Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/275

1547.] chamber till the end of the afternoon sermon. In the evening he withdrew to his house, and resigned the seals into the hands of Lord Seymour and Sir Anthony Browne.

The complaint of the students and the entries in the Council Register contain the only surviving account of this transaction, and from an ex parte statement no conclusion can be drawn on the fairness of Wriothesley's treatment. The Protector, however, was conveniently freed from his ablest opponent, and he was enabled to make a more considerable innovation in the structure of the Government. A week after he took out a new patent for the Protectorate, which was drawn in Edward's name. The executors were left as his advisers; but, probably under the pretence that the chancellor's conduct made it necessary that their position should be more distinctly defined, they were now represented as the nominees of Edward, and no longer as guardians appointed by his father. The Protector might accept their advice, or might neglect it, at his own pleasure. He might act with all of them, or with 'so many as he pleased to call to his assistance.' He might choose others, should he desire the help of others. In fact, he might 'do anything which a governor of the King's person, or Protector of the realm, ought to do,' and was left to his own unfettered discretion to decide what his obligations might be.

The Duke of Somerset had now obtained the reality