the month in snapshots

baby and daddy getting some candid shots together

she gnaws the sides of the crib just like Zoey did when she was a baby

just being cute after a bath

Zoey loves to push her little sister around in her shopping cart

she's a little too young to be digging Sons of Anarchy

she thought the baby gate was cool until she realized its purpose

just some early morning cuddles before church!

adventures at Sharon Woods

adventures at the Historic Village

the year in books [XIX]

Every year I try to read a few Star Wars books. Maybe I'm trying to reclaim the joys of my youth, but I think I just enjoy the Star Wars universe. Over the next few years I'm trying to read through what have become known as the Star Wars Legends. The first six movies ended with the destruction of the second Death Star and the deaths of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. For all we knew, that was the end of the Star Wars Saga. It was up to others to continue it, and this was done through comics and books. The comics don't hold any interest for me, but the books are a different story. Over a hundred books have been written to continue the saga, but these were dubbed 'Legends' after Star Wars went to Disney and got a reboot. The new movies took the Star Wars story in a wildly different direction, and I'm one of the old-school folks who prefers the Legends to the new stuff. These are the first six books of the Star Wars Legends (in chronological order rather than order of publication). The Truce at Bakura takes place the morning after Episode Six ends, but it's a weak read and I had a hard time getting through it. Michael Stackpole's X-Wing Series is phenomenal; the first four books of the series cover the formation of Rogue Squadron, the liberation of Coruscant from the fledgling Empire, and the Bacta War. The fifth book in the series, by Aaron Allston, wasn't as good as Stackpole's book, but it was a decent read nonetheless. 

And now, just because, here are some pieces of Star Wars artwork:

the year in books [XVIII]

I'm going to be honest:
I wasn't super impressed with these books.

I don't regret reading them. They're a part of my ongoing thread through the Bernard Cornwell and Patrick O'Brian novels set during the Napoleonic Wars, and thus worth reading. All the same, there were some definite highlights. Sharpe's Enemy has my favorite epic battle scene in all the series, a page-turner devoured without thought of food or sup; and though Sharpe's Honour was mostly a bore with a few moments of fast-paced drama, Sharpe's Regiment was an excellent read with aperfect ending. Patrick O'Brian's The Ionian Mission and Treason's Harbour were slow reads, but the exotic locations of the Middle East and the Red Sea made it worth the read. The Far Side of the World was my favorite of his three books (and it's far better than the Russell Crowe movie, as excellent as it may be). 

Edward VI, Part Seven

Edward became ill with boiling fever and coughing fits in February 1553, and over the next several months his fever came and went – but it was evident he wasn’t getting better. The Holy Roman Emperor’s ambassador reported that ‘[the king] suffers a good deal when the fever is upon him, especially from a difficult in drawing his breath, which is due to the compression of the organs on the right side.’ The ambassador’s knowledge of Edward’s condition came from an informant in the king’s household, who went on to confess that ‘the matter [Edward] ejects from his mouth is sometimes coloured a greenish yellow and black, sometimes pink, like the colour of blood.’ The royal doctors believed he was suffering from ‘a suppurating tumour’ of the lung, and they didn’t see any way for him to recover. Edward’s legs swelled up so much that he had to lie on his back; the pain was so immense that he confessed to his tutor that ‘I am glad to die.’ But before he could slip into the sweet relief of death, he had to preserve the Reformation’s advance in England.

Lady Jane Gray

He was hot against Mary taking the throne: in the first instance, she would reverse the Reformation; in the second instance, he had firm concerns on her legitimacy and the priority of male inheritance (which excluded Elizabeth, too). He personally drew up a draft entitled My devise for the succession. His father had success with revising succession, so why shouldn’t he give it a go? His ‘bizarre and illogical’ provision excluded his half-sisters and settled the crown on his first cousin once removed, the sixteen-year-old Lady Jane Gray. Jane Gray had had recently married Lord Guilford Dudley, a young son of Northumberland, giving Northumberland a way to keep power when the sick king passed. Edward, who was against violating the rule of male headship, nonetheless acceded for Jane’s Gray’s succession because she was the best hope for keeping the throne out of Mary’s hands and preserving the Reformation. The document excluded Mary and Elizabeth because of their ‘bastardry’ (having been born to different mothers than he, who represented the current ‘pure’ bloodline); their ‘bastardry’ had been declared by Henry VIII, and in strict legal terms, they had never won back their legitimacy. 

The first draft needed a lot of polishing, and Edward personally saw to the touch-up job. He signed the document in several places and summoned the country’s high ranking judges to his sickbed, where he demanded their allegiance ‘with sharp words and angry countenance’ and ordered them to prepare his document as letters patent. He told them that in just a short time, the succession would be upheld by parliament. He then had the leading councilors and lawyers sign under his watchful eye a bond promising the faithful execution of his will after death. Some of the councilors had the nerve to raise questions about the plan; they were quickly shut down by Northumberland, who threatened them ‘trembling for anger, and… further said that he would fight in his shirt with any man in that quarrel.’ Chief Justice Edward Montagu overheard a group of lords whispering about how it’d be treason to refuse Edward’s demands. The pressure was on, and on 21 June the devise was signed by over a hundred of England’s biggest players. The roster included bishops and archbishops, sheriffs, councilors and peers. Many of them would later insist that Northumberland forced them to give their mark.

putting together the Devise for Succession

As word of the new plan of succession got out – and as Edward crept ever nearer to death – the foreign powers were getting concerned. The French, who were at odds with the Holy Roman Empire, didn’t like the idea of Mary sitting on the English throne. Though Mary was Catholic like the French, she was also the Holy Roman Emperor’s first cousin; that just would not do. French representatives gave Northumberland their support for Jane Gray’s accession. Though it was believed that most of England preferred Mary, Edward’s councilors were certain they could, over time, win support for Jane. 

Edward made his final public appearance on 1 July, when he showed himself at his window at Greenwich Palace. Those who saw him were mortified by his ‘thin and wasted’ condition. His frail form wasn’t off-putting enough to make people turn their heads, and over the next two days, large crowds gathered outside the palace hoping for a glimpse of their ailing king. On 3 July they were told that the weather was too chilly for Edward to appear, and three days later, at eight in the evening on 6 July 1553, the fifteen-year-old Edward died in his palace. John Foxe reported that his last words were: ‘I am faint; Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit.’ Though theories of poisoning abounded – some speculated that Northumberland was poisoning Edward to take control of the throne; others that his half-sister Mary was behind the plot, trying to kill him off so that she (next in line for the throne if Edward’s devise for succession failed) could take his place and bring Catholicism back to England – but the autopsy revealed that he died of ‘a disease of the lungs.’ The Venetian ambassador reported that Edward had died of tuberculosis; historian Chris Skidmore speculates that the king contracted tuberculosis after a bout of measles and smallpox in 1552 that suppressed his natural immunity to the disease. Historian Jennifer Loach postulates that his symptoms were typical of acute bronchopneumonia that led to a ‘suppurating pulmonary infection’ or lung abscess, septicaemia, and kidney failure.  The late Edward VI was buried at Westminster Abbey two days later; Archbishop Cranmer presided over the funeral. His burial place was unmarked until 1966 when an inscribed stone was laid in the chapel floor. Per Edward’s devise of succession, the throne passed to Lady Jane Gray – but she would ‘rule’ for only nine days. 

