In 1546, a law was made for fixing the interest of money at ten per cent.; the first legal interest known in England. Formerly all loans of that nature were regarded as usurious. The preamble of this very law treats the interest of money as illegal and criminal; and the prejudices still remained so strong, that the law permitting interest was repealed in the following reign. This reign, as well as many of the foregoing and even subsequent reigns, abounds with monopolizing laws, confining particular manufactures to particular towns, or excluding the open country in general.* There remain still too many traces of similar absurdities. In the subsequent reign, the corporations which had been opened by a former law, and obliged to admit tradesmen of different kinds, were again shut up by act of parliament; and every one was prohibited from exercising.any trade who was not of the corporation.t Henry, as he possessed himself some talent for letters, was an encourager of them in others. He founded Trinity College in Cambridge, and gave it ample endowments. Wolsey founded Christ Church in Oxford, and intended to call it Cardinal College: but upon his fall, which happened before he had entirely finished his scheme, the king seized all the revenues; and this violence, above all the other misfortunes of that minister, is said to have given him the greatest concern. ‡ But Henry afterwards restored the revenues of the college, and only changed the name. The cardinal founded in Oxford the first chair for teaching Greek; and this novelty rent that university into violent factions, which frequently came to blows. The students divided themselves into parties, which bore the names of Greeks and Trojans, and sometimes fought with as great animosity as was formerly exercised by those hostile nations. A new and more correct method of pronouncing Greek being introduced, it also divided the Grecians themselves into parties; and it was remarked that the Catholics favored the former pronunciation, the Protestants gave countenance to the new. Gardiner employed the authority of the king and council to suppress innovations in this particular, and to preserve the corrupt sound of the Greek alphabet. So little liberty was then allowed of any kind! The penalties *21 Henry VIII. c. 12. 25 Henry VIII. c. 18. 3 and 4 Edward VI. c. 20. 5 and 6 Edward VI. c. 24. Strype, vol. i. p. 117. † 3 and 4 Edward VI. c. 20. inflicted upon the new pronunciation were no less than whip*ping, degradation, and expulsion; and the bishop declared, that rather than permit the liberty of innovating in the pronunciation of the Greek alphabet, it were better that the language itself were totally banished the universities. The introduction of the Greek language into Oxford excited the emulation of Cambridge. Wolsey intended to have enriched the library of his college at Oxford with copies of all the manuscripts that were in the Vatican. The countenance given to letters by this king and his ministers contributed to render learning fashionable in England: Erasmus speaks with great satisfaction of the general regard paid by the nobility and gentry to men of knowledge. It is needless to be particular in mentioning the writers of this reign or of the preceding. There is no man of that age who has the least pretension to be ranked among our classics. Sir Thomas More, though he wrote in Latin, seems to come the nearest to the character of a classical author. * Wood's Hist. and Antiq. Oxon. lib. i. p. 245. [1547.] THE late king, by the regulations which he imposed on the government of his infant son, as well as by the limitations of the succession, had projected to reign even after his decease; and he imagined that his ministers, who had always been so obsequious to him during his lifetime, would never afterwards depart from the plan which he had traced out to them. He fixed the majority of the prince at the completion of his eighteenth year; and as Edward was then only a few months past nine, he appointed sixteen executors; to whom, during the minority, he intrusted the government of the king and kingdom. Their names were, Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury; Lord Wriothesely, chancellor; Lord St. John, great master; Lord Russel, privy seal; the earl of Hertford, chamberlain: Viscount Lisle, admiral; Tonstal, bishop of Durham; Sir Anthony Brown, master of horse; Sir William Paget, secretary of state; Sir Edward North, chancellor of the court of augmentations; Sir Edward Montague, chief justice of the common pleas; Judge Bromley, Sir Anthony Denny, and Sir William Herbert, chief gentlemen of the privy chamber; Sir Edward Wotton, treasurer of Calais; Dr. Wotton, dean of Canterbury. To these executors, with whom was intrusted the whole regal authority, were appointed twelve counsellors, who possessed no immediate power, and could only assist with their advice when any affair was laid before them. The council was composed of the carls of Arundel and Essex; Sir Thomas Cheney, treasurer of the household; Sir John Gage, comptroller; Sir Anthony Wingfield, vice-chamberlain; Sir William Petre, secretary of state; Sir Richard Rich, Sir John Baker, Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Thomas Seymour, Sir Richard Southwell, and Sir Edmund Peckham.