by Derek Wilson
What cannot be doubted is the shock of the new order, felt immediately in every community. It was not just the appearance of the churches that changed. Cranmer was eagerly working on a revised liturgy. The mass was replaced by a communion service in which the sacrament was administered to the laity in both kinds and, in 1549, the first Edwardian Prayer Book imposed historical changes. Not only was worship in the vernacular, but the congregation were expected to participate by reading or learning by heart the words of prayers, responses, canticles and psalms. For some this was liberation. For others it was sacrilege. For all it was revolution. There was a new spirit abroad in the nation, inspiring, to use Professor MacCulloch’s words, ‘a movement of hope and moral fervour, capable of generating a mood of intense excitement.’17 Somerset’s England was a young man’s England; an England for hotheaded demonstrators and idealistic social theorists.
Prominent among the latter was John Hales, a minor Coventry landowner but a passionate commonwealth man. Having personally overcome the disadvantages of a poor education and a serious accident in youth which left him permanently crippled, he had a profound fellow feeling for the disadvantaged. The man who had taught himself to read four languages founded a grammar school for poor boys in Coventry. He achieved election to parliament in order to improve the lot of the underprivileged. Hales may have been the author of A Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England which analysed the causes of the nation’s social and economic woes and placed the rapacity of landlords high on the list. Certainly he showed himself much in sympathy with the views expressed in that book and drew himself to Somerset’s attention as a promising apostle of the Protector’s social gospel. In 1548 Somerset placed him in charge of a commission to enquire into enclosures. The brief given to Hales and his colleagues was to gather information in the central counties on rural depopulation and specifically to report on any violations of the statutes which limited the encroachment of pasture over arable land. Hales proved a zealous chairman of this commission and the notice he sent before him to all regional and parish authorities indicates that he had already made up his mind what the commission would discover. ‘The people of this realm, our native country’, he wrote, ‘is greatly decayed through the greediness of a few men . . . where there were in few years [past] ten or twelve thousand people, there be now scarce four thousand.’ Taking an image directly from More’s Utopia, he went on, ‘sheep and cattle that were ordained to be eaten of men, hath eaten up the men.’18
The area of Hales’ survey included John Dudley’s territory and it is hardly surprising that the two men should have come into conflict. Dudley did not like the commission’s modus operandi and resented its results, as did most of his neighbours. He almost certainly had a long acquaintance with Hales, for the campaigner was born at Halden, Kent, where Dudley spent most of his early years, and had long been a prominent member of Warwickshire society. There was something of the barrack-room lawyer about Hales. He was driven by self-righteousness combined with a lack of respect for authority. As such he was the kind of man Dudley found it hardest to stomach (as his later relationship with John Knox shows). It may have been past irritations as well as present annoyance that provoked him to clash with Hales over the commission. Dudley believed that the likes of Hales, far from easing rural malaise, actually added to it. They encouraged the discontent of the lower orders, prompting them to embrace unrealizable aspirations and to be disrespectful towards their betters. His opinion seemed to be borne out in August when a minor riot flared up in Buckinghamshire. He wrote angrily to Hales, accusing him of being responsible for the outbreak. Hales was unrepentant and his reply was a direct challenge. He was, he wrote, astonished ‘that those that seemed to favour God’s word should go about to hinder or speak evil of this thing, whereby the end and fruit of God’s word, that is love and charity to our poor neighbours, should be so set forth and published to the world.’19 The taunt is reminiscent of the words Anne Askew threw at Dudley and points to the shallowness of his personal faith. Yet, perhaps ‘shallowness’ is too harsh a description. Dudley was essentially a man of action, a man of affairs. He lacked both the intellectual and spiritual apparatus which enables men to reflect deeply on issues, to steer a course through the eddies of doubt and conflicting truths and reach the certainty of which saints and martyrs are made. He lived in the day-to-day world and his study was men, rather than theories and philosophies.
Events in that real world were very soon to vindicate his rejection of Somerset’s noble but quite impracticable policies. Just as government pronouncements had seemed to give sanction to religious zealots to vandalize churches, so rural malcontents, believing the ‘good duke’ to be on their side, took the law into their own hands and set about righting local wrongs. Five hundred Kentish villagers descended en masse on the estate of Sir Thomas Cheyney and uprooted his hedges and fences. And there were also communities opposed to the religious changes being imposed on them. A Cornish mob smashed their way into a house at Helston, dragged out the ecclesiastical commissioner, William Body, and stabbed him to death. That done, their spokesman announced that they would only obey laws promulgated in the late king’s reign until Edward VI reached the age of twenty-four. All over the country local justices were anxiously assessing the mood of the people. There was nothing they feared more than the collapse of the social order. If many poorer folk were disturbed by the disruption caused by new ideas, their superiors were more so. And they, too, had sound theological arguments for resisting peasant and yeomen demands. The social order was ordained by God. True, he demanded charity and compassion from those in power but he also required the lower orders to show that obedience to their superiors that they showed to him. It was Luther who had set his face firmly against political revolution. ‘If the peasants became lords,’ he said, ‘the devil would become abbot.’20 The major uprising of 1536–7 was still a powerful memory and the ruling class were understandably concerned for the safety of their property, their families and their servants. But they also worried about the overthrow of their whole world.
