grey: he also erected some fortifications at Lauder; and he hoped that these two places, together with Broughty and some smaller fortresses which were in the hands of the English, would serve as a curb on Scotland, and would give him access into the heart of the country.
Arran, being disappointed in some attempts on Broughty, relied chiefly on the succors expected from France for the recovery of these places; and they arrived at last in the frith, to the number of six thousand men; half of them Germans. They were commanded by Dessé, and under him by Andelot, Strozzi, Meilleraye, and Count Rhingrave. The Scots were at that time so sunk by their misfortunes, that five hundred English horse were able to ravage the whole country without resistance, and make inroads to the gates of the capital:[*] but on the appearance of the French succors, they collected more courage; and having joined Dessé with a considerable reënforcement, they laid siege to Haddington.[**] This was an undertaking for which they were by themselves totally unfit; and even with the assistance of the French, they placed their chief hopes of success in starving the garrison. After some vain attempts to take the place by a regular siege, the blockade was formed, and the garrison was repulsed with loss in several sallies which they made upon the besiegers.
The hostile attempts which the late king and the protector had made against Scotland, not being steady, regular, nor pushed to the last extremity, had served only to imitate the nation, and to inspire them with the strongest aversion to that union which was courted in so violent a manner. Even those who were inclined to the English alliance were displeased to have it imposed on them by force of arms; and the earl of Huntley in particular said, pleasantly, that he disliked not the match, but he hated the manner of wooing.[*] The queen dowager, finding these sentiments to prevail, called a parliament in an abbey near Haddington; and it was there proposed that the young queen, for her greater security, should be sent to France, and be committed to the custody of that ancient ally. Some objected that this measure was desperate, allowed no resource in case of miscarriage, exposed the Scots to be subjected by foreigners, involved them in perpetual war with England, and left them no expedient by which they could conciliate the friendship of that powerful nation. It was answered, on the other hand, that the queen’s presence was the very cause of war with England; that that nation would desist when they found that their views of forcing a marriage had become altogether impracticable; and that Henry, being engaged by so high a mark of confidence, would take their sovereign under his protection, and use his utmost efforts to defend the kingdom. These arguments were aided by French gold, which was plentifully distributed among the nobles. The governor had a pension conferred on him of twelve thousand livres a year, received the title of duke of Chatelrault, and obtained for his son the command of a hundred men at arms.[**] And as the clergy dreaded the consequences of the English alliance, they seconded this measure with all the zeal and industry which either principle or interest could inspire. It was accordingly determined to send the queen to France; and, what was understood to be the necessary consequence, to marry her to the dauphin. Villegaignon, commander of four French galleys lying in the Frith of Forth, set sail as if he intended to return home; but when he reached the open sea he turned northwards, passed by the Orkneys, and came in on the west coast at Dunbarton; an extraordinary voyage for ships of that fabric.[***] The young queen was there committed to him; and, being attended by the lords Ereskine and Livingstone, she put to sea, and, after meeting with some tempestuous weather, arrived safely at Brest, whence she was conducted to Paris, and soon after she was betrothed to the dauphin.
Somerset, pressed by many difficulties at home and despairing of success in his enterprise against Scotland, was desirous of composing the differences with that kingdom, and he offered the Scots a ten years’ truce; but as they insisted on his restoring all the places which he had taken, the proposal came to nothing. The Scots recovered the fortresses of Hume and Fastcastle by surprise, and put the garrisons to the sword: they repulsed with loss the English, who, under the command of Lord Seymour, made a descent, first in Fife, then at Montrose: in the former action, James Stuart, natural brother to the queen, acquired honor; in the latter, Ereskine of Dun. An attempt was made by Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Thomas Palmer, at the head of a considerable body, to throw relief into Haddington; but these troops, falling into an ambuscade, were almost wholly cut in pieces.[*] And though a small body of two hundred men escaped all the vigilance of the French, and arrived safely in Haddington with some ammunition and provisions, the garrison was reduced to such difficulties, that the protector found it necessary to provide more effectually for their relief. He raised an army of eighteen thousand men, and adding three thousand Germans, who, on the dissolution of the Protestant alliance, had offered their service to England, he gave the command of the whole to the earl of Shrewsbury.[**] Dessé raised the blockade on the approach of the English; and with great difficulty made good his retreat to Edinburgh, where he posted himself advantageously. Shrewsbury, who had lost the opportunity of attacking him on his march, durst not give him battle in his present situation; and contenting himself with the advantage already gained of supplying Haddington, he retired into England.
