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 WILLIAM, LORD BURGHLEY 23

set made him his private secretary, a position, however, which he was not to hold for many months. Somerset's well-meaning but unprac- tical and impolitic measures had gradually roused resentment against him in all classes, except the peasantry, who had no influence ; and in the autumn of 1549 matters came to a crisis. The Earl of Warwick, fresh from suppressing the peasants' rising in Norfolk, gathered round him the malcontents in the Council, and the Protector's party quickly dwindled away. On October loth, Somerset was arrested, and a few days later he was committed to the Tower. Cecil retained his liberty for the time, possibly owing to Warwick's friendship with his father, 1 but in November he too was in the Tower, where he remained until the end of January. He then received his freedom, but was bound under a penalty of a thousand marks to appear before the Council when called upon.

Somerset himself was set free soon afterwards, and was re-admitted to the Privy Council. In the summer the two factions were allied together by the marriage of Somerset's daughter, Lady Anne Seymour, with Warwick's eldest son, Lord Lisle ; but one can hardly believe that anyone expected a permanent alliance between men of such entirely different aims and ideals. Warwick was, in fact, already scheming to get rid of his rival, and in October, 1551, Somerset was again arrested on a

1 Hume, The Great Lord Burghley, p. 21. See S. P. Dom., Northum- berland to Cecil, May 3ist, 1552.

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