Hello, and welcome to Western SIEV Episode two hundred and eighty six. The
Lord Admiral falls. Today we are back in England. King Edward is still
a child, Somerset is still Lord Protector, England still needs allies. The
Reformation remains unfinished, and Somerset's brother, Thomas Seymour, the aforementioned Lord Admiral,
remains as big of a problem as he was when we last left off.
Feel caught up great, Let's keep moving. With enough troubles at home
to fill as swimming pool, Somerset decided to invade Scotland. Whether this was
simply an effort to distract those at court from the chaos everyone now found themselves
knee deep in, I'm not sure. Regardless, Somerset knew full well how
badly Henry the Eighths campaign into Scotland had gone back in fifteen forty four.
He, on the other hand, was determined not to repeat the mistakes of
the past. He would not underestimate his foe. After a busy summer of
preparation, at the end of August fifteen forty seven, Somerset marched north at
the head of some sixteen thousand troops, accompanied by over eighty ships Somersets would
not repeat Henry's error. He was coming with overwhelming force. England made an
offer of peace, conditional upon the acceptance of a treaty of marriage between Edward
and Mary, Queen of Scots. Once this had been rejected, the battle
lines were drawn up near Pinky, near Edinburgh. The Scots clearly had the
upper hand, both in terms of numbers of men and the impregnable location that
they had chosen, but rather than defend this awesome position, they chose to
sally forth, with fatal results. With the English broadside cannons pounding the advancing
Scottish army, it fell into disarray, the ranks broken, the Scots fled
in panic. Where their army had stood there was now quote a wood of
staves strewed on the ground as rushes in a chamber end quote. The Scots
split into three directions, one toward the beach at Leath, the other towards
the walls of Edinburgh, hoping to escape through the breaches into the city,
and most fled towards Dalkeith into a marsh where pursuit proved impossible. The English
sensed a route following on their heels. The chase continued for five miles westward
from Invernesque, through Edinburgh Park and on to Leith, lasting for five hours.
Between one and six o'clock in the afternoon, it turned into an orgy
of killing. Most Scots were hacked down by blows to the head or neck
as they ran. Weapons were thrown aside in the hopes of gaining speed over
the enemy, though this too played into the English hand. The weapons of
the dead lying scattered on the plane were now taken up by those still living,
whose own swords had been shattered through over use. A few Scots put
up a defiant stand, lashing at the legs of the English horse, splitting
open their bellies. Some lay in furrows and feigned death only to escape litter,
while others hid in the river quote with scant his nose above the water
for breath end quote. In desperation, men threw their shoes and doublets aside
and ran in their shirts, running until they were breathless and died from sheer
exhaustion. When this quote unquote battle had ended. Quote, the dead bodies
lay as thick as a man may note Cattle grazing in a fully replenished pasture
end quote. The nearby rivers ran red with blood, and some thirteen thousand
Scots had lost their lives. Edward was overjoyed at the news of the victory.
He was even happier when he found out that amongst the Scottish dead were
scores of Catholic priests and monks. This will not be the last time,
by the way, that I say that someone was over the moon with news
that their religious rivals had been cut down. Somerset returned to London shortly thereafter.
He was suspicious of what his brother was up to and did not trust
him with his back turned. Unfortunately, because he did that, Somerset could
not follow up on his victory. This gave the Scots a chance to recover.
It was a critical mistake caused purely by his own sense of insecurity.
Seymour had chosen to remain in London rather than traveling with the army. While
Somerset was gone. He tried his best to poison the boy King against the
Lord Protector, exactly what Somerset had feared. He told King Edward that Somerset's
invasion was a waste of money. In addition, Seymour started bribing the king
with regular cash payments. That might sound absurd, but Somerset had a habit
of tightly controlling Edward's budget. Edward quickly became accustomed to these cash payments.