Though the protection of France was of great consequence to the Scots in supporting them against the invasions of England, they reaped still more benefit from the distractions and divisions which have crept into the councils of this latter kingdom. Even the two brothers, the protector and admiral, not content with the high stations which they severally enjoyed, and the great eminence to which they had risen, had entertained the most violent jealousy of each other; and they divided the whole court and kingdom by their opposite cabals and pretensions. Lord Seymour was a man of insatiable ambition; arrogant, assuming, implacable; and though esteemed of superior capacity to the protector, he possessed not to the same degree the confidence and regard of the people. By his flattery and address, he had so insinuated himself into the good graces of the queen dowager, that, forgetting her usual prudence and decency, she married him immediately upon the demise of the late king; insomuch that, had she soon proved pregnant, it might have been doubtful to which husband the child belonged. The credit and riches of this alliance supported the ambition of the admiral, but gave umbrage to the duchess of Somerset, who, uneasy that the younger brother’s wife should have the precedency, employed all her credit with her husband, which was too great, first to create, then to widen the breach between the two brothers.[*]
The first symptoms of this misunderstanding appeared when the protector commanded the army in Scotland. Secretary Paget, a man devoted to Somerset, remarked that Seymour was forming separate intrigues among the counsellors; was corrupting by presents the king’s servants; and even endeavoring, by improper indulgences and liberalities, to captivate the affections of the young monarch. Paget represented to him the danger of this conduct; desired him to reflect on the numerous enemies whom the sudden elevation of their family had created; and warned him, that any dissension between him and the protector would be greedily laid hold of to effect the ruin of both. Finding his remonstrances neglected, he conveyed intelligence of the danger to Somerset, and engaged him to leave the enterprise upon Scotland unfinished, in order to guard against the attempts of his domestic enemies. In the ensuing parliament, the admiral’s projects appeared still more dangerous to public tranquillity; and as he had acquired many partisans, he made a direct attack upon his brother’s authority. He represented to his friends, that formerly, during a minority, the office of protector of the kingdom had been kept separate from that of governor of the king’s person; and that the present union of these two important trusts conferred on Somerset an authority which could not safely be lodged in any subject.[*] The young king was even prevailed on to write a letter to the parliament desiring that Seymour might be appointed his governor; and that nobleman had formed a party in the two houses, by which he hoped to effect his purpose. The design was discovered before its execution; and some common friends were sent to remonstrate with him, but had so little influence, that he threw out many menacing expressions, and rashly threatened that, if he were thwarted in his attempt, he would make this parliament the blackest that ever sat in England.[**] The council sent for him to answer for his conduct; but he refused to attend: they then began to threaten in their turn, and informed him that the king’s letter, instead of availing him any thing to the execution of his views, would be imputed to him as a criminal enterprise, and be construed as a design to disturb the government, by forming a separate interest with a child and minor. They even let fall some menaces of sending him to the Tower for his temerity; and the admiral, finding himself prevented in his design, was obliged to submit, and to desire a reconciliation with his brother.