Somerset received several representations urging caution and vigilance but he ignored them. He paid little attention to the Council, preferring, like insecure rulers in all ages, to rely on the advice of his own private ‘cabinet’ of partisan advisers. He preferred to believe men like Hales who told him what he wanted to hear:
The people thank God for so good a King and perceive your zeal and love for them. If the thing goes forward – without which the country will soon be in misery – no King will have more faithful subjects. The people will embrace God’s word only when they see it bears good fruit . . . I believe you, that, despite selfishness [i.e., on the part of the landowners] it will proceed to the common good and concord.21
There are two alternative ways of carrying through government-led revolution; by force or by gentle persuasion. The first requires political and, if necessary, military strength. The second takes time. Somerset had neither. He was doggedly alienating the powerful men on whom he would have to rely as soon as there was any trouble and by deliberately deciding against a softly, softly approach he had fuelled public unrest and so lost the initiative. Paget, now on embassy to the emperor, boldly pointed out to the Protector where he had gone wrong. Although his letter is dated July 1549, it clearly refers to discussions the two men had had months before.
I see at hand the King’s destruction and your ruin . . . the King’s subjects [are] out of all discipline, out of obedience, caring neither for protector nor King and much less for any mean officer. And what is the cause? Your own lenity, your softness, your opinion to be good to the poor. The opinion of such as sayeth to your Grace, ‘Oh, Sir, there was never man that had the hearts of the poor as you have. Oh the commons pray for you, Sir; they say, “God save your life”.’ I know your Grace’s heart right well and that your meaning is good and godly. However, some evil men like to prate how that you have some greater enterprise in your head, that lean so much to the
multitude . . . society in a realm doth consist and is maintained by religion and law and, these two or one wanting, farewell all just society, farewell King, government, justice and all other virtue and in cometh commonalty, sensuality, iniquity, raven and all other kinds of vice and mischief.
Paget begged his erstwhile friend not to delude himself into thinking that current economic and social ills were the real cause of incipient rebellion. ‘Are enclosures new or prices high only in England?’ he demanded rhetorically. ‘Victuals are twice as expensive here. Enclosures have been lived with quietly for sixty years.’ No, the problem was the liberty Somerset had encouraged the people to grasp. Having disposed of the Protector’s political philosophy, Paget went on to attack his legislative programme. ‘Put no more so many irons in the fire at once, as you have had within this twelvemonth: war with Scotland, with France (though not so termed), commissions out for that matter, new laws for this, proclamation for another, one in another’s neck so thick that they be not set by among the people.’22
The cup of Somerset’s woes filled steadily throughout 1548 but it was not till the last days of the year that it ran over – thanks to the Protector’s brother. Thomas Seymour’s wild indiscretions had become more and more outrageous as his jealousy of Somerset turned to contempt and hatred. There was no system in his plans to supplant his elder sibling. He slandered Somerset without restraint. He tried to build up a party among the nobility. He made advances to all the women close to the succession, Mary, Elizabeth, Jane Grey. He bribed and cajoled members of the king’s household to give him access to his nephew. And, seeking financial backing for whatever coup his overheated imagination conjured up, he drew into his schemes Sir William Sharington, vice-treasurer of the Bristol mint. By December Somerset could stand the embarrassment no longer and sent for his brother. When Thomas declined to come until a more ‘convenient’ time there was nothing to be done but order his arrest. Once he was in the Tower the work began of gathering evidence. Several people, noblemen, courtiers, royal attendants and servants in Princess Elizabeth’s household, gave depositions to the Council and the prisoner was repeatedly interrogated. The process went on for six weeks at the end of which a bill of attainder was drawn up consisting of thirty-three specific charges. Throughout this time Lord Seymour was given frequent opportunities to defend himself or offer some explanation for his activities. Haughtily he refused to answer the charges against him. He met his fate publicly on Tower Hill on 20 March. According to a sermon preached at court by Latimer nine days later, the prisoner was scheming right to the end. Letters were found, ‘sewed between the soles of a velvet shoe,’23 addressed to the two princesses urging them to conspire against the Protector. Elizabeth’s verdict on her step-uncle was shrewd, if more than charitable: Lord Seymour was ‘a man of much wit and very little judgement.’24
Dudley seems to have taken no part in these dismal events and for much of the winter he was ill at his town house, Ely Place, perhaps with a stomach ulcer, being tended by the king’s surgeon, Henry Makerell. With the passing of the years Dudley made increasing reference to poor health in his correspondence. This is only to be expected in an age when most ailments and diseases lacked really effective treatment. Dudley seems to have been very careful of his health and if there were times when he was not as poorly as he thought he was that does not necessarily suggest hypochondria. As for his occasional absences from the Council Table, he certainly had no love of committee work and could easily persuade himself that he needed bed rest or the more salubrious air of the countryside. But there was always the nagging irritation of the loss of the Admiralty. After Thomas Seymour’s death Dudley might well have expected to be restored to the position which he had loved or, at least, that his friend, Edward Clinton, might be made Lord Admiral. In the event Somerset refused to oblige him. Equally, he refused to snub Dudley by appointing one of his own cronies. He simply left the office vacant, despite the fact that he was planning a resumption of war with Scotland.