After Somerset's return, however, Seymour's unfettered access to the king came to an
abrupt end. Upon his return. Somerset discovered that his brother was not the
only problem he faced. When the commissioners enforcing the new religious injunctions had begun
their work in September, their enthusiasm got the better of them. On September
fifth, images were pulled down at Saint Paul's. Across the country, a
program of mass econoclasm had begun, with images and churches smashed and medieval wall
paintings whitewashed over and replaced with the text of the Ten Commandments. At Shrewsbury
they made a bonfire of images in the marketplace, while in much Winnock,
Shropshire, they burnt the local saints bones. In Durham, the Royal Commissioner
went as far as to smash up images with his own hands, literally jumping
up and down on them. Resistance was hopeless. When the Conservative bishops Stephen
Gardner and Edmund Bonner protested, they soon found themselves locked in jail. Others
made the most of their situation. Many Catholics fled abroad with their treasured relics,
but others quickly had them melted down in anticipation of their destruction and confiscation.
In Greyfire's Church near Saint Paul's, men quote pulled up all the tombs,
great stones, all the altars, with the stalls and walls of the
choir and altars to be sold. When the Council were informed in October that
christ Church, Canterbury intended to have their picks of gold and silver crucifix coined
in order to make repairs to the church, they ordered that the relics be
kept entirely safe and whole end quote. In an attempt to avoid wholescale destruction
and anarchy, the council, the Privy Council that is, suggested that any
images not abuse might be retained, and that windows containing images of the Pope
could be defaced or covered over rather than smashed. But it was all too
little, too late. Throughout the autumn, the assault on images continued,
and on the night of the sixteenth of November, the Rod loft in Saint
Paul's, along with the images of Mary and Saint John, were destroyed,
ultimately resulting in the death of two workmen. The government tried to clamp down,
but all these efforts were undercut by the reality that elements of the Catholic
Church, including the Mass, were no longer celebrated anywhere, including in Somerset's
own household. Somerset remained interested in real reform, though he thought that the
trees and laws passed in the waning days of Henry the eighth and which made
it a law to speak against the king at all, were just too far
over the top. Somerset had this law repealed and replaced it with the traditional
definition of treason, which is plotting the death of the king or his heirs,
waging war against the king, or serving his enemies. Ironically, by
the way, Henry the Eighth had also introduced such lenient legislation upon his own
ascension, only to scale it back before his death. Then, as now,
it had been a political move intended to make the new monarch popular.
Somerset also looked to Parliament to enhance his already considerable powers. Alarmed by Seymour's
behavior and closeness to Edward, he realized the need to secure his position more
fully, and so he drafted a bill that would be ratified in Parliament which
would legally confirm and extend his authority, giving him special precedence in the House
of Lords, a quasi regal status that would allow him to sit alone quote
upon the middle of the bench or stool standing next to on the right hand
of our Sea d Royal end quote. Whereas earlier documents stated that Somerset would
have the protectorship of Edward until he reached the age of eighteen, now his
powers would remain in force quote until such time as we declare to our set
uncle our pleasure, by writing with our hand and sealed with the Great Seal
of England end quote. It seemed that Somerset's authority, now entirely in the
hands of the King, would become unfettered. Somerset's brother, Seymour, now
found himself in a considerably diminished position, yet he remained determined to supplant his
brother. This was delusional, but Seymour remained committed to his hair brained scheme.
Trying to salvage his position, Seymour started befriending different members of the nobility
in an effort to win over their support. His most powerful ally was Henry
Gray, the Marquess of Dorset, though it's doubtful he would have had anything
to do with Seymour had he known the full extent of his plans. Seymour
at this point was plotting nothing less than open rebellion. To ferment this,
Seymour needed men in sixteenth century England. That meant he needed land. Specifically,
he needed the support of the great landed magnates, who could provide him
with, in essence, private armies. He soon began to fashion these connections
through contacts. His strategy here was twofold. He wanted to counteract parts of
England where his brother's support was solid. Plus he wanted to pinpoint those members
of the Privy Council or in some cases members of the same, who were
disaffected with Somerset's regime. He approached Lord Withsly on his way to dinner in
late fifteen forty seven, telling him quote, my Lord, you were well
handled touching your office. Would you not have it again? Soon Seymour was
confident he had the full support of at least five councilors to bolster his power,
Seymour quickly began buying and livying land on a huge scale. Land in
early modern Europe was power, and of course, as the Lord Admiral,
Seymour already had the power of the navy behind him. But even if Seymour
raised all these private armies, how could he possibly afford them. If he
needed ten thousand men a month and each was paid only six pence per day,
that still yielded an astronomical total cost of around two point four million pounds.
