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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 17
H.
REIGN OF EDWARD VI.
I6.-The Duke of Somerset, as Guardian of Edward VI., governs the kingdom.
IJ.-He declares himself a heretic, and gives leave to the heretics to
preach ;
invites Bucer, Vermigli, and Ochino to England, and abolishes the
Roman Catholic Religion. 18.-He beheads his brother, the Lord High.
Admiral. 19.-He is beheaded himself. 20.-Death of Edward ; the Earl
of Warwick makes an attempt to get possession of the kingdom, and is
beheaded, but is converted, and dies an edifying death.
16. Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was one of the
guardians appointed by Henry to his son ; he was maternal
uncle to the young King, being brother to Jane Seymour, his
mother. Although he passed all along as a Catholic, he was a
Zuinglian, and as the majority of Edward s guardians were
Catholics, he intrigued with some of the principal nobility of the
kingdom, and pointed out how dangerous
interests that the young King should be left in the hands of
those gentlemen ;
it would be to their
that the consequence would be that they should
have, sooner or later, to surrender again the Ecclesiastic pro
perty given them by Henry ; that the suppressed and ruined
churches should be again repaired and rebuilt, to the great im
poverishing of the lloyal treasury ; and that the only way to
avoid such evils was that he should be made Governor of the
kingdom. He craftily suppressed Henry s will, and substi
tuted another, in which Edward was declared head of the
Church of England, and he was appointed Regent ;
he then got
himself created Duke of Somerset, and took the title of Protector
of the Kingdom (1).
17. No sooner had he got the supreme power into his
hands, as Protector, than he at once took off the mask, pro
claimed himself a Protestant, and appointed preachers to disse
minate the heresy. He prohibited the Bishops from preaching,
or ordaining, without the King s permission, and he then refused
(51) Varillas, Istor. t. 2, p. 100; Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13, a. 4; Ilerinant, 1st.
1, n. 1.
t. 2, c. 267; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 114, s"