finally given to Warwick, who crushed the rebellion in August.
This success encouraged Warwick to begin intriguing against the Protector, and he found ready listeners among many of the council. Wriothesley (now Earl of Southampton) had never forgiven Somerset his ejection from the chancellorship, and, like other adherents of the old religion, he thought that nothing but good could come of Somerset's fall. On the other hand many of the reforming party had grievances against the Protector; even his stout adherent, Paget, warned him against his arrogance and ambition, and the folly of ‘having so many irons in the fire.’ At the same time the rapacity with which he seized on church lands and the fortune he acquired for himself deprived him of popular sympathy, and added to the irritation the council felt at such arbitrary acts as making a stamp of the king's signature and erecting a court of requests in his own house. They knew, moreover, that the authority he enjoyed was usurped contrary to Henry's will. Failure at home and abroad gave Warwick his opportunity. In September he waited on Somerset with two hundred captains who had served in suppressing the late rebellions, and demanded extra pay for their services. Somerset refused, and Warwick then enlisted their support in his attempt to overthrow him (Chron. of Henry VIII, pp. 185–6). Secret meetings were held at the houses of the disaffected councillors. Somerset heard of these gatherings while at Hampton Court with Cranmer, Paget, Cecil, Petre, Sir Thomas Smith, and Sir John Thynne, all his devoted adherents. In the first few days of October he issued leaflets urging the people to rise in his defence and that of the king. His enemies, he asserted, wished to depose him because ‘we the poore comens being injuried by the extorciouse gentylmen had our pardon this yere by the … goodness of the lorde Protector, for whom let us fyght, for he lovith all just and true gentilmen which do no extorcion, and also us the poore commynaltie of Englande’ (Acts P. C. ii. 330–6). Ten thousand men are said to have responded to this call (Chron. Henry VIII, p. 186), and Somerset sent his son, Sir Edward Seymour, to Russell and Herbert, who were then returning from the west with the army that had suppressed the rebellion, entreating them to come to the rescue of the king. On the 6th he despatched Petre to London to inquire the meaning of the council's proceedings. There Warwick's adherents were in session at his residence, Ely House, Holborn. They had drawn up an indictment of Somerset's rule, and were on the point of setting out to lay it before the Protector. On the receipt of Petre's message threatening to arrest them if they proceeded to Hampton Court, they determined to remain in London. On the same day they requested the support of the mayor and aldermen, to whom Rich described the Protector's evil deeds, and sent out letters to various nobles summoning them, with their adherents, to London. Petre remained with the council, and Somerset started that night for Windsor with the king. Next day the council wrote to Cranmer and Paget requiring their adherence. On the 8th the city gave the council its support, the Tower was secured, Russell and Herbert inclined to the same side, and fifteen thousand men gathered in London to support the council (Chron. Henry VIII, p. 189). Somerset saw that his cause was lost, and promised submission. On the 10th the council wrote ordering the detention of Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Michael Stanhope (the Protector's brother-in-law), Sir John Thynne (the manager of his estates), and others. On the 12th they went down to Windsor, and on the 14th Somerset was sent to the Tower.
Early in January 1549–50 an account of the proceedings taken against him was presented to parliament, and the charges were embodied in thirty-one articles. Somerset made a full confession and threw himself on the mercy of the council; on the 14th he was deposed from the protectorate by act of parliament, deprived of all his offices and of lands to the value of 2,000l. While in the Tower he solaced himself by reading devotional works, such as Wermueller's ‘Spyrytuall and most precyouse Pearle,’ translated by Coverdale, which was lent to him in manuscript, and for which he wrote a preface; it was published in the same year (London, 8vo), and subsequently passed through many editions (see Brit. Mus. Cat. and Hazlitt, Collections). He is also said to have translated out of French a letter written to him by Calvin, and printed in the same year, but no copy is known to be extant. On 6 Feb. he was set at liberty (Acts P. C. ii. 383; Wriothesley, ii. 33–4), and on the 18th received a free pardon. On 10 April he was again admitted of the privy council, and on 14 May was made a gentleman of the king's chamber. He resumed his attendances at the council on 24 April, taking precedence of all the other members, and rarely missed a meeting for the next eighteen months. Three days later his property, except what had already been disposed of, was restored to him; and on 3 June his
