Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/408

388 their marrying with the consent of the council. Seymour's views upon the former were widely suspected, and Lord Russell warned him that he for one would support in such a matter the will of the late King. But Seymour supposed that he could overbear minor difficulties; he had Dorset and Northampton with him; to the Earl of Rutland he talked openly of putting an end to the Protectorate; he had told him that he looked for his support in the House of Lords and elsewhere, and advised him to make a party in the country, among the yeomen and the franklins. Trusting that Wriothesley still resented the loss of the chancellorship, he tried to gain him too by a promise that it should be restored. In Wriothesley, however, he found himself at once mistaken. 'For God's sake, my Lord,' the ex-chancellor replied to his advances, 'take heed what you do; I hear abroad that you make a party.' 'Marry, I would have things better ordered,' the Admiral said. 'My Lord,' said Wriothesley, 'beware how you attempt any violence. It were better that you had never been born, yea, that you had been burned quick alive, than that you should attempt it.' So much as Wriothesley knew of his proceedings was carried at once to the Protector, who replied that the Tower, if nothing else, should keep his brother from Elizabeth. Lady Jane Grey, it was insisted, should return at once to her family. In. the middle of January further communications were made by Rutland, and Seymour once more was called on to