The mild and moderate temper of Somerset made him willing to forget these enterprises of the admiral; but the ambition of that turbulent spirit could not be so easily appeased. His spouse, the queen dowager, died in childbed; but so far from regarding this event as a check to his aspiring views, he founded on it the scheme of a more extraordinary elevation. He made his addresses to the lady Elizabeth, then in the sixteenth year of her age; and that princess, whom even the hurry of business and the pursuits of ambition could not, in her more advanced years, disengage entirely from the tender passions, seems to have listened to the insinuations of a man who possessed every talent proper to captivate the affections of the fair.[***]
But as Henry VIII. had excluded his daughters from all hopes of succession if they married without the consent of his executors, which Seymour could never hope to obtain, it was concluded that he meant to effect his purpose by expedients still more rash and more criminal. All the other measures of the admiral tended to confirm this suspicion. He continued to attack, by presents, the fidelity of those who had more immediate access to the king’s person: he endeavored to seduce the young prince into his interest, he found means of holding a private correspondence with him; he openly decried his brother’s administration; and asserted that, by enlisting Germans and other foreigners he intended to form a mercenary army, which might endanger the king’s authority, and the liberty of the people: by promises and persuasion he brought over to his party many of the principal nobility; and had extended his interest all over England: he neglected not even the most popular persons of inferior rank; and had computed that he could, on occasion, muster an army of ten thousand men, composed of his servants, tenants, and retainers:[*] he had already provided arms for their use; and having engaged in his interests Sir John Sharington, a corrupt man, master of the mint at Bristol, he flattered himself that money would not be wanting. Somerset was well apprised of all these alarming circumstances, and endeavored, by the most friendly expedients, by entreaty, reason, and even by heaping new favors upon the admiral, to make him desist from his dangerous counsels: but finding all endeavors ineffectual, he began to think of more severe remedies. The earl of Warwick was an ill instrument between the brothers; and had formed the design, by inflaming the quarrel, to raise his own fortune on the ruins of both.
Dudley, earl of Warwick, was the son of that Dudley, minister to Henry VII., who, having, by rapine, extortion, and perversion of law, incurred the hatred of the public, had been sacrificed to popular animosity in the beginning of the subsequent reign. The late king, sensible of the iniquity, at least illegality, of the sentence, had afterwards restored young Dudley’s blood by act of parliament; and finding him endowed with abilities, industry, and activity, he had intrusted him with many important commands, and had ever found him successful in his undertakings. He raised him to the dignity of Viscount Lisle, conferred on him the office of admiral, and gave him by his will a place among his executors. Dudley made still further progress during the minority; and having obtained the title of earl of Warwick, and undermined the credit of Southampton, he bore the chief rank among the protector’s counsellors. The victory gained at Pinkey was much ascribed to his courage and conduct; and he was universally regarded as a man equally endowed with the talents of peace and of war. But all these virtues were obscured by still greater vices; an exorbitant ambition, an insatiable avarice, a neglect of decency, a contempt of justice: and as he found that Lord Seymour, whose abilities and enterprising spirit he chiefly dreaded, was involving himself in ruin by his rash counsels, he was determined to push him on the precipice, and thereby remove the chief obstacle to his own projected greatness.
When Somerset found that the public peace was endangered by his brother’s seditious, not to say rebellious schemes, he was the more easily persuaded by Warwick to employ the extent of royal authority against him; and after depriving him of the office of admiral, he signed a warrant for committing him to the Tower. Some of his accomplices were also taker into custody; and three privy counsellors, being sent to examine them, made a report, that they had met with very full and important discoveries. Yet still the protector suspended the blow, and showed a reluctance to ruin his brother. He offered to desist from the prosecution, if Seymour would promise him a cordial reconciliation, and, renouncing all ambitious hopes, be contented with a private life, and retire into the country. But as Seymour made no other answer to these friendly offers than menaces and defiances, he ordered a charge to be drawn up against him, consisting of thirty-three articles;[*] and the whole to be laid before the privy council. It is pretended, that every particular was so incontestably proved, both by witnesses and his own handwriting, that there was no room for doubt; yet did the council think proper to go in a body to the Tower, in order more fully to examine the prisoner. He was not daunted by the appearance: he boldly demanded a fair trial; required to be confronted with the witnesses; desired that the charge might be left with him, in order to be considered; and refused to answer any interrogatories by which he might accuse himself.
It is apparent that, notwithstanding what is pretended, there must have been some deficiency in the evidence against Seymour, when such demands, founded on the plainest principles of law and equity, were absolutely rejected. We shall indeed conclude, if we carefully examine the charge, that many of the articles were general, and scarcely capable of any proof many of them, if true, susceptible of a more favorable interpretation; and that though, on the whole, Seymour appears to have been a dangerous subject, he had not advanced far in those treasonable projects imputed to him. The chief part of his actual guilt seems to have consisted in some unwarrantable practices in the admiralty, by which pirates were protected and illegal impositions laid upon the merchants.
