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The will of Henry VIII had left the throne of England to his only surviving son, Edward. If Edward had no heirs, the crown was to go first to Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, then to Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn. But in 1547 Edward was barely ten years old, a sickly and precocious child; while his father’s strong hand had held the kingdom in iron control, that control was no more, and intrigues soon spread throughout the Court of the child-king of England.
Henry VIII had named a council of sixteen men to govern the country until Edward came of age. That council appointed as its leader and lord protector the Duke of Somerset, uncle of Edward VI and brother of Jane Seymour. The duke, however, was strongly influenced by the new Protestant religion, and soon he persuaded young Edward to support laws favoring Protestants. The Treason Act of Henry VIII was largely repealed and various heresy acts were wiped away; church services were ordered to be read in English rather than in the customary Latin; and an act of Parliament permitted the clergy to marry. Protestant preachers now came from the Continent to explain the doctrines of their reformed religion.
But Somerset and his pro-Protestant council were not yet satisfied. Still more church properties were confiscated; religious endowments were seized, and manors and palaces plundered. Thousands of Catholic relics, images, and shrines were destroyed during that time as priceless treasures of medieval art were knocked down, torn up and burned. Those who still clung to the old ways were horrified at the sacrilegious treatment of holy things and holy places, and the desecrations forever alienated many who otherwise might have been undecided. The excesses of Protestant mobs, at any rate, began a serious division throughout the country as squabbles multiplied and turned into armed skirmishes, and many a village green turned red with the blood of its citizenry.
Inevitably, such excesses made Somerset a great many enemies. Led by the Earl of Warwick, these enemies finally stood together, and in October 1549, Somerset was deposed and sent to the Tower. Three years later, charged with the arbitrary use of power, with encouraging the people to rebellion, and with causing “dissension between nobility, gentlemen, and commons,” he was found guilty and executed. The control of the government now passed on to the Earl of Warwick.
As frequently happens in such situations, however, the cure proved worse than the disease. Warwick was no less self-seeking than Somerset had been, and he proved even more dishonest. His first act was to persuade Edward VI to make him Duke of Northumberland, and then set out to enrich himself by every means at his command. He, too, sought to increase government resources by plundering what was left of the church, and any bishop who still objected was immediately deposed and had his see’s revenues confiscated. The duke sold church plates, crosses, candlesticks, chalices and vestments, and the spoils were distributed among his cohorts. Pictures on the church walls were now painted out and texts took their places. Images were smashed and church festivals and holy days were forbidden. A new prayer book, “faithful and godly perused and made fully perfect,” was issued and ordered to be used in all churches. Priests who used other services were to be imprisoned. In 1553, the Forty-Two Articles, drawn up by Granmer, summarized the doctrines of the new English Protestant Church.
Young Edward had meanwhile fallen completely under the influence of the Duke of Northumberland. By 1552, however, it was becoming clear that Edward would not long survive the advance of tuberculosis, and the duke was clearly worried. According to Henry VIII’s will, on Edward’s death the crown would pass to Mary, and if Catholic Mary came to the throne, the duke’s chances of keeping his position – or even his life – would be slim indeed. And since Mary had already resisted all attempts to convert her to Protestantism, the duke and his servile council now sought ways to eliminate her from the succession altogether.
Apparently Northumberland had little trouble convincing Edward that Mary would undo all his labors in behalf of the Protestant faith. At any rate, in 1553, Edward VI made a royal will in which he bestowed the crown to his second cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and to her male heirs. The Protestant Lady Grey was the granddaughter of Mary, the younger sister of Henry VIII; the 16-year old Lady Jane did not want the crown, but Northumberland and his council had no intentions of allowing her to refuse it.
Edward VI died in July, 1553, at the age of only sixteen, and Lady Jane, only a few months older, was proclaimed Queen of England in London. Mary Tudor, however, was not to be denied her rightful inheritance; from her residence in Norfolk she declared that Parliament had sanctioned Henry VIII’s right to select his successor, and that the will of Edward VI was therefore illegal. At the same time she issued a call to arms, and soon thousands of supporters flocked to her banner, especially from the eastern counties, where the hatred of Northumberland was strong and all-consuming. For a while it looked as if another civil war was about to break out.
By now, however, there were many Englishmen who no longer wanted a Catholic monarch, though few were willing to risk a civil war over the issue, especially if it supported that unpopular opportunist, the Duke of Northumberland. Thus, as the duke’s army prepared to meet the supporters of Mary Tudor, he received the news that his council and the city of London had changed their minds and pledged to support Mary. The scheme had come to an end.
Mary entered London peacefully and was crowned the first Queen of England. Northumberland begged desperately for his life, insisting that he had really always been a devoted Roman Catholic, but his public recantations could not save him from the executioner. And only six months later, the modest Lady Jane Grey, the unwitting and tragic victim of the Reformation at its worst, followed the duke to the executioner’s block.