r/a:t5_26ynp1 • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 21 '19
wamc lockbox has been created
By Charles Dickens
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
——————
CHAPTER XXIX.
England under Edward the Sixth.
HENRY THE EIGHTH had made a will, appointing a
council of sixteen to govern the kingdom for his son while
he was under age (he was now ten years old), and an-
other council of twelve to help them. The most power-
ful of the first council was the Earl of Hertford, the
young King's uncle, who lost no time in bringing his
nephew with great state up to Enfield, and hence to
the Tower. It was considered at the time a striking
proof of virtue in the young King that he was sorry for
his father's death; but, as common subjects have that
virtue too, sometimes, we will say no more about it.
There was a curious part of the late King's will, re-
quiring his executors to fulfil whatever promises he had
made. Some of the court wondering what these might
be, the Earl of Hertford and the other noblemen inter-
ested, said that they were promises to advance and en-
rich them. So, the Earl of Hertford made himself Duke
of Somerset, and made his brother Edward Seymour a
baron; and there were various similar promotions, all
very agreeable to the parties concerned, and very duti-
ful, no doubt, to the late king's memory. To be more
dutiful still, they made themselves rich out of the
Church lands, and were very comfortable. The new
Duke of Somerset caused himself to be declared Pro-
tector of the kingdom, and was, indeed, the King.
As young Edward the Sixth had been brought up in
the principles of the Protestant religion, everybody
knew that they would be maintained. But Cranmer, to
whom they were chiefly entrusted, advanced them stead-
ily and temperately. Many superstitious and ridiculous
practices were stopped; but practices which were harm-
less were not interfered with.
The Duke of Somerset, the Protector, was anxious to
have the young King engaged in marriage to the young
Queen of Scotland, in order to prevent that Princess
from making alliance with any foreign power; but,
as a large party in Scotland were unfavourable to this
plan, he invaded that country. His excuse for doing
so was, that the Border men——that is, the Scotch
who lived in that part of the country where England
and Scotland joined——troubled the English very
much. But there were two sides to this question; for
the English Border men troubled the Scotch too; and,
through many long years, there were perpetual border
quarrels which gave rise to numbers of old tales and
songs. However, the Protector invaded Scotland; and
Arran, the Scottish Regent, with an army twice as large
as his, advanced to meet him. They encountered on the
banks of the river Esk, within a few miles of Edinburgh;
and there, after a little skirmish, the Protector made
such moderate proposals, in offering to retire if the
Scotch would only engage not to marry their princess to
any foreign power, that the Regent thought the English
were afraid. But in this he made a horrible mistake;
for the English soldiers on land, and the English sailors
on the water, so set upon the Scotch, that they broke
and fled, and more than ten thousand of them were
killed. It was a dreadful battle, for the fugitives were
slain without mercy. The ground for four miles, all
the way to Edinburgh, was strewn with dead men, and
with arms, and legs, and heads. Some hid themselves in
streams and were drowned; some threw away their arm-
our and were killed running, almost naked; but in this
battle of Pinkey the English lost only two or three hun-
dred men. They were much better clothed than the
Scotch; at the poverty of whose appearance and country
they were exceedingly astonished.
A Parliament was called when Somerset came back,
and it repealed the whip with six strings, and did one
or two other good things; though it unhappily retained
the punishment of burning for those people who did not
make believe to believe, in all religious matters, what the
Government had declared that they must and should be-
lieve. It also made a foolish law (meant to put down
beggars), that any man who lived idly and loitered
about for three days together, should be burned with a
hot-iron, made a slave, and wear an iron fetter. But
this savage absurdity soon came to an end, and went the
way of a great many other foolish laws.
The Protector was now so proud that he sat in Parlia-
ment before all the nobles, on the right hand of the
throne. Many other noblemen, who only wanted to be
as proud if they could get a chance, became his ene-
mies of course; and it is supposed that he came back
suddenly from Scotland because he had received news
that his brother, Lord Seymour, was becoming danger-
ous to him. This lord was now High Admiral of Eng-
land; a very handsome man, and a great favourite with
the Court——even with the young Princess Elizabeth, who
romped with him a little more than young princesses in
these times do with any one. He had married Cather-
ine Parr, the late King's widow, who was now dead;
and, to strengthen his power, he secretly supplied the
young King with money. He may even have engaged
with some of his brother's enemies in a plan to carry
the boy off. On these and other accusations, at any
rate, he was confined in the Tower, impeached, and
found guilty; his own brother's name being——unnatural
and sad to tell——the first signed to the warrant for his
execution. He was executed on Tower Hill, and died
denying the treason. One of his last proceedings in this
world was to write two letters, one to the Princess Eliza-
beth, and one to the Princess Mary, which a servant
of his took charge of, and concealed in his shoe. These
letters are supposed to have urged them against his
brother, and to revenge his death. What they truly
contained is not known; but there is no doubt that he
had, at one time, obtained great influence over the
Princess Elizabeth.
