many abuses were connected. Thus, under the pretext, for instance, of purifying the libraries of the Foundations and Universities of superstitious books, many were shamefully annihilated, or particular desire was manifested for the silver clasps and ornaments. The payments for the election of Bishops which had been placed entirely in the hands of the King, were as great as they had ever been under the dominion of the Pope. With the difficulty of drawing an accurate line between the use and abuse of images, many were led to be guilty of great excesses in the destruction of them, and after they had obtained the upper hand, fell into violent disputes between themselves whether and in what manner tables should be placed instead of Altars. When the prescribed Homilies did not please the people, they made such a noise that nobody could understand a word: on the other hand, when the preacher did not like them, he read them in the most slovenly manner. And yet, as the more simple divine service engaged the attention of the great mass of the people less than formerly, preaching became more important, and was almost the only object of lively and general interest. For these reasons unauthorised and incompetent persons were prohibited from preaching, and image-breaking and other acts of violence were punished. To the vehement censurers of prevailing abuses, it might certainly be answered,

that the Clergy had been formerly more ignorant and more indifferent to their profession; and the Catholics who, by their laws had burnt the Bible, nay, even the people, were more guilty than the present rulers, who punished the illegal destruction of pictures and images.

After the removal of these and other objections and interruptions, the Protector was threatened with a greater danger. His brother, Lord Thomas Seymour, a man without principle and of unbridled ambition, married the Queen Dowager, which led to unpleasant collision with the wife of Somerset, and hoped at some future time to obtain the hand of the Princess Elizabeth. The Protector in vain represented to him the folly and danger of domestic contentions; several eminent persons in vain threatened him if he did not desist from his plans: he sought to make the King altogether dependent upon him; complained of Somerset's administration; tried to win over the nobles and the people by reprehensible means; caused false money to be coined, in order to promote his views; assembled troops; and proceeded so far, that when the two brothers could have maintained their ground by union alone, one must necessarily be sacrificed. (53) On the 25th of February, 1549, Seymour was impeached, and, though not convicted of positive treason, was condemned to death, according to the summary and defective mode of proceeding usual

at that time. Many advised Somerset not to dig his own grave, but to pardon his brother; others, that he should keep in view only the public advantage, and let the law take its course. This opinion was especially advocated by Dudley, Earl of Warwick, a man of great talents, but greater vices, and who already projected to raise himself on the ruin of the two brothers. Seymour was executed on the 20th of March, 1549, and though few pitied him, yet many blamed Somerset for not having declined both to take any part in the trial and to confirm the sentence.

After this sanguinary interlude, attention was again turned to the affairs of the Church: the Latin mass and many holidays were abolished, the manner of consecrating priests was altered, and, in a word, every thing gradually done away with, that was considered an excrescence of the old doctrine, or a deviation from the gospel. But from the moment the Reformers had obtained this victory, they became themselves intolerant, and forgot that they were hereby giving their opponents a right to stigmatize all their attacks on the dominion of the Church as folly and rebellion. Thus, the Clergy, for the first refusal to accept the new liturgy, forfeited their revenues for one year; for the second refusal, they were deprived of their living and sentenced to one year's imprisonment; and for the third, to imprisonment for life. (54) Even the King,

though possessed of considerable abilities, and educated with the greatest care, considered it as sinful to allow his sister Mary the free exercise of her religion, for which reason she was on the point of leaving the kingdom, (55)—nay, the ecclesiastical courts, even with the assent of the mild Cranmer, condemned a woman to be burnt, because she denied that Christ, when in his mother's womb, had taken flesh from Mary, or (as men more subtilely express it,) because she affirmed that the word had not become flesh through the carnal Mary, born in sin, but through the inner-man of Mary. The woman, when condemned, said bitterly to her judges that another had been condemned by them to death for a piece of bread, but she for a piece of flesh. (56) Edward, at first, justly refused to sign the sentence of death, but this refusal by no means proceeded from a more correct view of the injustice of such cruelties, but from the opinion, that if the woman died while she entertained this error, she would be eternally damned.(57)

In connection with all these religious changes, were many things which had, or assumed, a more worldly appearance: thus the hospitality and charity of the Monasteries were much missed, and it was affirmed that they had taken lower rents and afforded a better market than the new masters. The latter, too, (because the breeding of sheep was more profitable to them,) converted much arable

land into pasture, discharged tenants and workmen, who, by the fall of the prices of silver and the depreciation of the currency, were already reduced to great distress. (58) Somerset became odious to

the nobility because he seriously examined into these evils, and protected the oppressed to the utmost of his power; however, the people, on their side, often went beyond due bounds, and broke out into open insurrection from very different motives. Thus the mal-contents of Devonshire demanded, in arrogant terms, the restoration of many Church ceremonies, of the six articles, and of the communion in one kind; the celibacy of the Clergy, the destruction of the English bibles, the appointment of better Counsellors of the King, the abolition of the Nobility, and of many feudal services and burdens. An eye-witness states, that the causes and pretexts of the insurrection are uncertain, and different in every camp, as is generally the case of the senseless mob, who do not know their own minds. Some talk of enclosures and parks, others of religion, some wish to make booty, others to govern according to their pleasure; all finally hate the nobility whom they call their enemies. It was not, however, till after some sanguinary engagements, that peace and order were restored; but the great people, for the most part, found means to evade and defeat wholesome regulations respecting the conversion of arable land into pasture, and other evils that were com