The Boy King
Holbein painted Edward VI, who became heir to the English throne at ten (the book's figure), four years before his father's death, in one of the most charming pictures in the world: feathered cap, reddish hair, a robe with a fur collar, and a face so delicate and noble that it seems to embody only Jane Seymour, with no trace of Henry VIII.
Perhaps he had inherited the bodily weakness that made his mother give up her life for his, for he never gained the strength that rule demands. Yet he performed the duties that fell to him with interest. With great eagerness he studied languages, geography, the arts of government and statecraft, and the techniques of war. He watched the affairs of state, so far as they were his responsibility, with care. He treated everyone, except the stubborn Catholics, with such good humor and kindness that the English thought that after the death of the bloodthirsty giant the crown had been set on the head of a saint. Edward, who had been taught by Cranmer, gave his heart to the Protestant faith. As far as he could he held back the persecution of heretics; but he was determined to keep his Catholic half-sister Mary from attending Mass, which he held the most impious of rites. Edward VI cheerfully accepted the decision of the privy council, which chose his uncle Edward Seymour as regent. The regent, soon Duke of Somerset, was a firm supporter of Protestantism.
The Protector
The Duke of Somerset was an enlightened, brave and upright man and, despite some flaws, ranked among the outstanding men of his day. This handsome, courteous, generous man shamed by his conduct England's timid and selfish aristocrats, who approved all his qualities except his sympathy for the poor and the oppressed. Though he himself held absolute power, he abolished the despotism that had been set up in England since Henry VII and Henry VIII; he promoted freedom of speech; he removed from the list of punishable offenses many acts that had been counted as treason or felony; he made conviction of the accused depend on firm and undeniable evidence; he returned the dowries of women whose husbands had been condemned; and he repealed many laws passed in the past to restrict religion. The king remained head of the Church of England, and speaking ill of the sacrament was still a punishable sin. But the law allowed the sacrament to be given in both kinds, in English, and forbade Masses for the dead.
Reform and Iconoclasm
English Protestants who had fled to Europe returned home with the ideas of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, and foreign reformers, using the new religious freedom, spread their varied thinking across the troubled island of Britain. Peter Martyr Vermigli and Martin Bucer from Strasbourg, Bernardino Ochino from Augsburg and John a Lasco from Emden came to England. Anabaptists and Unitarians crossed the Channel and spread ideas that angered Protestants as much as Catholics. Image-breaking crowds in London cast crucifixes and sacred pictures and statues out of the churches. Nicholas Ridley, master of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge, ridiculed images and holy water. Archbishop Cranmer went further still and "ate meat in public in Lent, such as England had not seen since its conversion to Christianity." The Duke of Somerset, overriding the opinions of the royal council, which was alarmed by such sweeping changes, hastened religious reform. At his urging Parliament ordered the destruction of walls and windows decorated with the faces of prophets, apostles and saints (1547). Stained-glass windows were broken, sacred figures were destroyed, and the crucifix was replaced by the royal arms. People in every corner of the country plundered the gold and silver objects of the churches until, in 1551, the government seized for itself what had escaped the people's hands. Of the grand chapels whose splendor once dazzled the eye, nothing was left but sad, bare buildings without ornament.
The supporters of reform were led by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, its opponents by men such as Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Cranmer shut both up in the Fleet prison. At the same time Cranmer was composing a new liturgy to replace the earlier one, helped by Peter Martyr and other scholars. But the "First Book of Common Prayer," published in 1548 (the book's date), is chiefly the work of Cranmer's own pen, in which the new religious faith is poured into beautiful, attractive language; even the Latin texts that Cranmer translated show his intelligence and genius. Still, the book is not revolutionary. Its author drew on some of Luther's views and rejected the idea that in the Mass the priest makes Christ an atonement for sinful man, but he said nothing about the change of substance. The book contains many ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, and any fair-minded Catholic could accept it. Instead of presenting it to the Convocation of the clergy, Cranmer sent it to Parliament for approval, and the members, who lacked religious understanding, approved it. From then on Cranmer's book was the official book of common prayer, and all the churches of England were ordered to use it. Bonner and Gardiner, who had been freed from prison in the general pardon (1549), were imprisoned again for objecting to Parliament's competence to make religious law. Mary was allowed to attend Mass, held privately in her residence.
War with Scotland
The worsening international situation briefly halted the struggle between Protestants and Catholics. Henri II, King of France, demanded the evacuation of Boulogne and, on getting an unfavorable answer, prepared to besiege the city. Mary Stuart, now a girl of five living in France, might at any moment declare war on England. The Duke of Somerset, who had learned that the Scots were arming and stirring the Irish against England, marched to the border and defeated the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh (10 September 1547). After this victory, with generosity and foresight, he proposed to the Scots that they unite with the English nation, keeping their own self-government, "to create the empire of Great Britain," and that both nations be ruled by one sovereign chosen from among the descendants of the Queen of Scotland. What the Duke of Somerset wanted was in fact the union that in 1603 finally joined Scotland to England; except that his terms would have eased the return of Catholicism to England and its survival in Scotland.