Edward VI, Part Six

Though the two major rebellions of 1549 were put down, the fact that they had taken place at all reflected poorly on the government – and especially on Somerset. In July of that year, Somerset’s secretary warned him, ‘Every man of the council has misliked your proceedings… would to God that, at the first stir you had followed the matter hotly, and caused justice to be ministered in solemn fashion to the terror of others…’ In other words, because Somerset had dallied in putting down the rebellions, the council was questioning his leadership. Come autumn the crown was facing financial ruin, and Somerset was hard-pressed to cling to his power. His arrogance and aloofness, as well as his lack of political and administrative skills, was catching up to him. When he received news of a cabal against him on 1 October, he issued a proclamation calling for assistance, took possession of Edward VI, and withdrew to the safety of the fortified Windsor Castle. As Somerset hid, the council published details of Somerset’s ineptitudes. They emphasized that Somerset’s power came from the council, not Henry VIII’s will, and on 11 October they had Somerset arrested and brought Edward VI – who’d complained that he felt imprisoned at Windsor – to Richmond. Edward listed the charges leveled against his Protector in his Chronicle: ‘ambition, vainglory, entering into rash wars in mine youth, […] enriching himself of my treasure, following his own opinion, and doing all by his own authority.’ In February 1550 John Dudley, Earl of Warwick – who had won prominence in battle against Scotland and in quelling Kett’s Rebellion – became the leader of the royal council (and, in effect, Somerset’s replacement). Though Somerset was released from the Tower and restored to the council, his reprieve was short-lived: he was executed for felony in January 1552 after scheming to overthrow Warwick’s regime. The young Edward noted Somerset’s death in his Chronicle: ‘the duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower Hill between eight and nine o’clock in the morning.’ 

the execution of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset

Different ages have different takes on historical characters; this is never truer than in historical perspectives on the Duke of Somerset on the one hand and the Earl of Warwick (made Duke of Northumberland in 1551) on the other. While Somerset was viewed positively by older historians, now he is perceived as inept and unqualified for leading the country; while older historians denigrated Northumberland as a ‘grasping schemer’ who enriched himself on the crown, recent historians have been more generous: it was he, they insist, who restored the authority of the King’s Council and steered the government to a steady harbor after Somerset’s misfires. At Somerset’s fall, Warwick was there to fill the vacuum – and he did it with political ruthlessness. He won the support of the Council through bribes and titles; with the power of the Council in his hands, he ousted his rivals and won himself the title ‘Lord President of the Council’ and ‘Great Master’ of Edward VI’s household. He distanced himself from Somerset’s rule by refusing the title ‘Protector,’ and though he still held the Council’s power, he gave them more of a rule than his predecessor had and thus won their favor. He became the new quasi-head of England. Historian John Guy notes, ‘Like Somerset, [Northumberland] became quasi-king; the difference was that he managed the bureaucracy on the pretence that Edward had assumed full sovereignty, whereas Somerset had asserted the right to near-sovereignty as Protector.’

Northumberland slaved to win favor and power in the Royal Council. Because he, unlike Somerset, lacked any blood relation to the young king, Northumberland staffed the council with several of his own family members – and he even included family in the royal household tasked with supporting and ministering to the young king. His support of the council was bolstered by the fact that, unlike Somerset, he actually treated the council with appropriate respect. Whereas Somerset used the council to rubber-stamp his decisions, Northumberland made them integral to the machinery of government. Their voices were heard and their advise interred, though Northumberland remained in control of the government’s ultimate direction. He took a different tack than Somerset; taking to heart the lessons of the late Henry VII, who had also inherited a financially bankrupt and politically fractured state, Northumberland focused on peace and prosperity to get England back on an even keel. He pursued peace with France and signed that peace in 1550; many hated the peace, as Northumberland sacrificed Boulogne (won in the latter part of Henry VIII’s reign) back to France. He irritated the veterans of the ‘Rough Wooing’ by withdrawing all English garrisons from the southern Scottish frontier; but this was a shrewd move, as there was no hope of establishing a permanent peace with Scotland, and the frontier forts were both ineffective and a drain on the economy. In 1551 Northumberland betrothed Edward to Elisabeth of Valois, the daughter of King Henry II of France. Closer to home he worked to stabilize the countryside to prevent the sort of rebellions that wracked Somerset’s Protectorate. He tightened his fist on local unrest by establishing permanent crown representatives in all localities and commissioning lords lieutenants, commanders of small military forces, to pacify the countryside and report any mischief back to the central government.

With the economic drain of warfare and rebellion remedied, Northumberland bent to the task of reversing England’s financial strain. Though political blame for England’s state-of-affairs fell to Somerset, in reality the late Protector had ‘inherited’ Henry VIII’s morbid financial cesspool. His mistake was worsening the treasury with his wars and lack of financial measures. Northumberland sought to remedy this by pursuing peace and trade and reworking the nation’s broken financial system. His first measures were a disaster, resulting in debased coinage; he then brought in an economic expert, Thomas Gresham, who reversed course. Gresham cracked down on widespread embezzlement of government moneys and launched a top-to-bottom review of revenue collection practices, which one historian called ‘one of the more remarkable achievements of the Tudor administration.’ By 1552 confidence in the coinage was restored, prices fell, and trade was on the uptick. The groundwork for financial recovery had been laid, though England wouldn’t fully recover until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

Northumberland included Edward in numerous state decisions, though the exact extent of Edward’s involvement in government has been a matter of debate. Stephen Alford notes that the wide range of theories ‘[balance] an articulate puppet against a mature, precocious, and essentially adult king.’ Here is what we know: when Edward turned fourteen, Northumberland created a special ‘Counsel of the Estate’ specifically for him. He chose his own members, and in weekly meetings Edward heard ‘the debating of things of most importance.’ He became involved in the Privy Chamber where he worked closely with Northumberland’s favored councilors and the Principal Secretaries. While Northumberland drove the government machinery back on a path towards peace and prosperity, Edward focused on continuing his father’s English Reformation – but he took it much further than his father would’ve liked. 

Henry VIII had launched the English Reformation to break away from the Catholic rules against divorce and remarriage. He was a ‘Catholic’ at heart, and so the English Reformation – despite its despoiling monasteries and breaking the Catholic stranglehold on the English government – resembled the Catholic Church in most ways. In order to win support for the breakaway, Henry had been forced to rely on leaders who had far more radical views than his own. This radical ‘Protestantism’ took root in the English Reformation, and it flourished under Edward VI. The new king followed in his father’s footsteps by relying on the sage wisdom (and power) of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Like his father he continued the despoiling of Catholic property, turning his attention against chantries – funds of money that were used to perform masses for the recently departed – and in so doing further enriched the crown’s treasury. Henry VIII would’ve approved of these policies, but he would’ve rolled over in his grave if he knew just how far Edward would take things.