But the administration had at that time an easy instrument of vengeance, to wit, the parliament; and needed not to give themselves any concern with regard either to the guilt of the persons whom they prosecuted, or the evidence which could be produced against them. A session of parliament being held, it was resolved to proceed against Seymour by bill of attainder; and the young king being induced, after much solicitation, to give his consent to it, a considerable weight was put on his approbation. The matter was first laid before the upper house; and several peers, rising up in their places, gave an account of what they knew concerning Lord Seymour’s conduct, and his criminal words or actions.
1549.
These narratives were received as undoubted evidence; and though the prisoner had formerly engaged many friends and partisans among the nobility, no one had either the courage or equity to move, that he might be heard in his defence, that the testimony against him should be delivered in a legal manner, and that he should be confronted with the witnesses. A little more scruple was made in the house of commons: there were even some members who objected against the whole method of proceeding by bill of attainder passed in absence; and insisted, that a formal trial should be given to every man before his condemnation. But when a message was sent by the king, enjoining the house to proceed, and offering that the same narratives should be laid before them which had satisfied the peers, they were easily prevailed on to acquiesce.[*] The bill passed in a full house. Near four hundred voted for it; not above nine or ten against it.[**] The sentence was soon after executed, and the prisoner was beheaded on Tower Hill. The warrant was signed by Somerset, who was exposed to much blame, on account of the violence of these proceedings. The attempts of the admiral seem chiefly to have been levelled against his brother’s usurped authority; and though his ambitious, enterprising character, encouraged by a marriage with the lady Elizabeth, might have endangered the public tranquillity, the prudence of foreseeing evils at such a distance was deemed too great, and the remedy was plainly illegal. It could only be said, that this bill of attainder was somewhat more tolerable than the preceding ones, to which the nation had been inured; for here, at least, some shadow of evidence was produced.
All the considerable business transacted this session, besides the attainder of Lord Seymour, regarded ecclesiastical affairs, which were now the chief object of attention throughout the nation. A committee of bishops and divines had been appointed by the council to compose a liturgy; and they had executed the work committed to them. They proceeded with moderation in this delicate undertaking; they retained as much of the ancient mass as the principles of the reformers would permit: they indulged nothing to the spirit of contradiction, which so naturally takes place in all great innovations: and they flattered themselves, that they had established a service in which every denomination of Christians might without scruple concur. The mass had always been celebrated in Latin; a practice which might have been deemed absurd, had it not been found useful to the clergy, by impressing the people with an idea of some mysterious unknown virtue in those rites, and by checking all their pretensions to be familiarly acquainted with their religion. But as the reformers pretended in some few particulars to encourage private judgment in the laity, the translation of the liturgy, as well as of the Scriptures, into the vulgar tongue, seemed more conformable to the genius of their sect; and this innovation, with the retrenching of prayers to saints, and of some superstitious ceremonies, was the chief difference between the old mass and the new liturgy. The parliament established this form of worship in all the churches, and ordained a uniformity to be observed in all the rites and ceremonies.[*]
There was another material act which passed this session. The former canons had established the celibacy of the clergy; and though this practice is usually ascribed to the policy of the court of Rome, who thought that the ecclesiastics would be more devoted to their spiritual head, and less dependent on the civil magistrate, when freed from the powerful tie of wives and children, yet was this institution much forwarded by the principles of superstition inherent in human nature. These principles had rendered the panegyrics on an inviolate chastity so frequent among the ancient fathers, long before the establishment of celibacy. And even this parliament, though they enacted a law permitting the marriage of priests, yet confess in the preamble, “that it were better for priests and the ministers of the church to live chaste and without marriage, and it were much to be wished they would of themselves abstain.” The inconveniences which had arisen from the compelling of chastity and the prohibiting of marriage, are the reasons assigned for indulging a liberty in this particular.[*] The ideas of penance also were so much retained in other particulars, that an act of parliament passed, forbidding the use of flesh meat during Lent and other times of abstinence.[**] 20
The principal tenets and practices of the Catholic religion were now abolished, and the reformation, such as it is enjoyed at present, was almost entirely completed in England. But the doctrine of the real presence, though tacitly condemned by the new communion service, and by the abolition of many ancient rites, still retained some hold on the minds of men: and it was the last doctrine of Popery that was wholly abandoned by the people.[***] The great attachment of the late king to that tenet might, in part, be the ground of this obstinacy: but the chief cause was really the extreme absurdity of the principle itself, and the profound veneration, which, of course, it impressed on the imagination. The priests, likewise, were much inclined to favor an opinion which attributed to them so miraculous a power; and the people, who believed that they participated of the very body and blood of their Savior, were loath to renounce so extraordinary, and, as they imagined, so salutary a privilege. The general attachment to this dogma was so violent, that the Lutherans, notwithstanding their separation from Rome, had thought proper, under another name, still to retain it; and the Catholic preachers in England, when restrained in all other particulars, could not forbear, on every occasion, inculcating that tenet. Bonner, for this offence among others, had been tried by the council, had been deprived of his see, and had been committed to custody. Gardiner, also, who had recovered his liberty, appeared anew refractory to the authority which established the late innovations; and he seemed willing to countenance that opinion, much favored by all the English Catholics, that the king was indeed supreme head of the church, but not the council during a minority. Having declined to give full satisfaction on this head, he was sent to the Tower, and threatened with further effects of the council’s displeasure.