That war would have provided Dudley with a more congenial occupation. At the end of May 1549 Somerset appointed him supreme commander of the army for the forthcoming campaign and he set about the necessary preparations for mustering and transporting thousands of men. But the planned expedition never took place. Devastating events closer to home compelled the duke to direct the military forces of the Crown elsewhere. The discontent which, like the slow build up of stifling airs and moody clouds in high summer had threatened storms of rebellion, finally boiled up into demonstrations throughout south and central England, some of which spilled over into violence. Most of them were dealt with promptly and effectively by the local gentry but news rippled out rapidly from the various trouble spots engendering widespread excitement and panic. John Dudley was still at Ely Place (or perhaps he had been away on military affairs and recently returned) and still complaining of ill health on 12 July, when the Protector sent for him. Somerset wanted details of the situation in the area under Dudley’s control and it would seem that he questioned his loyalty for, in his reply, the earl commented ‘for my meaning towards his grace, I would his grace knew it as God doth.’ In the maudlin tone he not infrequently lapsed into he promised to rouse himself from his sickbed, ‘though it cast me down utterly. For the body that shall not be able to strive at this present were better out of the world than in it, and so, if God should not give me health now to stir, I would me to be in my grave.’25 He went on to explain that he had only just heard about the situation in Warwickshire. He vowed to do his utmost to restore order but expressed some doubt about whether his men would be able to hold Warwick Castle. In the event the crisis there seems to have passed because we hear no more of insurrection in the Dudley heartland. However, Somerset was not convinced either of his old friend’s loyalty or ability. He obliged Dudley to agree to an exchange of lands with the Crown. Among the properties the earl had to give up was Warwick Castle and its appurtenances. That must have seemed like a slap in the face to Dudley.
By now Somerset was tightly cocooned within his own fears and suspicions. He refused to accept that his policies had contributed to the breakdown of public order. He sent out edicts spurring the local justices to swift action in dispersing the crowds who had gathered into camps for the better presentation of their petitions while, at the same time, acknowledging that the rebellious commons had genuine grievances and issuing pardons to captured ringleaders. He insisted that the crisis was a minor one and would soon pass but simultaneously made emergency arrangements for the defence of the capital. He continued to criticize the big landowners yet he imperiously demanded their help. When major military action became necessary he havered and wavered about what forces to send where and whom to put in command. He had hired foreign mercenaries, intending to use them in the latest round of his quarrel with the Scots. Now they were kept in their camps by a ruler who shrank from launching them against his own subjects. His dilemma in this regard was very real. As long as he regarded the chief men of the realm as opponents of his policies if not of his person he was loth to put them in command of large bodies of armed men within only a few days’ march of London. Yet by mid-July it became obvious that royal armies would have to be despatched to the main trouble spots. It was, doubtless, anxiety about Dudley having a major power base from which to operate that prompted him to demand the surrender of Warwick Castle. To add to his problems the king of France chose this excellent moment, from his point of view, to declare war.
It is astonishing that, under these circumstances, Dudley continued to act with conspicuous loyalty. Members of the Council were, as we know, grumbling behind the Protector’s back. In their private discussions and correspondence they debated how much longer they could tolerate this muddle-headed tyranny and whether the time had not come to wrest back from the Protector the power they had yielded to him. Dudley must have been brought into these debates yet neither his actions nor his extant letters betray anything other than support for the regime and the desire to re-establi
sh order. He was appointed to supervise the removal of cannon from the Tower and their relocation at the City gates. Similarly he made arrangements for the defence of Windsor. That done, he hastened to the Midlands to lend his support to the pacification of the region. But he was not allowed to stay there long. Events were moving fast and the Protector was getting desperate.
In two places the actions of the commons had gone well beyond relatively peaceful protest. In Devon and Cornwall men rose in revolt principally against the government’s religious policy. The so-called ‘Prayer Book Rebellion’ was so named because it was the introduction of the new liturgy that set the linstock to the powder. Led by their priests, several communities demanded the retention of the old mass, certainly a reasonable demand in some areas of Cornwall in which English was as much a foreign language as Latin. But, in reality, the reaction against Cranmer’s de-papalised services was an emotional one, the heartfelt protest of the inhabitants of an introverted, remote region who felt their traditional way of life being threatened by a distant government which was indifferent to all they held dear. Like the Pilgrims of Grace a decade earlier the west country rebels united round religious symbols which appeared to give their actions spiritual sanction. Somerset and the Council had no problem about dealing with what they regarded as the anguished death throes of English papistry.
Those who resist temporal authority resist God’s ordinance and those who die in rebellion are utterly damned. The rebels . . . deserve death as traitors and receive eternal damnation with Lucifer, the first rebel, whatever pretence they make of masses or holy water . . . In the order of the church and outward rites God requires humility, innocence, charity and obedience. If any man uses the old ceremonies his devotion is made naught by his disobedience . . . It is a foolish, unlearned devotion. God requires the heart rather than the outward act.26