Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/93

Edward VI or the restoration of God's kingdom.' Peter Martyr and John ab Ulmis spoke in a like strain. When in July 1550 Hooper was offered the bishopric of Gloucester, and raised objections to part of the requisite oath, Edward is said to have erased the objectionable clause with his own pen (Zurich Letters, iii. 607). On 4 Dec. 1550 a French protestant in London, Francis Burgoyne, sent to Calvin a description of an interview he had with Edward, when the young king made many inquiries about the great reformer. Calvin, taking the hint, sent the king a long letter of advice and exhortation in April 1551. When Knox wrote later of his experience as a preacher at the court, he described as unsurpassable and altogether beyond his years the king's 'godly disposition towards virtue, and chiefly towards God's truth.' Nicholas Udal, in his dedication of his translation of Erasmus's paraphrase of the New Testament, is extravagantly eulogistic, and Bale, in his 'Scriptores,' adds to his own praises of the English 'Josiah,' as Edward was generally called by his panegyrists, the testimonies of Sleidan und Bibliander, besides complimentary epigrams by Parkhurst.

Edward lived a solitary life. He only acknowledged any friendship with Cheke and Fitzpatrick. His sisters had separate household's and seldom saw him. His intellectual precocity and religious ardour were unaccompanied by any show of natural affection. Although so young, he showed traces of his father's harshness as well as much natural dignity of bearing. Protector Somerset was nearly always with him, but the king treated him with indifference. The protector left for Scotland in 1647 to enforce by war the fulfilment of the marriage treaty between Edward and Queen Mary which the Scottish rulers were anxious to repudiate. The French aided the Scotch, and Boulogne was taken. In Somerset's absence his treacherous brother. Lord Seymour, the admiral, attempted to oust him from all place in the king's regard. Lord Seymour constantly sought interviews with Edward, and remarked on one occasion that the protector was growing old. Thereupon the king coolly replied, 'It were better that he should die.' This is the king's own account of the conversation. After Lord Seymour was thrown into the Tower by the protector on a charge of treason, the privy council went in a body to the king (24 Feb. 1548-9) to demand authorisation for further proceedings; the king gave the required consent with much dignity and the utmost readiness, and on 10 March showed eoual coolness in agreeing to his execution in October 1549 the councillors, under Dudley, revolted against the protector. On 6 Oct. Somerset heard tidings of their action, and hastily removed the king from Hampton Court to Windsor. He was subsequently charged with having alarmed Edward by telling him that his life was in peril, with having injured his health by the hastiness of his removal, and with having left the royal room at Windsor unguarded while his own was fully garrisoned. Somerset was sent to the Tower on 14 Oct. On 12 Oct. the hostile councillors explained to the king at Windsor the reasons of their policy. The boy, who had been suffering from 'a rheum,' at once fell in with their suggestions, and catalogued in his journal his uncle's faults: 'Ambition, vainglory, entering into rash wars in my youth... enriching himself of my treasure, following his own opinion, and doing all by his own authority.' On 15 Oct. the council met at Hampton Court and nominated the Marquis of Northampton, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, and Lords Wentworth, St. John, and Russell, to be lords governors of the king for political and educational purposes. New honours and offices were bestowed on the prominent leaders in the revolt; the hopes of the Roman catholics rose, but it was soon apparent that much of Somerset's power had been transferred to the Earl of Warwick, who had no intention of reversing the ecclesiastical policy. On 17 Oct. the king made a state progress through London, and in the following summer took an exceptionally long journey from Westminster to Windsor (23 July), Guildford, Oking, Oatlands, Nonsuch, Richmond, and back to Westminster (16 Oct.) All the halts at night were made at the royal palaces or manor-houses. At Oking the Princess Mary was summoned to meet her brother.

Somerset was pardoned 16 Feb. 1549-50, and returned to court (31 March) and to the council (10 April) with diminished prestige. Lady Seymour, the king's grandmother and Somerset's mother, died in the following autumn, and the council on 18 Oct. deprecated the wearing of mourning for her. Schemes of marriage for the young king were now under discussion. The treaty of marriage with Mary Queen of Scots made in 1543 had been finally repudiated by Scotland, and the mother, Mary of Guise, on her passing through England in July 1551, he reminded her of the old engagement, and asked for its fulfilment (De Origine Scotorum, Rome, 1578, p. 512), but the story is not supported. On 24 March 1549-50 peace was signed with both France and Scotland and it was decided that Edward