Seymour didn't have anything like that kind of money. His plan was that
he would simply make it. If he could flip the under Treasurer of the
Mint of Bristol to his side, a man he already knew, then he
could obtain a license to print money. But this was not the extent of
the trouble he was making for his brother. As if marrying Catherine Parr wasn't
bad enough, Seymour now tried to seduce the fifteen year old Princess Elizabeth the
future Elizabeth the First. She wasn't having it, by the way, at
least not at first. According to one report, If Elizabeth was still in
bed in the mid morning hours, Seymour would burst into the room, pull
open the bed curtains and jump in quote as though he would come at her
end quote, Elizabeth, terrified, retreated to the corner of the bed.
Catherine took this behavior to be nothing more than innocent playfulness. Things changed,
however, when Elizabeth reportedly started taking an interest in him. Suddenly the princess
found herself packed off to live with a relative, though Seymour, according to
the reports, was chastised as well. Meanwhile, the religious situation in England
continued to deteriorate. Attacks on the mass despite a proclamation banning them, continued
unabated. Henry's prior order banning the reading of the Bible had been repealed,
and people were gasp learning the text for themselves. Something had to give,
so in February of fifteen forty eight, the government relented and ordered all images
idolatrous or not removed from every church and every chapel in England. Across the
Kingdom. The vestiges of ancient religion were literally torn down. Edward understood all
this. He took a keen interest in religious issues, not that he had
a response to any of these problems. And yet there were more problems still.
Now this one I haven't talked about yet, but I need to introduce
it because it's going to be a major headache for England in the coming century.
I'm talking about enclosure. Enclosure, put simply, was the process by
which local landlords turned what had been communal lands so lands generally used by the
local villagers, into grazing lands for his own sheep, so privatizing what had
been community property. This process enraged the rural English community and it made it
so much harder for these families to survive. On May seventeen, fifteen forty
eight, for the first time a landowner who had enclosed a pot of land,
in this case it was a rabbit Warren found his actions met with violence.
Enclosure, by the way, wasn't a new problem even then. Indeed,
going back to Sir Thomas Moore, he complained that the landladers were allowing
quote sheep to eat up men end quote. That's kind of the famous quotation
for the start of this process. Yet, the increased demand for wool only
led to an increased demand for sheep. Hence, despite the complaints, the
enclosures kept coming. Sheep also took up public grazing lands that had been used
for communal cattle, removing milk and cheese from the diet of the poor,
and both had been dietary staples. The English government had not been innocent in
this. Henry the eighth had badly debased the coinage for his wars. In
France and Scotland, inflation in less than a decade had risen seventy seven percent.
Hence, landlords were to an extent trying to rebalance the scales through enclosure.
But in addition, the English population had increased dramatically, making an already
bad land shortage even worse. In the counties around London, between fifteen twenty
and sixteen oh three, the population had ballooned from sixty thousand to two hundred
thousand. Spoiler alert, by the way, really, the only pressure of
a release valve which is going to work for England is going to be sending
people to the colonies. Still for the moment, Somerset ordered local commissioners to
investigate the problem and determine potential solutions. Somerset knew what he was doing.
He understood the need for popularity. He after all, was not king,
and unsurprisingly, though his efforts met with extreme resistance from the landowners, but
soon enough of in Scotland pushed all these concerns to the backburner. Somersets quote
unquote rough wooing of Scotland was proving expensive. Then, as we already know,
Mary, Queen of Scott's, successfully fled her kingdom to France. The
whole ostensible purpose of this had been a foresome marriage between her and Edward.
Now it was not to be, and many began asking what was the point
of spending all this money. Throughout the summer of fifteen forty eight, Seymour
stayed with Catherine, who was pregnant with this child. This irked Somerset because
in removing himself from London, Seymour was effectively shooking his duties as Lord Admiral.
But Seymour thought he was doing his duty to his wife, whose pregnancy
was proving difficult. On August the thirtieth, Catherine delivered a healthy baby girl
that the couple named Mary. But Catherine fell ill almost immediately after giving birth
to the child, and two days later she died. Her death changed everything.