These severities, being exercised on men possessed of office and authority, seemed in that age a necessary policy, in order to enforce a uniformity in public worship and discipline; but there were other instances of persecution, derived from no origin but the bigotry of theologians; a malady which seems almost incurable. Though the Protestant divines had ventured to renounce opinions deemed certain during many ages, they regarded, in their turn, the new system as so certain, that they would suffer no contradiction with regard to it; and they were ready to burn in the same flames from which they themselves had so narrowly escaped, every one that had the assurance to differ from them. A commission, by act of council, was granted to the primate and some others, to examine and search after all Anabaptists, heretics, or contemners of the Book of Common Prayer.[*]
The commissioners were enjoined to reclaim them, if possible; to impose penance on them, and to give them absolution; or, if these criminals were obstinate, to excommunicate and imprison them, and to deliver them over to the secular arm: and in the execution of this charge, they were not bound to observe the ordinary methods of trial; the forms of law were dispensed with; and if any statutes happened to interfere with the powers in the commission, they were overruled and abrogated by the council. Some tradesmen in London were brought before these commissioners, and were accused of maintaining, among other opinions, that a man regenerate could not sin, and that, though the outward man might offend, the inward was incapable of all guilt. They were prevailed on to abjure, and were dismissed. But there was a woman accused of heretical pravity, called Joan Bocher, or Joan of Kent, who was so pertinacious, that the commissioners could make no impression upon her Her doctrine was, “that Christ was not truly incarnate of the Virgin, whose flesh, being the outward man, was sinfully begotten, and born in sin, and, consequently, he could take none of it; but the Word, by the consent of the inward man of the Virgin, was made flesh.”[*] This opinion, it would seem, is not orthodox; and there was a necessity for delivering the woman to the flames for maintaining it. But the young king, though in such tender years, had more sense than all his counsellors and preceptors; and he long refused to sign the warrant for her execution. Cranmer was employed to persuade him to compliance; and he said, that there was a great difference between errors in other points of divinity, and those which were in direct contradiction to the apostles’ creed: these latter were impieties against God, which the prince, being God’s deputy, ought to repress, in like manner, as inferior magistrates were bound to punish offences against the king’s person. Edward, overcome by importunity, at last submitted, though with tears in his eyes; and he told Cranmer, that if any wrong were done, the guilt should lie entirely on his head. The primate, after making a new effort to reclaim the woman from her errors, and finding her obstinate against all his arguments, at last committed her to the flames. Some time after, a Dutchman, called Van Paris, accused of the heresy which has received the name of Arianism, was condemned to the same punishment. He suffered with so much satisfaction, that he hugged and caressed the fagots that were consuming him; a species of frenzy of which there is more than one instance among the martyrs of that age.[**]
These rigorous methods of proceeding soon brought the whole nation to a conformity, seeming or real, with the new doctrine and the new liturgy. The lady Mary alone continued to adhere to the mass, and refused to admit the established modes of worship. When pressed and menaced on this head, she applied to the emperor, who, using his interest with Sir Philip Hobby, the English ambassador, procured her a temporary connivance from the council.[***]
1549.
