Without regarding public opinion, however, the honest courtiers proceeded to endow one another with the honours and estates agreed upon. They hesitated to sell the king's jewels or plate, but there was property still more to their taste, as it would give hereditary estates in connection with the desired titles—there were different manors and lordships belonging to the dissolved monasteries, or to bishoprics still existing. With the new peerage titles different to those first named were bestowed. The Earl of Hertford was buried, as it were, under a whole mountain of honours and titles. His style ran thus:—"The most noble and victorious Prince Edward, Duke of Somerset, Earl of Hertford, Viscount Beauchamp, Lord Seymour, governor of the person of the king's majesty, and protector of all his realms, his lieutenant-general of all his armies both by land and sea. Lord High Treasurer and Earl Marshal of England, Governor of the Isles of Guernsey and Jersey, and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter." And it is added, "Because he was thus great, so he was also a very generous and good man, and a sincere favourer of the Gospel; he was entirely beloved of those that professed it, and for the most part, by the populacy, and therefore was commonly called 'The Good Duke.'"
Essex, that is Parr, brother of the late queen, became Marquis of Northampton; Lisle, Earl of Warwick; Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton; Sir Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, and Lord High Admiral; Rich became Baron Rich; Willoughby, Baron Willoughby; Sheffield, Baron Sheffield; St. Leger and Danby alone refused both peerage and estate.
Having thus first seized on the property of the late king, or rather of the nation, these bold courtiers proceeded to bury the body of the deceased sovereign, which, till then, had remained above ground. The body lay in state in the chapel of Whitehall till the 14th of February, when it was removed to Sion House, on the 15th to Windsor, and the next day was interred in the midst of the choir, near to the body of Jane Seymour. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, preached the sermon and read the funeral service. When he cast the mould into the grave, saying "Pulvis pulveri, cinis cineri," the lord great master, the lord chamberlain, the treasurer, comptroller, and gentlemen ushers broke their staves in three parts over their heads, and threw the fragments upon the coffin. The psalm "De profundis" was then sung, and Garter King-at-Arms, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Durham, immediately proclaimed the style of the new sovereign. Four days afterwards the coronation of Edward took place in Westminster Abbey, but with considerable variations and abridgments, to accommodate the ceremony to the tender age of the king, and to the changes which had taken place in the laws of the realm.
The greatest innovation was in the form which had been prescribed by our Saxon ancestors, to remind the monarch that he held the crown by the free choice of the people. It had always been the custom for the king to take the oath to preserve the liberties of the nation, and then for the archbishop to ask the people whether they were willing to have him reign over them. But now the archbishop asked the people first whether they would have him as their liege lord, and then put the oath as if it were a matter of the Royal option. Still more, in addressing the people, the primate took care to let them know that the king held the throne, not by popular will, but by descent and heirdom. "Sirs," said the primate, "I here present King Edward, rightful and undoubted inheritor by the laws of God and man, to the Royal dignity and crown imperial of this realm, whoso consecration, inunction, and coronation is appointed by all the nobles and peers of the land to be this day. Will ye serve at this time, and give your good wills and assents to the same consecration, inunction, and coronation, as by your duty of allegiance ye be bound to do?"
To clench the matter still farther, and let the people know that the new king acknowledged no obligation to the people for his crown, but held it as lord in his own right, Cranmer, in his address which he gave instead of the usual sermon, told the young king that the promises he had just made could not affect his right to sway the sceptre of his dominions. That right he, like his predecessors, had derived from God, whence it followed that neither the Bishop of Rome, nor any other bishop, could pretend to interfere with his title. The inference was, that just as little had the people, under any circumstances, any right to dispute his proceedings, or call him to account. Such were the high and arbitrary notions instilled into this boy's mind—principles which, in only ninety-eight years from this period, cost a similarly instructed monarch his head, and, for a time, destroyed the ancient monarchy of England. After this inculcation of kingly right, Cranmer had the grace, however, to recommend the little king to rule well, "to reward virtue, and revenge vice; to justify the innocent, and relieve the poor; to repress violence, and execute justice; and then he promised him that he should become a second Josias, whose fame would remain to the end of days." According to ancient usage, a general pardon was then proclaimed to all State offenders, with some exceptions, amongst which were the names of the Duke of Norfolk and Cardinal Pole.
But it was not the king who was destined to reign for many a day yet, even if he lived to his majority, but his proud uncle Somerset. With all the soaring ambition of an upstart, he was prepared to grasp the reins of government in his own hands, and use the innocent lad as a mere puppet for his own purposes. He had placed himself at the head of the council, and, therefore, of the Government; but he lost no time in endeavouring to make himself not only superior to, but independent of, both king and council. Somerset had sworn never to act without the assent of the majority of the council, but he had little thought indeed of abiding by that oath. He could rely on Craumer's support in his attempts at supreme authority, as the primate calculated, through his means, to carry out the most extensive innovations in religion; but there was one man whom he well knew would oppose his aspiring proceedings—Wriothesley, the new Earl of Southampton. His legal knowledge and ability were not readily to be coped with; and he had recently shown that he would not fail to resist any domineering conduct in the Protector, especially where religion was concerned. Southampton, therefore, must be put quickly out of the way, and occasion was soon found. That stanch lawyer, finding it necessary to watch
