hall, where the lords a second time explained their conduct. They assured the City that they had no thought of undoing the Reformation, or of altering the order of religion as now established. The next point of importance was the answer from Herbert and Russell, who had command of the army.
On learning from Lord Edward Seymour that the King's person was in danger, the generals had pushed forward by forced marches to Andover. There, however, letters reached them from the council; and the real danger to be feared was not, as they found, from a conspiracy of the lords, but from a fresh insurrection of the commons on the invitation of Somerset. They halted, sent back to Bristol for cannon, called about them the gentlemen of Hampshire and Wiltshire, and charged them on their lives to put down all assemblies of the people. The proclamations were telling in all directions. 'The country was in such a roar that no man wist what to do.' Barely in time to prevent a general rising, they fell back on Wilton, where the peril was most threatening, and sent Lord Edward again to his father with the following answer:—
Please It Your Grace,
We have received your letter not without great lamentation and sorrow, to perceive the civil dissension which has happened between your Grace and the nobility. A greater plague could not be sent into this realm from God, being the next way to make us of conquerors slaves, and to induce upon us an universal