* The usual caprice of Henry appears somewhat in this nomination; while he appointed several persons of inferior station among his executors, and gave only the place of counsellor to a person of such high rank as the earl of Arundel, and to Sir Thomas Seymour, the king's uncle. But the first act of the executors and counsellors was to depart from the destination of the late king in a material article. No sooner were they met, than it was suggested that the government would lose its dignity for want of some head who might represent the royal majesty, who might receive addresses from foreign ambassadors, to whom despatches from English ministers abroad might be carried, and whose name might be employed in all orders and proclamations: and as the king's will seemed to labor under a defect in this particular, it was deemed necessary to supply it by choosing a protector; who, though he should possess all the exterior symbols of royal dignity, should yet be bound, in every act of power, to follow the opinion of the executors. This proposal was very disagreeable to Chancellor Wriothesely. That magistrate, a man of an active spirit and high ambition, found himself by his office entitled to the first rank in the regency after the primate; and as he knew that this prelate had no talent or inclination for state affairs, he hoped that the direction of public business would, of course, devolve in a great measure upon himself. He opposed, therefore, the proposal of choosing a protector; and represented that innovation as an infringement of the late king's will, which, being corroborated by act of parliament, ought in every thing to be a law to them, and could not be altered but by the same authority which had established it. But he seems to have stood alone in the opposition. The executors and counsellors were mostly courtiers who had been raised by Henry's favor, not men of high birth or great hereditary influence; and as they had been sufficiently accustomed to submission during the reign of the late monarch, and had no pretensions to govern the nation by their own authority, they acquiesced the more willingly in a proposal which seemed, calculated for preserving public peace and tranquillity. It being therefore agreed to name a protector, the choice fell, of course, on the earl of Hertford, who, as he was the king's maternal uncle, was strongly interested in his safety; and possessing no claims to inherit the crown, *Strype's Memor. vol. ii. p. 457. † Burnet, vol. ii. p 5. could never have any separate interest which might lead him to endanger Edward's person or his authority.* The public" was informed by proclamation of this change in the adminis tration; and despatches were sent to all foreign courts to give them intimation of it. All those who were possessed of any office resigned their former commissions, and accepted new ones in the name of the young king. The bishops themselves were constrained to make a like submission. Care was taken to insert in their new commissions, that they held their office during pleasure: † and it is there expressly affirmed, that all manner of authority and jurisdiction, as well ecclesiastical as civil, is originally derived from the crown.‡ The executors, in their next measure, showed a more submissive deference to Henry's will, because many of them found their account in it. The late king had intended, before his death, to make a new creation of nobility, in order to supply the place of those peerages which had fallen by former attainders, or the failure of issue; and that he might enable the new peers to support their dignity, he had resolved either to bestow estates on them, or advance them to higher offices. He had even gone so far as to inform them of this resolution; and in his will he charged his executors to make good all his promises. That they might ascertain his intentions in the most authentic manner, Sir William Paget, Sir Anthony Denny, and Sir William Herbert, with whom Henry had always conversed in a familiar manner, were called before the board of regency; and having given evidence of what they knew concerning the king's promises, their testimony was relied on, and the executors proceeded to the fulfilling of these engagements. Hertford was created duke of Somerset, mareschal, and lord treasurer; Wriothesely, earl of Southampton; the earl of Essex, marquis of Northampton ; Viscount Lisle, earl of Warwick; Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Seymour of Sudley, and admiral; Sir Richard Rich, Sir William Willoughby, Sir Edward Sheffield accepted the title of baron.|| Several, to whom the same dignity was offered, refused it; because the other part of the king's promise, the bestowing of estates on these new noblemen, *Heylin, Hist. Ref. Edward VI. + Collier, vol. ii. p. 218. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 6. Strype's Mem. of Cranm. p. 141. Strype's Mem. of Cranm. p. 141. Stowe's Annals, p. 594. |