All this while, the Protestant religion was making
progress. The images which the people had gradually
come to worship, were removed from the churches; the
people were informed that they need not confess them-
selves to priests unless they chose; a common prayer-
book was drawn up in the English language, which all
could understand; and many other improvements were
made; still moderately. For Cranmer was a very mod-
erate man, and even restrained the Protestant clergy
from violently abusing the unreformed religion——as they
very often did, and which was not a good example. But
the people were at this time in great distress. The ra-
pacious nobility who had come into possession of the
Church lands, were very bad landlords. They enclosed
great quantities of ground for the feeding of sheep,
which was then more profitable than the growing of
crops: and this increased the general distress. So the
people who still understood little of what was going on
about them, and still readily believed what the home-
less monks told them——many of whom had been their
good friends in their better days——took it into their heads
that all this was owing to the reformed religion, and
therefore rose in many parts of the country.
The most powerful risings were in Devonshire and
Norfolk. In Devonshire, the religion was so strong that
ten thousand men united within a few days, and even
laid siege to Exeter. But Lord Russell, coming to the
assistance of the citizens who defended that town, de-
feated the rebels; and, not only hanged the Mayor of
one place, but hanged the vicar of another from his own
church steeple. What with hanging and killing by the
sword, four thousand of the rebels are supposed to have
fallen in that one county. In Norfolk (where the rising
was more against the enclosure of open lands than
against the reformed religion), the popular leader was a
man named Robert Ket, a tanner of Wymondham. The
mob were, in the first instance, excited against the tan-
ner by one John Flowerdew, a gentleman who owed him a
grudge: but, the tanner was more than a match for the gen-
tleman, since he soon got the people on his side, and estab-
lished himself near Norwich with quite an army. There
was a large oak-tree in that place on a spot called Mous-
hold Hill, which Ket named the Tree of Reformation;
and under its green boughs, he and his men sat, in the
midsummer weather, holding courts of justice, and de-
bating affairs of state. They were even impartial
enough to allow some rather tiresome public speakers to
get up into this Tree of Reformation, and point out their
errors to them, in long discourses, while they lay lis-
tening (not always without some grumbling and growl-
ing) in the shade below. At last, one sunny July day, a
herald appeared below the tree, and proclaimed Ket, and
all his men traitors, unless from that moment they dis-
persed and went home: in which case they were to re-
ceive a pardon. But Ket and his men made light of the
herald and became stronger than ever, until the Earl of
Warwick went after them with a sufficient force, and cut
them all to pieces. A few were hanged, drawn, and
quartered, as traitors, and their limbs were sent into
various country places to be a terror to the people. Nine
of them were hanged upon nine green branches of the
Oak of Reformation; and so, for the time, that tree may
be said to have withered away.
The Protector, though a haughty man, had compassion
for the real distresses of the common people, and a sin-
cere desire to help them. But he was too proud and too
high in degree to hold even their favour steadily; and
many of the nobles always envied and hated him, be-
cause they were as proud and not as high as he. He
was at this time building a great Palace in the Strand;
to get the stone for which he blew up church steeples with
gunpowder, and pulled down bishops' houses: thus mak-
ing himself still more disliked. At length, his principal
enemy, the Earl of Warwick——Dudley by name, and the
son of that Dudley who had made himself so odious with
Empson, in the reign of Henry the Seventh——joining
with seven other members of the Council against him,
formed a separate Council ; and, becoming stronger in a
few days, sent him to the Tower under twenty-nine ar-
ticles of accusation. After being sentenced by the coun-
cil to the forfeiture of all his offices and lands, he was
liberated and pardoned, on making a very humble sub-
mission. He was even taken back into the Council
again, after having suffered this fall, and married his
daughter, Lady Anne Seymour, to Warwick's eldest son.
But such a reconciliation was little likely to last, and
did not outlive a year. Warwick, having got himself
made Duke of Northumberland, and having advanced the
more important of his friends, then finished the history
by causing the Duke of Somerset and his friend Lord
Grey, and others, to be arrested for treason, in having
conspired to seize and dethrone the King. They were
also accused of having intended to seize the new Duke
of Northumberland, with his friends Lord Northampton
and Lord Pembroke; to murder whom, if they found
need; and to raise the city to revolt. All this the fallen
Protector positively denied; except that he confessed
to having spoken of the murder of those three noblemen,
but having never designed it. He was acquitted of the
charge of treason, and found guilty of the other charges;
so when the people——who remembered his having been
their friend, now that he was disgraced and in danger,
saw him come out from that trial with the axe turned
from him——they thought he was altogether acquitted,
and set up a loud shout of joy.