Seymour lost his major source of legitimacy for any proposed coup. Seymour also
lost his mind as a result. He would later admit that during the period
following the death of his wife he had quote small regard either to myself or
my doings end quote. Without the backing of the Queen's court, Seymour lost
his status, but Catherine's death opened up other opportunities, Mostly because Seymour was
now able to marry again. He set his sights immediately on Catherine's lady in
waiting, Jane Gray. The Gray family was one of the most powerful in
England. Yet while rumors continued to circulate about Jane's potential match to Seymour,
it now appeared that Seymour had other things mind. His intention was to marry
Jane, not to himself, but to King Edward. He felt if he
brokeered a successful union, he might parley the goodwill into a stronger position for
himself at court. I mean, it worked a lot in the past with
Edward's father, why not try it again. He might even hope to supplant
his brother. While Seymour pressed King Edward to marry Jane, he turned his
eye to Edward's half sister Elizabeth. This union, however, for the moment
he knew was not possible. So long as Somerset remained in control of Edward,
he would never consent to a marriage between Elizabeth and his younger brother.
Seymour was rapidly alienating himself and was beginning to appear unstable. Soon his activities
raised the suspicions of other members of the nobility. Risley wrote, Uote,
for God's sake, take heed what you need to do. You may say
what you will, that you mean well, and mind all for the King,
but indeed you shall show yourself his greatest enemy. You may begin a
faction and trouble, but you cannot end it when you would end quote.
Seymour was reprimanded by several other influential members of court for his behavior, everyone
telling him you ought to be content with the position of Lord Admiral and get
on with it. Seymour refused to listen. In desperation, Seymour pinned all
of his hopes on Edward. He hoped to make Edward realize his point of
view. Visiting him at Hampton Court, he walked with Edward in the garden.
Seymour wrote, quote, since I saw you last, you are grown
to be a good gentleman. I trust that within three or four years you
shall be the ruler of his own things. End quote. According to Seymour's
diary, nay came the reply from the king. Seymour did not give up
that easily, Ostensibly counting out each year of Edward's age, he feigned surprise.
He wrote in his diary, quote, within these three or four years,
your grace shall be sixteen years old. I trust by that time your
grace will help your men yourself with such things as fall and your grace's gift.
Yet Edward refused the answer, and the conversation soon turned to other matters.
It was clear that Seymour would have to find another way to have his
nephew see his point of view. Seymour was clearly up to something, though.
He was actively stockpiling food and other resources at one of his castles,
while his closest ally, William Sherrington, coined seven five hundred illicit pounds for
his use. These certainly looked like the sort of prepperrations one might make for
a civil war. Seymour traveled from location to location in the dead of night
to avoid being seen. He worked meticulously to move all his pieces into place
for what he assumed would be as successful coup al. This activity, of
course, left his brother feeling extremely suspicious. He informed those at court that
he needed to speak to Seymour immediately. Hearing of this, Seymour decided the
time had come to act. On the sixteenth of January fifteen forty nine,
he broke into the Privy Garden accompanied by two servants, histol in hand.
He made his way uninterrupted until he reached Edward's bedchamber, but fumbling with the
key to the door, he came against an unforeseen obstacle. Opening the outer
door, he was attacked by Edward's dog. Surprise overcame him, and in
desperation, he actually shot the dog. Edward's bodyguard awoke, their cries of
help murder, rising the alarm as they rushed to Edward's defense. There they
found Seymour, who proclaimed his innocence, for he was only making sure that
the king was securely guarded. Edward, of course, was safe in his
bed, no doubt terrified, it seems if Seymour was checking to see if
Edward was securely guarded. He had his answer on the floor. Lay quote
the lifeless corpse of the dog end quote. It had been, as one
of Edward's bodyguard remarked, quote, the most faithful guardian of the King's Majesty
end quote. A man later wrote, unless the King's Majesty had accidentally left
his dog outside and bolted the inner door of his chamber, which is seldom
done, it certainly would have been all over for him, end quote.
But was this really an accident? Was Seymour really checking on Edward's security?