Edward was a pious king who read twelve chapters of scripture daily and enjoyed sermons. He was portrayed, both during his life and after, as a new King Josiah, the biblical king who brought pagan Israel back to the right path, and who destroyed all the idols of Baal. Cranmer and other religious leaders were able to mold the young king towards a rejection of Catholic pageantry and a conviction that ‘true religion’ must spread through England. During Edward’s reign, Reformed doctrines became official, most notably the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Ordinal of 1550 replaced the divine ordination of priests with a governmental system that established appointments and authorized ministers. It was Cranmer who wrote a uniform liturgy in English, detailing all weekly and daily services and religious festivals, that was made compulsory in the Act of Uniformity of 1549. His Book of Common Prayer had been influenced by both the traditionalists and radicals, but that didn’t make it any less volatile in more pro-Catholic places (as the Prayer Book Rebellion showed). The Reformation advanced heavily after Somerset’s fall and the rise of Northumberland. Edward, given more power under Northumberland than he’d had under Somerset, took to task his role as Supreme Head of the English Church. More and more reformers were consecrated as bishops, canon law was revised, and the Forty-Two Articles were compiled to clarify the practice of the Reformed faith. Official English doctrine rejected transubstantiation – the idea that the living Christ was present in the communion emblems – and the Catholic mass was wholly eradicated. Cranmer rewrote the Book of Common Prayer in 1552; according to historian G.R. Elton, the publication of the revised prayer book ‘marked the arrival of the English Church at Protestantism.’ Even to this day, the 1552 Book of Common Prayer remains the foundation of the Church of England’s services. 

Cranmer was well on the path to cementing Protestantism in England; by the end of Edward’s long reign, he hoped, Catholicism and all its heretical entrapments would be a thing of the past. His good humor was dashed, however, when the young boy became sick and the doctors gave a terminal diagnosis. The king’s reign, it became apparent, would be rather short. Next in line to the throne was the fiery pro-Catholic Mary Tudor; if she became monarch, she would undoubtedly reverse all of Cranmer’s reformations and set the clock back to the days before Henry VIII. Fearing a Catholic reconciliation, and the demise of all they’d worked for, the ailing Edward and his loyal Protestant council set about a desperate revision of the succession to keep Mary from taking the throne. 

Edward VI, Part Five

The Prayer Book Rebellion's catalyst was a change in religious practice; Kett’s Rebellion – which was all but simultaneous with the Prayer Book Rebellion, lasting two months in the summer of 1549 – was precipitated by agricultural changes that put the poorer classes at a distinct disadvantage. The practice of enclosure by wealthy landowners was spreading; enclosure – whereby landowners fenced off ‘common land’ strictly for their own use – left common peasants with nowhere to graze their animals. Many laborers were forced off their lands and rendered homeless. The enclosure system took off in tandem with the increased demand for wool; wealthy sheep farmers needed more land for their priceless commodities to graze, and to hell with the poor folk who were on it first. As enclosure spread, so, too, did inflation, unemployment, rising rents, and declining wages. It’s not surprising that the commoners, in the words of historian Mark Cornwall, ‘could scarcely doubt that the state had been taken over by a breed of men whose policy was to rob the poor for the benefit of the rich.’

Enclosures in modern England

The conspirators of Kett’s Rebellion (or ‘the commotion time,’ as it was called in Norfolk) believed they were legitimate and lawful in their uprising against enclosing landlords; they believed they had Somerset’s support and that the tyrannical landlords, rather than the rebels, were the real lawbreakers. Somerset had made a number of proclamations that could be interpreted as sympathetic to the rebels’ cause, and he had authorized investigations into grievances about the encroachment of sheep flocks on common land and loss of tillage. These investigations were spearheaded by an evangelical M.P. named John Hales, whose socially liberal rhetoric made the notion of a godly commonwealth integral to Reformation ideology. The rebels believed that the investigations painted the landlords in the wrong, and thus it was only right and religiously proper for the suffering party to rise up against injustice. Edward VI noted these undercurrents in his Chronicle, writing that the uprisings began ‘because certain commissions were sent down to pluck down enclosures.’ 

Kett's Oak

The rebellion began in July 1549 in the small market town Wymondham during an annual (and illegal) celebration of St. Thomas Becket. The Monday after the feast, 8 July, a handful of commoners made their way to the villages of Morley St. Botolph and Hethersett to tear down fences and hedges. A month before, in the town of Attleborough, fences had been similarly dismantled; the conspirators considered themselves ‘in the right’ because Somerset had issued a proclamation against illegal enclosures. The commoners targeted the land of Sir John Flowerdew, a lawyer and landowner at Hethersett; Flowerdew had earned the chagrin of the people when he oversaw the demolition of Wymondham Abbey during the dissolution of the monasteries. When the people gathered at the edge of his land, he bribed them to leave his fences alone and to turn their attention on those of another landowner by the name of Robert Kett. Kett, nearing sixty years old, was one of the wealthiest farmers in Wymondham, and he and Flowerdew were at loggerheads. When the rabble arrived on his land, Kett listened to their grievances, and then did the unthinkable: he threw in with them! He helped them dismantle his fences, and then he led them back to Flowerdew’s land where they tore down his enclosures. The next day the protesters set off for Norwich with Kett as their titular head; as they walked down country roads, they were joined by more disgruntled peasants eager to execute their own sense of justice. Legend has it that the mob met under an oak tree (now known as Kett’s Oak) on the road between Wymondham and Hethersett; when the rebellion was squashed, nine rebel leaders were hanged from its branches. The oak tree has been preserved by the Norfolk City Council. Though an oak tree would become the symbol of the short-lived rebellion, it wasn’t patterned after Kett’s Oak but after an oak tree on Mousehold Heath (called ‘the Oak of Reformation’) where the rebels pitched their camp. This latter tree no longer remains. As the rabble neared Norwich, both the sheriff and mayor approached them, insisting they turn back; the rioters refused. The mob was denied permission to march through Norwich, so they crossed the River Wensum and spent the night at Drayton. On 12 July they reached Mousehold Heath, where they had a vantage point overlooking Norwich, which lay just beyond the Wensum River. Here they pitched a ‘base camp’, and they’d be there for six and a half weeks. Kett made St. Michael’s Chapel (the ruins of which are known as Kett’s Castle) his headquarters. Mount Surrey, a rundown house that had been empty since the Earl of Surrey’s execution in 1547, became the rebel ‘jail’ for Kett’s prisoners. Kett’s leadership council would meet under the Oak of Reformation to administer the camp; the council issued warrants to obtain victuals and arms and to arrest members of the gentry. Workmen and artisans from Norwich, as well as people from nearby villages, joined the camp on Mousehold Heath; in time it became not only larger than Norwich, which it overlooked, but it was also the second-largest ‘city’ in England with a population of twelve thousand. 