There is no abuse so great in civil society, as not to be attended with a variety of beneficial consequence; and in the beginnings of reformation, the loss of these advantages is always felt very sensibly, while the benefit, resulting from the change is the slow effect of time, and is seldom perceived by the bulk of a nation. Scarce any institution can be imagined less favorable, in the main, to the interests of mankind than that of monks and friars; yet was it followed by many good effects, which, having ceased by the suppression of monasteries, were much regretted by the people of England. The monks, always residing in their convents, in the centre of their estates, spent their money in the provinces and among their tenants, afforded a ready market for commodities, were a sure resource to the poor and indigent; and though their hospitality and charity gave but too much encouragement to idleness, and prevented the increase of public riches, yet did it provide to many a relief from the extreme pressures of want and necessity. It is also observable, that as the friars were limited by the rules of their institution to a certain mode of living, they had not equal motives for extortion with other men, and they were acknowledged to have been in England, as they still are in Roman Catholic countries, the best and most indulgent landlords. The abbots and priors were permitted to give leases at an under-value, and to receive in return a large present from the tenant, in the same manner as is still practised by the bishops and colleges. But when the abbey lands were distributed among the principal nobility and courtiers, they fell under a different management: the rents of farms were raised, while the tenants found not the same facility in disposing of the produce; the money was often spent in the capital, and the farmers, living at a distance, were exposed to oppression from their new masters, or to the still greater rapacity of the stewards.
These grievances of the common people were at that time heightened by other causes. The arts of manufacture were much more advanced in other European countries than in England; and even in England these arts had made greater progress than the knowledge of agriculture; a profession which of all mechanical employments, requires the most reflection and experience. A great demand arose for wool both abroad and at home: pasturage was found more profitable than unskilful tillage: whole estates were laid waste by enclosures; the tenants, regarded as a useless burden, were expelled their habitations; even the cottagers, deprived of the commons on which they formerly fed their cattle, were reduced to misery; and a decay of people, as well as a diminution of the former plenty, was remarked in the kingdom.[*] This grievance was now of an old date, and Sir Thomas More, alluding to it, observes in his Utopia, that a sheep had become in England a more ravenous animal than a lion or wolf, and devoured whole villages, cities, and provinces.
The general increase, also, of gold and silver in Europe, after the discovery of the West Indies, had a tendency to inflame these complaints. The growing demand in the more commercial countries had heightened every where the price of commodities, which could easily be transported thither; but in England, the labor of men, who could not so easily change their habitation, still remained nearly at the ancient rates, and the poor complained that they could no longer gain a subsistence by their industry. It was by an addition alone of toil and application they were enabled to procure a maintenance; and though this increase of industry was at last the effect of the present situation, and an effect beneficial to society, yet was it difficult for the people to shake off their former habits of indolence; and nothing but necessity could compel them to such an exertion of their faculties.
It must also be remarked, that the profusion of Henry VIII. had reduced him, notwithstanding his rapacity, to such difficulties, that he had been obliged to remedy a present necessity by the pernicious expedient of debasing the coin; and the wars in which the protector had been involved, had induced him to carry still further the same abuse. The usual consequences ensued: the good specie was hoarded or exported; base metal was coined at home, or imported from abroad in great abundance; the common people, who received their wages in it, could not purchase commodities at the usual rates: a universal diffidence and stagnation of commerce took place; and loud complaints were heard in every part of England.
The protector, who loved popularity, and pitied the condition of the people, encouraged these complaints by his endeavors to redress them. He appointed a commission for making inquiry concerning enclosures; and issued a proclamation, ordering all late enclosures to be laid open by a day appointed. The populace, meeting with such countenance from government, began to rise in several places, and to commit disorders; but were quieted by remonstrances and persuasion. In order to give them greater satisfaction, Somerset appointed new commissioners, whom he sent every where, with an unlimited power to hear and determine all causes about enclosures, highways, and cottages.[*] As this commission was disagreeable to the gentry and nobility, they stigmatized it as arbitrary and illegal; and the common people, fearing it would be eluded, and being impatient for immediate redress, could no longer contain their fury, but sought for a remedy by force of arms. The rising began at once in several parts of England, as if a universal conspiracy had been formed by the commonalty. The rebels in Wiltshire were dispersed by Sir William Herbert: those in’ the neighboring counties, Oxford and Glocester, by Lord Gray, of Wilton. Many of the rioters were killed in the field: others were executed by martial law. The commotions in Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, and other counties, were quieted by gentler expedients; but the disorders in Devonshire and Norfolk threatened more dangerous consequences.