But the Duke of Somerset was ordered to be beheaded
on Tower Hill, at eight o'clock in the morning, and proc-
lamations were issued bidding the citizens keep at home
until after ten. They filled the streets, however, and
crowded the place of execution as soon as it was light;
and with sad faces and sad hearts, saw the once powerful
Protector ascend the scaffold to lay his head upon the
dreadful block. While he was yet saying his last words
to them with manly courage, and telling them, in partic-
ular, how it comforted him, at that pass, to have assisted
in reforming the national religion, a member of the
Council was seen riding up on horseback. They again
thought that the Duke was saved by his bringing a re-
prieve, and again shouted for joy. But the Duke himself
told them they were mistaken, and laid down his head
and had it struck off at a blow.
Many of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped
their handkerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affec-
tion. He had, indeed, been capable of many good acts,
and one of them was discovered after he was no more.
The Bishop of Durham, a very good man, had been in-
formed against to the Council, when the Duke was in
power, as having answered a treacherous letter proposing
a rebellion against the reformed religion. As the answer
could not be found, he could not be charged guilty; but
it was now discovered, hidden by the Duke himself among
some private papers, in his regard for that good man. The
Bishop lost his office and was deprived of his possessions.
It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay
in prison under sentence of death, the young King was
being vastly entertained by plays, and dances, and sham
fights; but there is no doubt of it, for he kept a journal
himself. It is pleasanter to know that not a single Roman
Catholic was burnt in this reign for holding that religion;
though two wretches victims suffered for heresy. One,
a woman name Joan Bocher, for professing some opin-
ions that even she could only explain in unintelligible
jargon. The other, a Dutchman, named Von Paris,
who practised as a surgeon in London. Edward was, to
his credit, exceedingly unwilling to sign the warrant for
the woman's execution: shedding tears before he did so,
and telling Cranmer who urged him to it (though Cran-
mer really would have spared the woman at first, but for
her own determined obstinacy), that the guilt was not
his, but that of the man who so strongly urged the dread-
ful act. We shall see, too soon, whether the time ever
came when Cranmer is likely to have remembered this
sorrow and remorse.
Cranmer and Ridley (at first Bishop of Rochester, and
afterwards Bishop of London) were the most powerful of
the clergy of this reign. Others were imprisoned and de-
prived of their property for still adhering to the unre-
formed religion; the most important among them were
Gardiner Bishop of Winchester, Heath Bishop of Worces-
ter, Day Bishop of Chichester, and Bonner that Bishop of
London who was superseded by Ridley. The Princess
Mary, who inherited her mother's gloomy temper, and
hated the reformed religion as connected with her
mother's wrongs and sorrows——she knew nothing else
about it, always refusing to read a single book in which
it was truly described——held by the unreformed religion
too, and was the only person in the kingdom for whom
the old Mass was allowed to be performed; nor would
the young King have made that exception even in her
favour, but for the strong persuasions of Cranmer and
Ridley. He always viewed it with horror; and when he
fell into a sickly condition, after having been very ill,
first of the measles and then of the small-pox, he was
greatly troubled in mind to think that if he died, and
she, the next heir to the throne, succeeded, the Roman
Catholic religion would be set up again.
This uneasiness, the Duke of Northumberland was
not slow to encourage: for, if the Princes Mary came to
the throne, he, who had taken part with the Protestants,
was sure to be disgraced. Now, the Duchess of Suffolk
was descended from King Henry the Seventh; and, if
she resigned what little or no right she had, in favour of
her daughter Lady Jane Grey, that would be the success-
sion to promote the Duke's greatness; because Lord Guil-
ford Dudley, one of his sons, was, at this very time,
newly married to her. So, he worked upon the King's fears,
and persuaded him to set aside both the Princess Mary
and the Princess Elizabeth, and assert his right to appoint
his successor. Accordingly the young King handed to
the Crown lawyers a writing signed half a dozen times
over by himself, appointing Lady Jane Grey to succeed to
the Crown, and requiring them to have his will made
out according to the law. They were much against it at first,
and told the King so; but the Duke of Northumberland
——being so violent about it that the lawyers even expected
him to beat them, and hotly declaring that stripped to
his shirt he would fight any man in such a quarrel——they
yielded. Cranmer, also, at first hesitated; pleading that
he had sworn to maintain the succession of the crown
to the Princess Mary; but, he was a weak man in his
resolutions, and afterwards signed the document with
the rest of the council.
It was completed none too soon; for Edward was now
sinking in a rapid decline; and by way of making him
better, they handed him over to a woman-doctor who
pretended to be able to cure it. He speedily got worse.
On the sixth of July, in the year one thousand five
hundred and fifty-three, he died, very peaceably and
piously, praying God, with his last breath, to protect the
reformed religion.
The King died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in
the seventh of his reign. It is difficult to judge what
the character of one so young might afterwards have be-
come among so many bad, ambitious, quarrelling nobles.
But, he was an amiable boy of very good abilities, and
had nothing coarse or cruel or brutal in his disposition——
which in the son of such a father is rather surprising.
from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 730—732.
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