The rebels drew up a list of twenty-nine grievances and sent it to Somerset. Historian Andy Wood summarized the grievances as a ‘shopping list’ of demands but which nevertheless had a strong underlying logic articulating ‘a desire to limit the power of the gentry, exclude them from the world of the village, constrain rapid economic change, prevent the overexploitation of communal resources, and remodel the values of the clergy.’ Interestingly, only one of the articles mentioned enclosure. Another grievance demanded that ‘all bondmen may be made free, for God made all free, with his precious blood shedding,’ likely a complaint against the 1547 Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds that made it legal to enslave a discharged servant who failed to find a new master within three days (though it’s possible they were calling for the abolishment of unofficial serfdom). On 21 July a messenger from Edward VI’s council arrived at Norwich, went with city officials to the rebel camp, and proclaimed the gathering a rebellion and offered a pardon. Kett rejected the offer, insisting that he had no need of pardon since he’d committed no treason. Because the king’s man lacked the resources to arrest the rebels, he returned to Norwich. 

The rebel encampment on Mousehold Heath

Because of the royal proclamation, the rioters were now rebels regardless of their opinion on the matter. The city officials barred Norwich’s gates and set about polishing the city’s defenses. Barred from Norwich’s market (without which the twelve thousand rebels would starve), Kett had two options: either disperse the camp or attack Norwich. In the late evening of 21 July, rebel artillery positioned on and beneath Mount Surrey opened fire on Norwich’s walls. Norwich’s cannons responded, and the opposing artillery dueled through the night. At first light the next morning, Kett withdrew his artillery; six royal artillery pieces in the meadow behind Norwich’s hospital had such good aim that he feared losing all his cannon. Kett repositioned his cannon on Mousehold’s slopes and reopened fire on the city. The guns in the meadow couldn’t elevate their fire enough to oppose the rebel cannon, and at this point Kett ordered the main assault. Thousands of rebels poured down Mousehold’s slope and began swimming across the Wensum River that separated the camp from the town. Norwich’s defenders on the city walls fired volleys of arrows at the mass of rebels crossing the river, but they couldn’t dent the attack. The rebels broke into the city and captured the town. 

Edward VI’s council was enraged to hear of the fall of Norwich, and Edward dispatched the Marquess of Northampton to quell the rebellion. Northampton marched with fifteen hundred men, including Italian mercenaries, and as he neared Norwich he sent a herald to demand the rebels’ surrender. Kett, knowing it would be difficult to defend the city, ordered it abandoned, and the rebels returned to their high position on Mousehold Heath. Northampton marched his army into Norwich and began defensive preparations and ordered patrols to scour the city’s maze of cramped streets. Around midnight alarms rang out; hundreds of rebels were using the cover of darkness and their knowledge of the small streets and alleys outside the walls to launch hit-and-run attacks on royal troops. Lord Sheffield suggested that ramparts be built on the eastern side of the city, which was open to attack, and by eight in the morning on 1 August the makeshift ramparts were strengthened. Later in the morning, Northampton received news that the rebels wished to discuss surrender and were gathering around Norwich’s Pockthorpe Gate. Lord Sheffield went to the gate but found no one there; this was apparently a ruse, as thousands of rebels began crossing the Wensum River near Bishopsgate. Northampton’s main force was encamped in the market place, and he siphoned soldiers through the streets to meet the rebels entering the city. Vicious street fighting favored the rebels, who knew the warren of streets. Lord Sheffield dispatched cavalry to charge the rebels; outside the Great Hospital, Sheffield fell from his horse into a ditch. Expecting to be captured and ransomed, he removed his helmet – only to be slain by a blow from a rebel butcher. With the rebels gaining the upper hand in the streets, and with his senior commander slain, Northampton ordered a retreat to Cambridge. 

John Dudley, Earl of Warwick

Northampton’s army had failed, so another was raised. This one was led by the Earl of Warwick and was considerably larger, with fourteen thousand men including mercenaries from Wales, Germany, and Spain. Warwick had military experience, having fought in France. Northampton was made Warwick’s second-in-command. Warwick’s army entered rebel-held Norwich by attacking the St. Stephen’s and Brazen gates. The rebels were pushed out of the city, setting fire to houses as they fled in an attempt to slow Warwick’s advance. Warwick’s baggage train entered the city around three in the afternoon and promptly got lost; rather than halting in the marketplace, the baggage train continued straight through the city towards the rebel army. When the rebels saw the train from Mousehold, they rushed down the slopes and captured it. The royal army, seeing the looming disaster, set about recapturing the baggage train, and they managed to seize some but not all of the royal artillery in a fierce fight around Bishopsgate. At about ten that night, the rebels entered the city and started burning it. Warwick’s men spent the night dousing the flames, and come morning on 24 August, the rebel artillery began battering down the city’s northern walls. The rebels poured into the gaps and seized the northern part of the city, and Warwick launched a counter-attack. Vicious street fighting expelled the rebels, who retreated back to Mousehold Heath and spent the rest of the day and the long night hurling artillery rounds into the city. Warwick received fifteen hundred German mercenaries – composed of handgunners and pikemen – as reinforcements the next day. Kett knew his rabble didn’t stand a chance against Warwick’s numerous force, so that night they abandoned their camp at Mousehold and prepared for a decisive clash-of-arms against Warwick’s men. 

Warwick's infantry advance towards the rebels at Dussindale

On the morning of 27 August the two armies faced each other outside the city. The ensuing Battle of Dussindale was a disaster for the rebels, which comes as no surprise: in the open, against well-armed and well-trained troops, the rebels didn’t stand a chance. Thousands were killed and the rest scattered; Warwick lost only two hundred fifty men. The day after the battle, captured rebels – numbered anywhere between thirty and three hundred – were hanged outside the Oak of Reformation and outside the Magdalen Gate. Kett was captured at the village of Swannington the night after the battle; he and his brother William were taken to the Tower of London to await trial. Later found guilty, they were returned to Norwich at the beginning of December. Kett was hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle on 7 December 1549; the same day his brother was hanged from the west tower of Wymondham Abbey. 

Edward VI, Part Four

Warfare abroad was mirrored by conflict at home. England was subject to social unrest and riots throughout 1548, and in the spring of 1549 the growing discontent overflowed into outright revolts. Though a number of rebellions took place, two stand out: the Prayer Book Rebellion (in reaction to the imposition of Protestantism in pro-Catholic English territories) and Kett’s Rebellion (in reaction to the encroachment of landlords on common grazing ground, a practice that threatened the livelihoods of poorer folk). 

In the late 1540s, at the behest of Edward VI, Somerset introduced a swathe of legislative measures to advance the Reformation in England and Wales. These rulings sought to change theology and practice, particularly in geographical areas of traditionally Catholic loyalty. Traditional religious processions and pilgrimages were banned, and royal commissioners were dispatched to remove all symbols of Catholicism. In pro-Catholic Cornwall, the common-folk viewed the commissioner’s actions as desecration of religious shrines, and he was murdered in April 1548. The government responded to the murder by executing twenty-eight Cornishmen at Launceston Castle. The pro-Catholic priest of St. Keverne was taken to London, and after execution his head was impaled on a staff erected upon London Bridge. The next year the Act of Uniformity made it illegal to use Latin liturgical rites, and the English Prayer Book became the only liturgy available for use. Magistrates were tasked with enforcing the change. In Devon, parishioners compelled their priest to defy the ruling; the ‘pious rebels’ argued that the new English liturgy was ‘but like a Christmas game,’ a smart remark on how the prayer book instructed men and women to file down the quire on different sides to receive the sacrament, which resembled cultural practices of country dancing. Word of the parishioners’ refusal to abide by the new law brought justices to the next service to enforce the change. Tensions boiled high and a scuffle broke out between the congregants and the justices, and a proponent of the change was run through with a pitchfork on the steps of the church house.

