himself DUKE OF SOMERSET, and made his
brother EDWARD SEYMOUR a baron; and there
were various similar promotions, all very
agreeable to the parties concerned, and very
dutiful, no doubt, to the late King's memory.
To be more dutiful still, they made themselves
rich out of the Church lands, and were very
comfortable. The new Duke of Somerset
caused himself to be declared PROTECTOR of
the kingdom, and was, indeed, the king.

As young Edward the Sixth had been
brought up in the principles of the Protestant
religion, everybody knew that they would
be maintained. But Cranmer, to whom they
were chiefly entrusted, advanced them steadily
and temperately. Many superstitious and
ridiculous practices were stopped, but those
which were harmless were not interfered
with.

The Duke of Somerset, the Protector, was
anxious to have the young King engaged in
marriage to the young Queen of Scotland, in
order to prevent that princess from making
an alliance with any foreign power; but, as a
large party in Scotland were unfavourable to
this plan he invaded that country. His
excuse for so doing was, that the Border men—
that is, the Scotch who lived in that part of
the country where England and Scotland
joined— troubled the English very much. But
there were two sides to this question, for the
English Border men troubled the Scotch too;
and through many long years there were
perpetual border quarrels which gave rise to
numbers of old tales and songs. However,
the Protector invaded Scotland, and ARRAN,
the Scottish Regent, with an army twice as
large as his, advanced to meet him. They
encountered on the banks of the river Esk,
within a few miles of Edinburgh; and there,
after a little skirmish, the Protector made such
moderate proposals, in offering to retire if the
Scotch would only engage not to marry their
princess to any foreign prince, that the
Regent thought the English were afraid. But
in this he made a horrible mistake; for the
English soldiers on land, and the English
sailors on the water, so set upon the Scotch,
that they broke and fled, and more than ten
thousand of them were killed. It was a
dreadful battle, for the fugitives were slain
without mercy. The ground for four miles,
all the way to Edinburgh, was strewn with
dead men, and with arms, and legs, and heads.
Some, hid themselves in streams and were
drowned; some, threw away their armour and
were killed running, almost naked; but in
this battle of Pinkey the English lost only two
or three hundred men. They were much
better clothed than the Scotch, and were
exceedingly astonished by the poverty of their
appearance and of their country.

A Parliament was called when Somerset
came back, and it repealed the whip with six
strings, and did one or two other good things,
though it unhappily retained the punishment
of burning, for those people who did not
rnake believe to believe, in all religious matters,
what the Government had declared that they
must and should believe. It also made a
foolish law (meant to put down beggars), that
any man who lived idly and loitered about,
for three days together, should be burned
with a hot iron, made a slave, and wear an
iron fetter. But this savage absurdity soon
came to an end, and went the way of a great
many other foolish laws.

The Protector was now so proud that he
sat in Parliament, before all the nobles, on the
right hand of the throne. Many other noblemen,
who only wanted to be as proud if they
could get a chance, became his enemies of course,
and it is supposed that he came back suddenly
from Scotland because he had received news
that his brother, LORD SEYMOUR, was
becoming dangerous to him. This lord was now
High Admiral of England: a very handsome
man, and a great favourite with the Court
ladies even with the young Princess
Elizabeth, who romped with him a little
more than young princesses in these times do
with any one. He had married Catherine
Parr, the late King's widow, who was now
dead; and to strengthen his power he secretly
supplied the young King with money. He
may even have engaged with some of his
brother's enemies in a plot to carry the boy
off. On these and other accusations, at any
rate, he was confined in the Tower, impeached,
and found guilty; his own brother's name
being—unnatural and sad to tell—the first
signed to the warrant for his execution.
He was executed on Tower Hill, and died
denying his treason. One of his last proceedings
in this world was to write two letters:
one to the Princess Elizabeth, and one to the
Princess Mary: which a servant of his took
charge of, and concealed in his shoe. These
letters are supposed to have urged them
against his brother, and to revenge his
death. What they truly contained is not
known, but there is no doubt that he had, at
one time, obtained great influence over the
Princess Elizabeth.

All this while, the Protestant religion was
making progress. The images which the
people had gradually come to worship,
were removed from the churches; the
people were informed that they need not
confess themselves to priests unless they
chose; a common prayer-book was drawn
up in the English language, which all could
understand; and many other improvements
were made: still moderately, for Cranmer was
a very moderate man, and even restrained the
Protestant clergy from violently abusing the
unreformed religion—as they very often did,
and which was not a good example. But
the people were at this time in great distress.
The rapacious nobility who had come into
possession of the Church lands, were very bad
landlords. They enclosed great quantities of
ground for the feeding of sheep, which was
then more profitable than the growing of