If Edward knew something, if he suspected something, he didn't let on,
at least for the moment he didn't show his cards. But what on earth
would Seymour have been planning to do with Edward? Anyway? Had he gotten
to him, he would have gained absolutely nothing from killing the boy, regardless
of his intentions. Though Seymour found himself arrested the very next day. When
he was finally examined on the twenty third of February fifteen forty nine, he
refused to make any answers unless his accusers were brought before him. The right
to confront witnesses, by the way, would later be something the American colonists
would enshrine in their constitution. At some stage. Edward himself gave evidence against
Seymour. His testimony sealed Seymour's fate. For Somerset, the King's words must
have struck straight through him. Edward was on record as having wished him dead
quote it were better for him to die before end quote. No longer could
Somerset claim that he was Edward's trusted guardian and beloved uncle. As the evidence
unfolded, Seymour's affair with the Princess Elizabeth became open knowledge. She was interviewed
herself, as were Ashley, Elizabeth's bade and go between, and Thomas Perry.
All three remained tight lipped, their confessions so similar that their interrogator grew
suspicious. They all sing one song, he wrote to Somerset, continuing,
and so I think they would not do unless they had set the note before,
for surely they would confess or else they could not go So well agree,
I do believe that there hath been some secret promise never to confess to
death, and if it be so, it will never be gotten of her.
The Princess Elizabeth sought to limit the damage. She wrote to Somerset in
late January fifteen forty nine, protesting her innocence, writing quote, there go
with rumors abroad which greatly both against my honor and honesty that I am in
the tower, and with child by my lord, Admiral, My Lord,
these are shameful slanders, for which I shall most hardly desire your Lordship,
that I may come to court after your first determination, that I may show
myself as I am. And then she urged him to issue a proclamation repudiating
the Slanders. But as the questioning intensified, the United Front began to crumble,
and with the evidences and testimonies gathered, Seymour's guilt was a formality.
On the twenty fourth of February fifteen forty nine, the Privy Council reported their
findings to the King. In all, thirty three charges were laid against Seymour.
Somerset declared, quote, how sorrowful a case this was unto him end
quote. He did quote rather regard my burden to the duty of the King's
majesty and the Crown of England, that his own son or brother did way
more his allegiance than his blood end quote. In the end, he said
he would not resist, nor would he be against the Lord's request, if
he had done the same. He would not think himself worthy of life.
Those gathered then waited for Edward to speak, to pronounce sentence. They knew
what he was going to say, because his words had already been written,
but appearances needed to be kept up, though the charges they brought against Seymour
showed all too clearly. Otherwise, they needed to believe that Edward bore the
weight of his majesty himself. Formality and ceremony disguised the instability within the realm
carpeting over the underlying cracks which were beginning to form beneath Edward's bury feet.
So Edward finally spoke, We have these words recorded. We do perceive that
there is great things objected it and laid to Lord Admiral mine uncle, and
they tend to treason. And we perceive that you required but justice to be
done. We think it reasonable, and we will well that we proceed according
to your request. Those words are followed by something written in the council register
that reads as follows. With these words coming so suddenly from His Grace's mouth
of his own motion, the lords and rest of the council were marvelously rejoiced
and gave his Highness most hearty, praise and thanks end quote, and so
the charade that this had all come from Edward's mouth would continue. On the
twenty fifth of February, a bill of attainder was introduced into Parliament, passing
unopposed through the House of Lords. Out of pity, Somerset was allowed to
take his leave, but by the time the bill reached Commons it was quote
very much debated and argued end quote, and lawyers were brought in to defend
the charge that Seymour's doings had actually encompassed high treason. On March the fifth,
the comments finally passed the bill with only twelve dissenters. Seymour was declared
guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. Somerset himself signed his brother's death
warrant, his signature so shaky that historians today consider it almost illegible. Edward
only gave a sparse judgment, writing quote, I will and command you to
proceed at you request without further molestation of myself or the Lord Protector. I
pray you my lords do so end quote. On the nineteenth of March fifteen
forty nine, Thomas Seymour, brother to Lord Somerset, was executed upon Tower
Hill. He continued objecting until the very last. While imprisoned in the tower,
he had fashioned a pen on a piece of metal he had pulled off
his jacket and making his ink. Quote so craftily and with such workmanship as
the life had not been seen. He wrote to Elizabeth and Mary, encouraging
them both to conspire against Edward. He sewed the letters into the souls of
his velvet shoes and ordered his servants to retrieve them even after his death,
leading with the council for his execution to be delayed so that they might be
present at the scaffold. But in the end, even these secret letters were
discovered and his plans were thwarted. No crowds were there to witness Seymour's end.
