1549] INSURRECTIONS 433 matter into its own hands. Russell, being at length re-enforced by Lord Grey from Oxfordshire, advanced to relieve Exeter, which was besieged by the rebels. A battle was fought at St. Mary's Clyst, where, after a fierce fight, the insurgents were defeated. This victory was followed up, and on the 6th of August Exeter was relieved. There was a rally of the rebels at Sampford Courtenay, where they were finally dispersed. Martial law was declared in Devonshire and Cornwall, and the rebellious counties punished with great severity. Meanwhile the Norfolk insurgents directed their attention chiefly to the destruction of enclosures. An army of 16,000 of them took up their position on Mousehold Hill, near Norwich, where Ket held a daily court of justice, in which obnoxious gentlemen were tried. Property, which was largely seized, was brought into a common stock for the use of the camp. In an oak upon the hill, called the Oak of Reformation, a pulpit was erected, where the neighbouring clergy came and preached, and the Mayor of Norwich, either voluntarily or by compulsion, sat as fellow-judge with Ket. Order and discipline were well preserved in the rebel host. A herald was sent to them with a free pardon, but Ket rejected it as unnecessary. The herald tried to arrest him, and in the consequent uproar the town of Norwich was seized by the rebels. Again Somerset's gentleness had suffered the rebellion to gain head, and the Council insisted upon sharper meaLord Northampton was sent against them. He was admitted into Norwich by the citizens, but a second time the rebels stormed the town, and Northampton had to fly. Some proportion of the mercenary troops of the Protector had been proceeding warwick northward to carry on the Scotch war. They were suppresses it. commanded by the Earl of Warwick, the son of the extortioner Dudley, and who, as Lord Lisle, had distinguished himself both as soldier and admiral. To him was intrusted the duty of repairing Northampton's disaster. He again offered the insurgents a pardon. Their mistrust again induced them to decline it. They had some temporary success against Warwick, but ultimately descending from their camp on Mousehold Hill, they took up a position in the open fields, where they were entirely routed, with the loss of between three and four thousand of their number. A few of them were afterwards hanged on the Oak of Reformation, and their leaders, Ket and his brother, being executed, the rebellion was at an end. sures. But though peace was thus re-established in England, Boulogne was still threatened. Negotiations with the Emperor, who it was hoped might assist in withstanding the French, came to nothing, and it seemed as if the town must shortly fall. The outlying forts around it were taken one after the other, and at last formal war was declared against France (September 1549). Warwick and the Council try to resume their authority. Somerset's government had thus been everywhere unsuccessful. He owed his position of Protector to the choice of the Council only. He was in fact in some degree their representative. Not unreasonably, then, they thought it necessary to resume the power they had delegated, which had been so unsuccessfully used. Warwick, returning to London from his triumphant suppression of the rebellion, where his vigorous action, as well as that of Russell in the West, had been rather opposed than seconded by the Protector, became a most important person among those members of the Council who planned the removal of Somerset. The Protector was informed of the feeling against him, and determined to struggle for his power. He declared the London Council treasonable, persuaded the King there was a plot against him, and called upon the nation to rise to defend the Crown. This was a virtual declaration of war between himself and the Council. It was soon plain that Somerset by hasty action had put himself in the wrong. One after another of his friends joined the London Council. Smith and Paget, who remained with him, were chiefly occupied in restraining his violence. He hurried the King to Windsor, to the great injury it was thought of his health; but finding that his measures were counteracted by his rivals, that Herbert and Russell, with the armies of the West, were siding with his enemies, and influenced by his prudent friends Paget and Cranmer, he at length made his submission and acknowledged the authority of the Council. The victorious party at once betook themselves to Windsor, and put themselves into communication with the King. The schism which divided the Council was thus healed, and they could again act with unquestioned authority. Toward the fallen Protector and his friends they acted leniently. Sir Thomas Smith was expelled the Council, and Somerset was sent to the Tower, where, however, he stayed but a short time, being released in February 1550, while three months afterwards most of his property was restored to him. Fall of Somerset. The fall of Somerset might very naturally have been followed by a complete change of policy, as the charge against him was the want of success of his administration. Southampton had been prominent among his enemies, and for a moment the reactionary party thought that their time was come. But Warwick was all-powerful in the Council, and he saw plainly that Warwick con tinues the head- 15501 LOSS OF BOULOGNE 435 any reaction which should recall to influence the old nobility would be fatal to him. He therefore put himself into the hands of the Reformers, hurrying onwards even faster than Somerset had done. ... Before he could proceed to any improvement on the state of affairs in England, it was necessary to complete the war with France. It was impossible to act vigorously while the constant drain on the resources of the nation caused by the war continued. How much the state of England wanted reform is shown by a few words of Paget's: "We must acknowledge what we cannot deny—the evil condition of our estate at home. . . . Ill money, whereby outward things be dearer, idleness among the people, the great courages, dispositions to imagine and invent novelties, devises to amend this and this, and a hundred mischiefs which make my heart sorry to markthese be the fruits of war." With such a feeling among Loss of the negotiators, no great difficulty could arise with regard Boulogne. to terms. The French felt their superiority and pressed it; the English could but yield. The pension promised to Henry was refused. Boulogne was to be given up within six weeks, and in exchange the French were to pay four hundred thousand crowns. The large sum due from France to England was to be remitted, so that the four hundred thousand