The commonalty in Devonshire began with the usual complaints against enclosures and against oppressions from the gentry; but the parish priest of Sampford Courtenay had the address to give their discontent a direction towards religion; and the delicacy of the subject, in the present emergency, made the insurrection immediately appear formidable. In other counties, the gentry had kept closely united with government; but here many of them took part with the populace among others, Humphrey Arundel, governor of St. Michael’s Mount. The rioters were brought into the form of a regular army, which amounted to the number of ten thousand. Lord Russel had been sent against them at the head of a small force; but finding himself too weak to encounter them in the field, he kept at a distance, and began to negotiate with them; in hopes of eluding their fury by delay, and of dispersing them by the difficulty of their subsisting in a body. Their demands were, that the mass should be restored, half of the abbey lands resumed, the law of the six articles executed, holy water and holy bread respected, and all other particular grievances redressed.[*] The council, to whom Russet transmitted these demands, sent a haughty answer; commanded the rebels to disperse, and promised them pardon upon their immediate submission. Enraged at this disappointment, they marched to Exeter, carrying before them crosses, banners, holy water, candlesticks, and other implements of ancient superstition; together with the host, which they covered with a canopy.[**] The citizens of Exeter shut their gates; and the rebels, as they had no cannon, endeavored to take the place, first by scalade, then by mining; but were repulsed in every attempt. Russel meanwhile lay at Honiton, till reënforced by Sir William Herbert and Lord Gray with some German horse, and some Italian arquebusiers under Battista Spinola. He then resolved to attempt the relief of Exeter, which was now reduced to extremities. He attacked the rebels, drove them from all their posts, did great execution upon them, both in the action and pursuit,[***] and took many prisoners. Arundel and the other leaders were sent to London, tried, and executed. Many of the inferior sort were put to death by martial law:[****] the vicar of St. Thomas, one of the principal incendiaries, was hanged on the top of his own steeple, arrayed in his Popish weeds, with his beads at his girdle.[v]
The insurrection in Norfolk rose to a still greater height, and was attended with greater acts of violence. The populace were at first excited, as in other places, by complaints against enclosures; but finding their numbers amount to twenty thousand, they grew insolent, and proceeded to more exorbitant pretensions. They required the suppression of the gentry, the placing of new counsellors about the king, and the reëstablishment of the ancient rites. One Ket, a tanner, had assumed the government over them; and he exercised his authority with the utmost arrogance and outrage. Having taken possession of Moushold Hill near Norwich, he erected his tribunal under an old oak, thence called the oak of reformation; and summoning the gentry to appear before him, he gave such decrees as might be expected from his character and situation. The marquis of Northampton was first ordered against him; but met with a repulse in an action, where Lord Sheffield was killed.[*] The protector affected popularity, and cared not to appear in person against the rebels; he therefore sent the earl of Warwick at the head of six thousand men, levied for the wars against Scotland; and he thereby afforded his mortal enemy an opportunity of increasing his reputation and character. Warwick, having tried some skirmishes with the rebels, at last made a general attack upon them, and put them to flight. Two thousand fell in the action and pursuit: Ket was hanged at Norwich Castle, nine of his followers on the boughs of the oak of reformation; and the insurrection was entirely suppressed. Some rebels in Yorkshire, learning the fate of their companions, accepted the offers of pardon, and threw down their arms. A general indemnity was soon after published by the protector.[**]
But though the insurrections were thus quickly subdued in England, and no traces of them seemed to remain, they were attended with bad consequences to the foreign interests of the nation. The forces of the earl of Warwick, which might have made a great impression on Scotland, were diverted from that enterprise; and the French general had leisure to reduce that country to some settlement and composure. He took the fortress of Broughty, and put the garrison to the sword. He straitened the English at Haddington; and though Lord Dacres was enabled to throw relief into the place, and to reenforce the garrison, it was found at last very chargeable, and even impracticable, to keep possession of that fortress. The whole country in the neighborhood was laid waste by the inroads both of the Scots and English, and could afford no supply to the garrison: the place lay above thirty miles from the borders; so that a regular army was necessary to escort any provisions thither: and as the plague had broken out among the troops, they perished daily, and were reduced to a state of great weakness. For these reasons, orders were given to dismantle Haddington, and to convey the artillery and garrison to Berwick; and the earl of Rutland, now created warden of the east marches, executed the orders.