He requested that his daughter be brought to him, but we have no
idea if that happened. Reportedly, his final words were quote, I have
been brought here to suffer death, for as I was lawfully born into this
world, so I must lawfully leave it. Because there is some work to
be accomplished. WI cannot be fulfilled unless I am put out of the way.
Edward wrote nothing of his uncle's death and his diary, So we have
no idea at all how the young king felt the time that he was executed.
Elizabeth, for her part, never forgot the injustice of Seymour's death.
Upon hearing the news, she was said to have remarked, quote, this
day died a man of much wit and very little judgment end quote. Later,
Seymour's fall would become a familiar lesson to the ambitious reaching beyond their means,
As another English historian would later remark, quote, his climbing high,
disdained by his peers, was thought the cause he lived, not out his
years end quote. Work soon got under way to make Edward's privy chamber more
secure, but in the end the damage to Somerset's reputation was irreparable. After
all, it was his brother who had formant to treason. Indeed, after
his brother's death, Somerset was really never the same person. Everyone wrote that,
if anything, Somerset's authority had been seriously called into question. Not only
had he failed in his duty to protect the King as the governor of his
person, but he had heard for himself the King's testimony, suggesting that Edward
thought he might be better off dead. His grip upon power had begun to
loosen, and the crisis had forced him to bring Risley back on board for
a meeting of the entire Council and executors in mid January. Somerset's own behavior
now also started to eat away at his reputation as the quote unquote good duke.
His lifestyle was lavish and the accumulation of wealth massive. This did not
match the constant preaching of fairness and equality of all. Nowhere was this more
clear than when the construction of his new home, Somerset House. A nearby
church had to be demolished to make room for this new palace, and no
one really said much about that at the time. But when Somerset blew up
the crypt for stone, now that was a step too far. Word that
stone intermixed was scattered remains and bones was simply too much for the public to
bear. But his personal problems were far outweighed by the escalating crises that were
beginning to face the Kingdom of England. The now futile war against Scotland was
proving increasingly expensive. Somerset would eventually spend five hundred and eighty thousand pounds that's
about one and forty six million in today's money on the campaign. Three hundred
and fifty one thousand of that was on troops alone. Since England was unable
to recruit the numbers of men needed for garrisoning as well as regular Sir,
he had to hire a total of almost seventy five hundred mercenaries. These from
all nations. There were Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Albanians, Hungarians,
even Irishmen. Compared to Henry's vast military expenditure in the last years of his
life, Somerset had spent nearly double and in half the time. Moreover,
the rush of religious change continued, culminating in the introduction of the Book of
Common Prayer in Parliament during November and December fifteen forty eight. The book rendered
the Latin Mass into English, though its message remained essentially one of compromise.
The book was relatively conservative in content and form, but make no mistake about
it, the Book of Common Prayer represented the true and final break in England
with medieval Catholicism. The elevation of the host was gone, the doctrine of
the sacrifice of the Mass was done. The traditional feast and fast cycle over
more than the abolition of what had been the already dying monasteries. This moment
was the moment that medieval religion died in England, and it took place in
Edward's reign, not Henry's. But apart from religion, as I mentioned,
Somerset had some real headaches. France was on the verge of declaring war.
The treasury was nearly empty without an ally, many believed England would likely fall.
Everyone was forecasting doom, none more so than Hugh Latimer, the reformist
London minister. He warned the English people of quote the greed of you landlords,
you rent raisers. I may say, you step lords, you natural
lords. You have your possessions yearly too much end quote. They were wise
words. Someone should have listened until next time. If you're interested in more
content, please check out the links in the show notes out links to the
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We are back in ancient Rome now, and I know olks can't get
enough of ancient Rome, So if you'd like a free listen of some of
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