Slightly after the mortal spilling of blood on the church steps, a group of parishioners decided to march to Exeter to protest the new prayer book. As the rebels moved through Devon they gained a motley host of Catholic supporters. The ragtag rebels turned into a peasant army composed of militiamen sprinkled with farmers, fishermen, and tin miners. Though the rebellion was ostensibly spawned by religious concerns, historians – both contemporary and modern – have advocated the idea that there was a social impetus as well. The rebels embraced a slogan that implied both religious and social concerns: ‘Kill all the gentlemen and we will have the Six Articles up again, and ceremonies as they were in King Henry’s time!’ In the social sphere, the rebels would demand a limitation on the size of gentry households; it’s no small wonder that Thomas Cranmer condemned the rebels for inciting class conflict, saying that they wanted ‘to diminish [the gentry’s] strength and to take away their friends, that [they] might command gentlemen at [their] pleasure.’ He seethed that the rebels had ‘conceived a wonderful hate against the gentlemen and take them all as their enemies.’ The gentry of Devon and Cornwall noted this, as well, and they sought protection in old castles – and it was good that they did. As the rebels marched, they laid waste to the lands of the gentry and preached violence against gentlemen. A number of high-ranking gentry sought shelter in St. Michael’s Mount where they were besieged by the rebels, who coerced them to surrender. Sir Richard Grenville hid in the ruins of Trematon Castle; abandoned by most of his supporters, he was seized and the castle ransacked; he was imprisoned with his few remaining supporters in the Launceston jail. 

News of the violent peasant march worried Somerset, who ordered one of the Privy Councilors to ‘pacify’ the rebels. Lord John Russell was ordered to gather an army and impose a ‘military solution’ upon the peasant army. Russell did as he was ordered, and after the rebels passed Plymouth, two knights of Devon were sent to negotiate an end to the uprising. They went to meet the rebels at Crediton, but they found the approaches blocked and were attacked by longbowmen who scattered the knights and their entourage. The rebel host then split, one force moving to Clyst St. Mary to assist the villagers and another, numbering close to two thousand, bent upon occupying fortified Exeter. Upon reaching the walled city, they demanded that the gates be opened; though several people of Exeter extended sympathies to the rebels, the gates remained closed. Exeter’s mayor, despite being pro-Catholic, refused to surrender the town; thus the rebels had no option but to besiege the city, and they would be encamped around it for five weeks. Russell’s army reached Honiton on 2 July; his army composed one hundred sixty Italian arquebusiers and a thousand German foot soldiers. He was promised reinforcements that would bring him close to nine thousand men, not including eight hundred fifty cavalry. Spies reported that the rebel army, which had split before a detachment marched on Exeter, numbered seven thousand – and these were mostly peasants, who would be no match for Russell’s well-trained, well-equipped force. Russell moved to relieve Exeter, but the rebels blocked his approach at Fenny Bridges. A small skirmish erupted; both sides lost about three hundred men in the Battle of Fenny Bridges, and Russell’s army returned to Honiton to await reinforcements. These reinforcements arrived at the beginning of August; his numbers weren’t quite what he’d hoped for (he had about five thousand men), but he believed he had the upper-hand against the rebels. They marched towards Exeter once more, this time going westward across the downs. His army pitched camp at Woodbury Common, and on 4 August the rebels, led by the Catholic Sir Humphrey Arundell, attacked at the Battle of Woodbury Common. The result was inconclusive, though Russell managed to secure many prisoners. The rebels regrouped at Clyst St. Mary, where they were attacked on 5 August by a force led by Sir William Francis. 

English soldiers during the Prayer Book Rebellion

The Battle of Clyst St. Mary was a brutal affair in which the royal forces routed the rebels, who left a thousand dead and many more taken prisoner. Russell, his blood up and wishing to make an example of the captured rebels, had nine hundred prisoners bound and gagged; according to the chronicler John Hayward, he then proceeded – in a brief span of ten minutes – to cut every prisoner’s throat. The scattered rebels regrouped, and upon hearing of the massacre, they steeled themselves for vengeance. The next day they launched a vengeful attack on the encamped soldiers. The Battle of Clyst Heath didn’t accomplish what the rebels intended; two thousand more men died before the rebels broke and fled. A group of rebels were pursued up the valley of the Exe, where they were overtaken by a Devon knight loyal to the crown. The knight, Sir Gawen Carew, left the corpses of the rebels’ slain leaders hanging on gibbets from Dunster to Bath. Russell, having swept away the rebels at St. Clyst, continued on to Exeter. The rebels besieging the town fled and the city welcomed their rescuers. The English government ordered the lands of those involved in the uprising confiscated, and Arundell’s estates went to Sir Gawen Carew. Russell, bathing in the adoration and thanks of Exeter’s citizens, and with numerous victories under his belt, thought the rebellion was over – but then he received news that Arundell’s army was regrouping at Sampford Courtenay. Russell’s men were strengthened with reinforcements and now numbered more than eight thousand. Russell moved to meet the persistent rebels and engaged them at the Battle of Sampford Courtenay. John Hooker, a contemporary historian based out of Exeter, reported that ‘the Cornish [rebels] would not give in until most of their number had been slain or captured.’ Russell reported that his force had killed between five and six hundred rebels, and after the rebels broke, his pursuit claimed a further seven hundred kills. Arundell managed to escape the carnage and fled to Launceston; he was later captured and taken in chains to London. Fifty-five hundred people had lost their lives in the rebellion, and it had all come to naught – and it still wasn’t over. Arundell, imprisoned in the Tower, was horrified to learn that Somerset and Archbishop Cranmer authorized court-sanctioned reprisals against those who had participated in the rebellion. English and mercenary forces cut a swathe through Devon and Cornwall, executing and killing a number of rebel refugees before the Prayer Book Rebellion became a thing of the past. In November 1549 Arundell was taken to Westminster Hall and found guilty of high treason and condemned; he was taken back to the Tower before being hanged, drawn and quartered on 27 January 1550. His estates, and those of his ringleaders, were divvied among the nobles who had served the king in quelling (and punishing) the uprising.