Scotland's Catholics, fearing the spread of Protestantism to their land, and its nobles, fearing the loss of the pensions they drew from France, rejected the Duke of Somerset's proposal.
Thomas Seymour
The Protector, whose attempt to come to terms with Scotland had come to nothing and who had fallen out with the French, and who also heard the murmur of the peasants' discontent as they readied a fresh rising, learned that his brother was plotting his overthrow and gathered all his strength to meet his enemies. Thomas Seymour was not content with command of the fleet and a seat on the privy council and nursed a hope of the crown. He first tried to win the heart of Princess Mary and then of Princess Elizabeth, but got nothing from his efforts. With money stolen from the state mint and funds taken from pirates, he began to gather arms and war supplies. His plot came to light, and the Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Southampton accused him of treason. The members of both houses of Parliament voted almost unanimously to condemn him, and Thomas was executed on 20 March 1549. The Protector worked hard to save his brother, but in vain, and his honor and standing were lost together with his brother's head.
Kett's Rebellion
Robert Kett's revolt hastened the fall of the Duke of Somerset. In England as in Germany economic wrongs led to religious revolt, but since the English government was now in Protestant hands, England's oppressed peasants, unlike the German farmers, rose in defense of Catholicism. As the Protestant James Froude wrote, "the growing pressure on the peasants gave rise to the Reformation movement." Protestant reformers such as Cranmer, Latimer, Lever and Crowley denounced the cruel exploitation of the peasants, and the Duke of Somerset in an angry tone condemned the plunder of peasants' earnings by the newly risen landlords, who, in his words, "had risen from the dunghills of the towns" and come into wealth. Parliament saw no way to check begging except to enact harsh and merciless laws against it and to order the churches to collect alms for the destitute at their weekly meetings. The Duke of Somerset sent a commission to the countryside to gather information about enclosed lands and the level of rents. The landlords openly opposed the commission, and the peasants, from fear, did not tell their troubles to its members. Parliament, whose members were landowners, took no notice of the commission's moderate proposals. To hear the complaints of the poor and suffering the Duke of Somerset set up a private court in his residence. The number of nobles gathering around John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, to bring down the Duke of Somerset kept growing.
The farmers of England, worn out by crushing wrongs and by officials' disregard of their complaints, rose throughout the country. The revolt began in Somerset and spread quickly to Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset, Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxford and Buckingham, in the west to Cornwall and Devon, and in the east to Norfolk and Kent. At Norwich a small landowner, Robert Kett, organized the rising and took over the government of the city; and the peasants' government ruled the city and its surroundings for a month. With 16,000 armed peasants he took a position on Mousehold Hill north of the city and, under an oak tree, tried the landlords the peasants took captive. Kett was neither fierce nor bloodthirsty and sentenced no one to a penalty harsher than imprisonment. He cared little for property rights and title deeds. He sent his men through the occupied district to enter the houses of the lords by force and to seize for his peasant community every weapon they found, and also all the livestock. About 20,000 sheep, the enemy of the fields, were collected, and together with "countless oxen," herds of swans, deer, ducks and pigs they were quickly consumed. Meanwhile Kett strove to keep order and quiet and even sent preachers to restrain the people by counsel from disorder and anarchy. The Duke of Somerset sympathized with the rebels but agreed with the Earl of Warwick that, to prevent complete breakdown of the country's economic order, the rebels must be dispersed. The army that had been raised to fight in France was sent under the Earl of Warwick to Norwich to put down the rebels. Warwick warned the rebels that if they gave up resistance and went home he would pardon them all. Kett was inclined to accept the offer, but under the pressure of stubborn followers who preferred war to surrender, he went on resisting. On 17 August 1549 the Earl of Warwick overcame the rebels; 3,500 of them were killed by his soldiers, but after the rest surrendered he hanged only nine of their leaders and imprisoned Kett with one of his brothers in London.
The peasants who had risen in other parts of the country lost heart at the news of the defeat of the Norwich rebels and one after another laid down their arms and surrendered. The Duke of Somerset used his influence to save many of the rebel leaders from punishment, and through his efforts Kett and his brother lived for some time.
The Protector's Fall
The Duke of Somerset was accused of encouraging the revolt by his open sympathy and of having shown incompetence in conducting foreign policy, since the French were now besieging Boulogne. He was also, with justice, accused of spreading corruption among government officials, debasing the currency, increasing his private fortune, and building himself a costly palace in disregard of the nation's bankruptcy. The Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Southampton led his opponents and enemies. Most of England's nobles, who had no objection to his great wealth but could not overlook his sympathy for the poor, found the moment right for revenge. On 12 October 1549 his opponents arrested him, paraded him through the streets of London, and then shut him up in the Tower.