, that it was considered
extremely hasty and unbecoming. This queen dowager had two houses left
to her, one at Chelsea, and the other at Hanworth, towns some little
distance up the river from London. Here she resided with her new
husband, sometimes at one of the houses, and sometimes at the other. The
king had also directed, in his will, that the Princess Elizabeth should
be under her care, so that Elizabeth, immediately after her father's
death, lived at one or the other of these two houses under the care of
Seymour, who, from having been her uncle, became now, in some sense, her
father. He was a sort of uncle, for he was the brother of one of her
father's wives. He was a sort of father, for he was the husband of
another of them. Yet, really, by blood, there was no relation between
them.

The two brothers, Somerset and Seymour, quarreled. Each was very
ambitious, and very jealous of the other. Somerset, in addition to being
appointed protector by the council, got a grant of power from the young
king called a patent. This commission was executed with great formality,
and was sealed with the great seal of state, and it made Somerset, in
some measure independent of the other nobles whom King Henry had
associated with him in the government. By this patent he was placed in
supreme command of all the forces by land and sea. He had a seat on the
right hand of the throne, under the great canopy of state, and whenever
he went abroad on public occasions, he assumed all the pomp and parade
which would have been expected in a real king. Young Edward was wholly
under his influence, and did always whatever Somerset recommended him to
do. Seymour was very jealous of all this greatness, and was contriving
every means in his power to circumvent and supersede his brother.

The wives, too, of these great statesmen quarreled. The Duchess of
Somerset thought she was entitled to the precedence, because she was the
wife of the protector, who, being a kind of regent, she thought he was
entitled to have his wife considered as a sort of queen. The wife of
Seymour, on the other hand, contended that she was entitled to the
precedence as a real queen, having been herself the actual consort of a
reigning monarch. The two ladies disputed perpetually on this point,
which, of course, could never be settled. They enlisted, however, on
their respective sides various partisans, producing a great deal of
jealousy and ill will, and increasing the animosit