Edward VI, Part Three

Somerset's wartime footing finds its 'claim to fame' in what has been called the ‘Rough Wooing’ of Scotland. Though England and Scotland had enjoyed a measure of peace after the diplomatic genius of Henry VII, the peace fell apart under Henry VIII. While much of the ‘Rough Wooing’ took place during the late reign of Edward VI’s father, it came to its conclusion during the early reign of the boy king. After victory in both France and Scotland in his latest war campaigns, on 1 July 1543 Henry VIII signed the Treaty of Greenwich with the Scots, sealing the peace with Edward’s betrothal to the seven-month-old Mary, Queen of Scots (the only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland). Though the Scots had rejected similar plans earlier in Henry’s reign, they were in a weak position after their defeat at Solway Moss. Henry hoped to unite the two realms, and he insisted that Mary be raised in England. Scotland’s regent, acting for the infant Queen Mary, approved the marriage but was hesitant to move forward with it because rival factions threatened to plunge Scotland into civil war. The death of James V, and the fragility of the fractured government, made politics a hot-keg waiting to blow, and blow it did – two Scottish factions forced the Scottish government to renege on the Treaty of Greenwich in December. Henry released a number of prisoners from Solway Moss in the hope that they could sway the Scots to rethink their actions, but this didn’t work: instead they renewed their Auld Alliance with France. War was just a step away, and an enraged Henry was done with fruitless diplomatic gestures. In April 1544 he ordered Edward’s uncle, the Earl of Hertford, to invade Scotland and ‘put all to fire and sword, burn Edinburgh town, so razed and defaced when you have sacked and gotten what you can of it, as there may remain forever a perpetual memory of the vengeance of God lightened upon [them] for their falsehood and disloyalty.’ Hertford did as Henry had commanded, launching England’s most brutal campaign against her northern neighbor.

Edinburgh in the late 16th century

Hertford burned St. Mynettes on the northern bank of the Forth, seizing Scottish fishing boats to ferry his army across the river onto enemy soil. They army landed at Granton and occupied Leith. The Provost of Edinburgh met with Hertford, hoping to find a solution to the present difficulties, but Henry had ordered Hertford to make no terms: Edinburgh must be destroyed. Though Edinburgh was lightly defended, Edinburgh Castle was stocked with cannon that could put a devastating fire on any approaching enemies. Hertford wasn’t there to capture the city but to destroy it, so he ignored the castle and ordered the city put to the torch. English soldiers didn’t dig in for a siege; they marched into the city and set it alight. All the houses within the suburbs and behind the city walls were burned, and the English looted what they could and loaded their prizes onto English ships (along with the captured Scottish ships Unicorn and Salamander). The ships carried their loot home by sea, but the army went home by land; and as they did so, they burned and pillaged everything they came across. 

A number of English knights made their own raids across the border from Berwick upon Tweed. One of these raids, led by a knight named Sir Ralph Eure in 1545, burnt a Scottish tower while the lady of the house, her children, and their servants were inside. When news of the atrocity reached the Scottish royal court, loggerheads were cooled and a quasi-unity among rival factions took shape. Two Scottish nobles – the Earl of Arran, acting as regent to Queen Mary, and the Earl of Angus – had been the bitterest enemies, even attacking one another’s supporters en masse in Edinburgh in 1520, but the desire for vengeance upon English brutality pulled them towards reconciliation. A large army was raised – approximately around twenty-five hundred men drawn from various noble lineages and their supporters – and they moved to confront the rampaging English near Jedburgh. The English raiders had more men: three thousand German and Spanish mercenaries, fifteen hundred English supporters under the knight Sir Brian Layton, and seven hundred ‘pro-English’ Scots (who were forced to support the English on pain of losing their families and livelihood). As the English pitched camp near Gersit Law, a small party of Scottish raiders made a feint attack before retreating towards Palace Hill. The English raiders, who had tasted nothing but victory and loot during their campaign, gave chase. As they crossed the top of Palace Hill and plunged down the far side, they found the whole Scottish army waiting for them. The Scots had all the advantages: they had the advantage of surprise, the advantage of the sun (it was setting behind them, both illuminating and blinding their enemy), and the westerly wind blew the gunpowder smoke from Scottish arquebuses and pistols into the English soldiers. Scottish pikemen charged forward, driving the English back. The uneven ground atop Palace Hill prevented the English from rallying, and desperate Scottish soldiers in the English army ripped off the red crosses that signified their allegiance to England and professed themselves allies of Scotland. The English army, broken by the surprise attack at what would be known as The Battle of Ancrum Moor, were scattered throughout the Scottish countryside – where many became easy prey for Scots eager to pay blood with blood. Sir Ralph Eure, who had burned the tower with the innocents, was slain on the battlefield; upon seeing his corpse, the Scottish Earl of Arran wept, saying, ‘God have mercy on him, for he was a fell cruel man and over cruel, which many a man and fatherless bairn might rue, and wellaway that ever such slaughter and blood-shedding be among Christian men!’ The English suffered eight hundred soldiers killed and a thousand taken prisoner. This brought an end to the ravaging of Scotland, and when Francis I of France heard news of the Scottish victory, he sent French troops across the Channel to aid the Scots in their war against England. These fresh troops didn’t amount to much, however, because hostilities ended over a year later in June 1546 when Henry VIII signed the Treaty of Camp with France. Eighteen months of peace between England and France were secured – but, as is to be expected of English and Scottish relations, this peace wasn’t to last. Both the English and the Scots had the taste for blood in their mouths.

The Battle of Ancrum Moor

The Treaty of Camp allowed the English to retain a fort they’d built at Langholm within the Scottish border. Unable to possess it by diplomacy, the Earl of Arran attempted to take it by force but was repulsed. Just a month after the peace treaty was signed, he tried again and succeeded. At the same time, a French naval force ousted pro-English Scotsmen at St. Andrews Castle. Arran had seven signal beacons prepared that could be lit if the English launched a seaward invasion; each signal beacon had a mounted rider who would ride to the next beacon if an invasion came during the daytime; and the Scots near the beacons were ordered to make themselves ready to fight if the beacons were lit. In January 1547 Henry VIII died, and the throne passed to Edward VI. Now both England and Scotland were under minor monarchs, both ruled by regents. The English regent, the Duke of Somerset, took the reigns of government, and he orchestrated the invasion of Scotland that the Scots were expecting.

In early September 1547, he led a large army supported by thirty warships into Scotland. Arran’s representative in London observed the English marshalling for war and warned Arran of the impending invasion. Somerset had close to seventeen thousand men; these included county levies armed with longbow and bill, several hundred German arquebusiers, Spanish and Italian mounted arquebusiers, and six thousand cavalry. The cavalry were commanded by Lord Grey of Wilton, the High Marshal of the Army, and the infantry were commanded by the Earl of Warwick, Lord Dacre of Gillesland, and Somerset. Somerset marched his host east along the Scottish coast so that he could keep in contact (and in supply) with the English warships. Scottish raiders harassed his columns, but they were swatted away like annoying gnats. To the west, a smaller diversionary force of five thousand men took Castlemilk in Annandale and burnt Annan after a bloody skirmish to capture the fortified church. As the English marched, Arran levied an army numbering anywhere between twenty-two and thirty-six thousand. The Scottish numbers dwarfed those of the English. Most of Arran’s soldiers were pikemen with a spattering of highland archers; he had several artillery pieces, but they were more primitive than those brought by the English. His cavalry numbered only a third of those the English were bringing to the field, and many of the Scottish cavalry were unreliable border skirmishers. Arran placed his men on the slopes of the western bank of the River Esk, hoping to bar Somerset’s progress. The Firth of Forth protected his left flank, and a bog protected his right. Crude earthworks mounted with cannon and arquebuses were mounted, and Arran ordered some of the cannons to point into the Forth to keep the enemy warships from coming too close and supporting the English.