The king of France also took advantage of the distractions among the English, and made an attempt to recover Boulogne and that territory which Henry VIII. had conquered from France, On other pretences, he assembled an army, and falling suddenly upon the Boulonnois, took the castles of Sellaque, Blackness, and Ambleteuse, though well supplied with garrisons, ammunition, and provisions.[*] He endeavored to surprise Boulenberg, and was repulsed; but the garrison, not thinking the place tenable after the loss of the other fortresses, destroyed the works, and retired to Boulogne. The rains, which fell in great abundance during the autumn, and a pestilential distemper which broke out in the French camp, deprived Henry of all hopes of success against Boulogne itself; and he retired to Paris.[**] He left the command of the army to Gaspar de Coligny, lord of Chatillon, so famous afterwards by the name of Admiral Coligny; and he gave him orders to form the siege early in the spring. The active disposition of this general engaged him to make, during the winter, several attempts against the place; but they all proved unsuccessful.
Strozzi, who commanded the French fleet and galleys, endeavored to make a descent on Jersey; but meeting there with an English fleet, he commenced an action, which seems not to have been decisive, since the historians of the two nations differ in their account of the event.[***]
As soon as the French war broke out, the protector endeavored to fortify himself with the alliance of the emperor; and he sent over Secretary Paget to Brussels, where Charles then kept court, in order to assist Sir Philip Hobby, the resident ambassador, in this negotiation. But that prince had formed a design of extending his dominions by acting the part of champion for the Catholic religion; and though extremely desirous of accepting the English alliance against France, his capital enemy, he thought it unsuitable to his other pretensions to enter into strict confederacy with a nation which had broken off all connections with the church of Rome. He therefore declined the advances of friendship from England, and eluded the applications of the ambassadors. An exact account is preserved of this negotiation in a letter of Hobby’s; and it is remarkable, that the emperor, in a conversation with the English ministers, asserted, that the prerogatives of a king of England were more extensive than those of a king of France.[*] Burnet, who preserves this letter, subjoins, as a parallel instance, that one objection which the Scots made to marrying their queen with Edward was, that all their privileges would be swallowed up by the great prerogative of the kings of England.[**]
Somerset, despairing of assistance from the emperor, was inclined to conclude a peace with France and Scotland; and besides that he was not in a condition to maintain such ruinous wars, he thought that there no longer remained any object of hostility. The Scots had sent away their queen; and could not, if ever so much inclined, complete the marriage contracted with Edward; and as Henry VIII. had stipulated to restore Boulogne in 1554, it seemed a matter of small moment to anticipate a few years the execution of the treaty. But when he proposed these reasons to the council, he met with strong opposition from his enemies; who, seeing him unable to support the war, were determined, for that very reason, to oppose all proposals for a pacification. The factions ran high in the court of England; and matters were drawing to an issue fatal to the authority of the protector.
After Somerset obtained the patent investing him with regal authority, he no longer paid any attention to the opinion of the other executors and counsellors; and being elated with his high dignity, as well as with his victory at Pinkey, he thought that every one ought, in every thing, to yield to his sentiments. All those who were not entirely devoted to him were sure to be neglected; whoever opposed his will received marks of anger or contempt;[***] and while he showed a resolution to govern every thing, his capacity appeared not in any respect proportioned to his ambition. Warwick, more subtle and artful, covered more exorbitant views under fairer appearances, and having associated himself with Southampton, who had been readmitted into the council, he formed a strong party who were determined to free themselves from the slavery imposed on them by the protector.