Page 97 of 131

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.[***]

* Haynes, p. 82, 90.

** Haynes, p. 75.

*** Haynes, p. 95, 96, 102, 108.

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.

* Hayne, p. 105, 106.

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.

* Buruet, Tol. ii. coll. 31. 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. 18.

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.