On 9 September Somerset’s army took position on Falside Hill just three miles east of Arran’s encampment. The Scottish Earl of Home, in a chivalric but nearsighted gesture, led fifteen hundred horsemen close to the English and challenged an equal number of English cavalry to cross swords. Lord Grey begged Somerset to let him teach the Scots a thing or two, and Somerset reluctantly acquiesced – much to Scottish dismay. Lord Grey led a thousand heavily armored men-at-arms and five hundred lighter demi-lancers against the Scottish cavalry. The Scots were run through, routed, and pursued. Home’s foolishness stripped Arran of most of his cavalry. A few hours later, Somerset sent guns to occupy the Inveresk Slopes overlooking the Scottish earthworks. Come nightfall Somerset received two more challenges from the Scots: one was Arran requesting that he and Somerset decide things by single combat, and another requested that the fate of the battle lie with trial-by-combat for twenty champions from each side. Somerset rejected both entreaties. The next day, 10 September, he linked his army with the guns he’d dispatched to the Inveresk Slopes only to find that Arran had shifted his army across the Esk via a Roman bridge and was marching with haste to meet him; Arran knew his antique guns were no match for Somerset’s modern artillery, and he wanted to use his pikemen to chew close into the English positions before cannon rounds could tear the heart out of his attack.

The English artillery firing upon the Scottish levies at Pinkie Clugh

Arran’s movements, however, exposed his men to fire from the English warships offshore. The ships fired on Arran’s flank, forcing his men to coagulate in the middle of the attack as they neared the English positions. Somerset focused on the other flank, ordering his cavalry to harass them and delay their advance. The pikemen easily repulsed the enemy cavalry; Lord Grey was wounded by a pike thrust through his throat and into his mouth. At this point the English artillery opened up on the Scots, and the Scottish host was subject to withering fire from three sides. Cannons from the warships, entrenched artillery on the Inveresk Slopes, as well as arquebusiers and archers, fired into the Scottish levies. The Scots couldn’t make any sort of reply; they broke, and the English cavalry rejoined the battle. A number of Scottish soldiers were killed as they tried to escape through the bog, and many more drowned when they tried to cross the fast-flowing Esk. An English eyewitness, William Patten, described the carnage:

‘Soon after this notable strewing of their footmen’s weapons, began a pitiful sight of the dead corpses lying dispersed abroad, some their legs off, some but [hewed] and left lying half-dead, some thrust quite through the body, others the arms cut off, diverse their necks half asunder, many their heads cloven, of sundry the brains [bashed] out, some others again their heads quite off, with other many kinds of killing. After that and further in chase, all for the most part killed either in the head or in the neck, for our horsemen could not well reach the lower with their swords. And thus with blood and slaughter of the enemy, this chase was continued… in all which space, the dead bodies lay as thick as a man may note cattle grazing in a full replenished pasture. The river ran all red with blood, so that in the same chase were counted, as well by some of our men that somewhat diligently did mark it as by some of them taken prisoners, that very much did lament it, to have been slain about fourteen thousand. In all this compass of ground what with weapons, arms, hands, legs, heads, blood and dead bodies… the mortality was so great, as it was thought, the like aforetime not to have been seen.’

Scottish cavalry repulsed by English pikemen

At the end of the day’s fighting, the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh cost the Scottish army fifteen thousand lives and two thousand prisoners; the English suffered a mere two to six hundred killed. Though modern historians see this battle as a Renaissance Army vs. Medieval Army (with the Medieval-style army losing), some Scottish contemporaries blamed defeat on turncoats within the Scottish fold. The Holy Roman Emperor’s ambassador to England reported rumors that, just prior to the battle, the Scottish advance horsemen dismounted and crossed their pikes and stood in close formation; after this the Earl of Warwick attempted to attack the Scots from behind using smoky fires as a diversion. Upon engaging the Scottish rearguard the Scots took flight, following the lead of several soldiers who had an ‘understanding’ with Somerset. The rest of the Scots, those loyal to Arran, fled the field when they saw the turncoats departing. Regardless of the truth of such rumors, the Scots lost the battle – but they were not yet wooed. Arran, who survived the battle and remained steadfast over the Scottish government, refused to come to terms with England. The baby Queen Mary was smuggled to France where she was (much to Arran’s dismay) engaged to the Dauphin Francis. Somerset seized upon his victory by establishing strongholds throughout the Lowlands and Borders, but absent peace these toeholds on Scottish soil served only to drain the crown’s treasury. By spring 1549 the English had thirty-two hundred soldiers garrisoning the frontier along with seventeen hundred German and five hundred Spanish and Italian mercenaries. These were tasked with holding onto the territories that had been gained after Pinkie Cleugh, but the Scots gave them a hard time of it. Reinforced with military and financial assistance from France, the Scots didn’t let the English rest. The countryside became a tableau of skirmishes and sieges. 

Hostilities between the English and Scots came to a close once more with the Treaty of Boulogne in March 1550. This treaty was fashioned on the Continent, between France and England, and incorporated the Scottish hostilities by fact of the Auld Alliance. Per the treaty, prisoners were returned and border fortifications dismantled. Boulogne, which had been captured by Henry VIII in his last campaign against France, was returned to the French fold along with all her guns (a sizeable collection). In France, King Henry II enjoyed a triumphal entry to Rouen on 1 October 1550. Mary of Guise and Mary, Queen of Scots, took part. Banners depicted French victories in Scotland. 

Edward VI, Part Two

Edward was nine years old when he took the throne. He was taken to the Tower of London, where he was welcomed with ‘great shot of ordnance in all places there about, as well [as] out of the Tower [and] out of the ships.’ The next day, England’s nobles pledged their loyalty to the boy king at the Tower, and Edward’s uncle, Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset, was named Protector. On the eve of his coronation, he rode on horseback from the Tower to the Palace of Westminster through huge crowds and pageants, many patterned after the last boy king, Henry VI. Edward laughed at a Spanish tightrope walker who ‘tumbled and played many pretty toys’ outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. At the coronation service, Thomas Cranmer affirmed the royal supremacy and called Edward a second Josiah, urging him to continue on the path his father had blazed in reforming the Church of England, ‘the tyranny of the Bishops of Rome banished from your subjects, and images removed.’ Edward presided at a banquet in Westminster Hall, where, he recalled in his Chronicle, he dined with his crown on his head.

Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset

The crown was on his head, but the running of the government wasn’t in his hands. He was too young to rule as is proper for a king, so the machinery of government fell to others. Henry VIII’s will named sixteen executors tasked with acting as Edward’s Council until he reached the age of eighteen; supplementing these executors were twelve ‘men of counsel’ who would assist the executors when summoned. Though Henry’s will didn’t call nor name a Protector, it entrusted the government during his minority to a Regency Council that was to rule collectively, by majority decision, with ‘like and equal charge.’ This wasn’t what Edward’s uncle, the Duke of Somerset, wanted, and he schemed among the named Council for honors and powers, bribing them to bend to his will. On 4 February, just days after Henry VIII’s death, the executors chose to invest quasi-regal power in Somerset. Thirteen of the sixteen executors (the others being absent) agreed to his appointment as Protector and justified it as their joint decision ‘by virtue of the authority’ of Henry’s will. In March 1547 Somerset secured letter patent from King Edward granting him almost monarchial rights to appoint members to the Privy Council and to consult them only when he wished. From that point on Somerset was England’s de facto (albeit not de jure) ruler. He would rule largely by proclamation, using the Privy Council as little more than a rubber-stamp for his decisions. The imperial ambassador in England reported that Somerset ‘governs everything absolutely,’ with William Paget (prior private secretary to Henry VIII) operating as his secretary. In a curious foreshadowing, the ambassador predicted trouble from John Dudley, Viscout Lisle, who’d recently been raised to Earl of Warwick. Somerset’s first troubles, however, would come from much closer to home: his brother Thomas.

Thomas Seymour, brother to Somerset and uncle to
Edward VI

Thomas Seymour felt that he, being Edward’s uncle as well, deserved power in the government. Somerset sought to appease his brother with a flurry of concessions: a barony, a seat on the Privy Council, and an appointment to the Lord Admiralship – but none of these moves quieted Thomas’ ambitions. Thomas hoped to win power by currying the young king’s favor, and he began smuggling pocket money to Edward and trying to convince him that Somerset was a miserly financier who made the boy look like a ‘beggarly king.’ Edward wouldn’t take the reins of government until he turned eighteen, and as this was too long a wait for Thomas, he urged him to throw off Somerset’s bridle and ‘bear rule as other kings do.’ Edward took these matters before his council and was advised to resist Thomas’ schemes. In 1547 Thomas won Edward’s support to marry the widowed Catherine Parr, former wife to Henry VIII. This marriage brought two young women into his household: the eleven-year-old Lady Jane Grey and the thirteen-year-old Lady Elizabeth. Thomas impregnated his wife, and the next summer a heavily pregnant Catherine discovered her husband embracing the much younger Lady Elizabeth. A smoldering Catherine promptly removed Elizabeth from her household, but that September she died after childbirth. Thomas didn’t miss a beat in pursuing Lady Elizabeth by letter, promising to marry her. Lady Elizabeth liked the idea, but she didn’t want to make any hasty decisions, especially without the consent of the royal council. Thomas would never take Elizabeth as his wife: in January 1549 the council, goaded by a Somerset who was tired of his brother’s shenanigans, arrested Thomas on a number of charges. The charge of embezzlement was upheld when Edward testified about how Thomas fed him ‘pocket money.’ Because there wasn’t enough evidence to try Thomas for treason, he was condemned instead by an Act of Attainder. He was beheaded on 20 March 1549. 

Edward VI, Part One

Edward VI reigned from 28 January 1547 until his premature death on 6 July 1553 – a short reign of just over six years, during none of which did he rule of his own accord. Because he was a minor upon his accession to the throne, government operations fell to a regency council; this council would become a battleground upon which different government parties fought to direct England’s course. The council was first in the hands of Edward’s uncle Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset; but in 1550 the council was led by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick (known later as the Duke of Northumberland). Edward was Henry VIII’s only surviving son, and his mother was the late king’s third wife, Jane Seymour, who died shortly after giving birth to the young prince due to complications in childbirth. 

The motherless Edward grew quickly and with vigor; contemporaries reported he was a tall child, merry and content. Sir William Sidney recalled the young prince as ‘a marvelous sweet child, of very mild and generous condition.’ Though tradition likes to paint Edward as a sickly boy, he was generally healthy despite occasional sicknesses and poor eyesight (though a bout of malaria at the age of four almost did him in). Henry had strict standards for the boy’s household, insisting that Edward was ‘this whole realm’s most precious jewel.’ He lavishly provided his only son with toys and comforts, including his own troupe of singers and musicians. Edward’s formal education began at the age of six, ‘learning of tongues, of the scripture, of philosophy, and all liberal sciences.’ One of his premiere tutors was Roger Ascham, who also tutored his half-sister Elizabeth; both he and Elizabeth were academically inclined, and they competed to outdo one another in intellectual prowess. Edward studied geometry, learned to play the flute and the virginals, collected globes and maps, excelled at economics, and learned French, Spanish, and Italian. His religious education leaned towards the English reformers; his tutors were likely chosen by Archbishop Cranmer, and in 1549 the young Edward (then king) wrote a treatise against the pope as Antichrist. Part of his education included training with sons of nobles who were ‘appointed to attend upon him’ in a sort of miniature court geared towards learning the ins-and-outs of royal life. Edward was on good terms with both his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth, though in a letter to his eldest sister Mary, he confessed that she rather than Elizabeth was his favorite. Edward grew up in splendid surroundings: his rooms were hung with Flemish tapestries, and his clothes, books, and cutlery were encrusted with precious jewels. He, like his father, was fascinated by military life. One of his portraits portrays him wearing a gold dagger with a jeweled hilt, in imitation of his father, and his Chronicle detailed English military campaigns against Scotland and France. 

Henry VIII died when Edward was nine, and Edward wouldn’t last much longer. His short reign was marked by war with Scotland, economic woes, and social unrest that would blossom into rebellion. Though Edward entrusted the government machinery to a Council (at least in theory; for most of Edward’s reign, the government was autocratically managed by the Duke of Somerset), the young king was ruthless in promoting the English Reformation. His father’s aim in the Reformation was finagling his way out of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and he didn’t push the Reformation too far (he was, in the deepest part of his heart, still very much Catholic and hotly opposed to Protestant Reformers). Edward, given the atmosphere in which he was raised and the reforming spirit imposed upon him by tailored tutors, had a more Protestant approach. He pulled the Church of England farther from the trappings of Catholicism, abolishing clerical celibacy, putting an end to Mass, and jettisoning compulsory services in English. 

Edward fell ill in February 1553. When his illness was discovered to be terminal, he and his council drew up a ‘Devise for Succession’ to prevent the country from returning to Catholicism. His father’s will stipulated that, if Edward were to die absent an heir, the throne would pass first to Mary and then to Elizabeth. Because Mary was staunchly Catholic, Edward feared (rightly so) that his favorite half-sister would undue so much of what he’d accomplished in his few years as king. Desperate to make sure his oldest sister didn’t take his place, he sought to supersede his father’s will by naming one of his first cousins once removed as heir. The Protestant Lady Jane Grey was slated to take the throne, and his half-sisters were barred from the line of succession. Things went according to his plan after his death; Lady Jane Grey took the throne, but the ‘Devise for Succession’ was hotly disputed. ‘Queen Jane’ would last a mere nine days before being deposed by Mary. True to his fears she would reverse Edward’s reforms, but in a twist of fortune (at least for him) Elizabeth would resurrect Edward’s reforms and make them official with the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559. Edward’s legacy – or at least the legacy he cared about – would survive.