crowns was in fact all that remained of Henry VIII.'s conquest. Want of the Council. Freed from the war with France, the Council had an opportunity of repairing some of Somerset's faults. He had indeed left them plenty to do. His revolutionary tendencies in all directions had produced a state of feeling which had become evident in the late rebellions. His conduct had been the more injudicious because he was acting during a minority, and the King principle in on his coming of age might undo all that was done, and might reasonably have expected to have received his kingdom on the whole in the same position in which his father had left it. The Council plunged into the same revolutionary course, with this difference, that Somerset's errors had arisen from an over-estimate of his own ability, but were the fruit of high and noble feelings and aspirations; while Warwick, and his friends in the Council, the unscrupulous instruments of the late King, left without his restraining hand, were hypocrites in religion, had no object but their own aggrandizement, and in foreign policy thought only of tiding over the difficulty of the moment, and of sustaining as far as possible the balance of power. Latimer, in 1550, when preaching before the King, had accused the PER. MON. f The currency. .... King's officers of bribery. Bribes were given to have accounts passed : -"What needeth a bribe giving except the bills be false? . . . . And here now I speak to you my master-minters, augmentationers, receivers, surveyors, auditors, ye are known well enough what ye were before ye came to your offices, what lands ye had then and what ye have purchased since, and what building ye make daily. Well, I pray ye, so build that the King's workmen may be paid. They make their moans that they can get no money, and poor labourers, gun-makers, powder-makers, bow-makers, arrow-makers, smiths, carpenters, soldiers, and other crafts cry out for their dues. It seems illfavouredly that ye should have enough wherewith to build superfluously and the King lack to pay his poor labourers." To peculation, injustice, and the misgovernment of wholly selfish rulers, was added as a fresh cause of confusion the real difficulty of the currency. Already, towards the close of the last reign, Henry in his want of money had had recourse to the expedient of depreciating the coinage. He had gained by this means £50,000. The expedient had been largely followed during the present reign. The numerous plans which Somerset had constantly kept on hand at the same time had been very expensive, and the debasement of the coinage was an easy source of wealth. As a natural consequence, private individuals had secured such of the coinage as was good, to be either sold abroad or re-introduced in a debased state. Sharington, master of the Bristol mint, and the friend of Lord Seymour of Sudeley, confessed to having made a profit of £4000 by the issue of testons or bad shillings. On the suppression of the rebellions of 1549, and the fall of Somerset, Warwick, Herbert, Paget, and in fact most of the Lords of the Council, were allowed to reimburse themselves for the money they had spent in the suppression of the rebellions by coining large quantities of silver. Herbert's gain alone was £6709, 19s. The whole sum of base coinage thus introduced into circulation was more than £150,000. The evil went on; vast quantities of plate, especially from the churches, was turned into base money. The natural effects followed; the good money and the gold left the country; the rate of exchange constantly fell. Attempts to introduce a purer coinage in smaller-sized pieces failed, as these did but disclose the real amount of depreciation which the coinage had undergone. Prices rose enormously. "If we in England should coin in six years to come so much white money as we have in six years past, of the value now going, the plentifulness of the money and the baseness thereof together should bring our Commonwealth 1551] THE CURRENCY 437 to that pass, that if you should give a poor man three shillings a day for his day's labour, yet you should scarce pay him such a hire as he might live thereof-which God defend should come to pass." So high did the prices rise that violent attempts were made to fix a tariff. The outcry was too great, and the project was dropped. But at last the disorder and inconvenience reached such a pitch that the Council were driven to the necessity of reforming the coinage (Aug. 1551). The quantity of base money afloat and the lack of finances prevented an honest exchange of good money for bad. It was determined "to call down the money," that is, to make the real and nominal value of it agree... On the whole, the amount of depreciation was about fifty per cent... The shilling was therefore to be called down to sixpence, to the loss of every individual in the country of half the value of his money.. This great reduction was done at two steps. The Council, knowing the coming change of value, did not scruple to take advantage of the interval between the two to throw another £120,000 worth, with no less than three-quarters alloy, into the country. The process was not fully completed, for though good money was issued in exchange for bad, the return of the bad money to the Mint was not compulsory. There was, of course, still room for unlimited counterfeiting, and after all the prices fell but little. orderly advance As far as the Reformation was concerned, measures became more and more extreme. Gardiner and Bonner were both detained in prison, and Heath, Bishop of Worcester, joined them Rapid and disthere. Somerset, who had regained some influence, of the Refor exerted himself on Gardiner's behalf, but in vain. The mation. new appointments were all Protestants. Ridley was made Bishop of London; Ponet, a man of immoral life, succeeded Gardiner at Winchester; and Hooper, after many scruples as to the legality of wearing Bishop's robes, was induced to accept the See of Gloucester. Acts were passed against images and paintings, statues and figures were to be removed from churches, and all service books except the Prayer Book to be destroyed. Along with other church property, many of the endowments at the Universities were seized, and lay proprietors appointed to livings without reference to their Bishops. However excellent in principle these changes may have been, the effect upon the morality of the country was disastrous. As we have already seen, the covetousness of the gentry was a marked characteristic of the time. The removal of religious restraints did not tend to lessen it. The destruction of the ecclesiastical courts and their discipline gave opportunity for much unbridled license. Licentiousness, |