cepting it confess that he had offended. The council saw his weakness, and determined to trample on him. He was sent for on the iQth to the presence chamber. The articles were read over to him, and his signature demanded on the spot. He once more insisted that he should be tried. They said he should not be tried—he should submit unequivocally without further words. He was allowed three months to consider his answer; his bishopric, meanwhile, was pronounced sequestered; if at the end of that time he was still obstinate, he was to be deprived.[1]
Remanding Gardiner to the Tower, they took the opportunity of inflicting a special wound on his supporter the Duke of Somerset.[2] On the 18th October 18.of October, before Gardiner's answer was delivered, old Lady Seymour, Somerset's mother, died; and a State funeral would have been the natural and becoming privilege of the grandmother of the reigning sovereign. If she was buried privately, the Duke might have been accused of disrespect to the Crown. If he ordered a public solemnity on his own responsi-
- ↑ The account of Gardiner's treatment is taken from the Register of the Privy Council and from his own narrative, printed by Foxe (vol. vi.), and from the story told by Foxe himself, who disguised and apologized for nothing, regarding the whole proceedings, in fact, as most exemplary and just.
- ↑ Doubtless there was reason to distrust Somerset's intentions, and he had not forgotten his overbearing ways. Being desirous of adding to his property in Somersetshire the episcopal palace at Wells, in this same July he required the Bishop (Barlow) to surrender it. Barlow hesitating to give away the property of the See, the Duke threatened, if he would not go, 'to push him out headlong.'—MS. Domestic, Edward VI. vol. x.
