ed from treason, expressed their joy by loud acclamations: but
their satisfaction was suddenly damped on finding that he was condemned
to death for felony.[*]

{1552.} Care had been taken by Northumberland's emissaries to prepossess
the young king against his uncle; and lest he should relent, no access
was given to any of Somerset's friends, and the prince was kept from
reflection by a continued series of occupations and amusements. At last
the prisoner was brought to the scaffold on Tower Hill, amidst great
crowds of spectators, who bore him such sincere kindness, that they
entertained to the last moment the fond hopes of his pardon.[**] Many of
them rushed in to dip their hand-kerchiefs in his blood, which they
long preserved as a precious relic; and some of them soon after, when
Northumberland met with a like doom, upbraided him with this cruelty,
and displayed to him these symbols of his crime. Somerset indeed, though
many actions of his life were exceptionable, seems in general to have
merited a better fate; and the faults which he committed were owing to
weakness, not to any bad intention. His virtues were better calculated
for private than for public life; and by his want of penetration and
firmness, he was ill fitted to extricate himself from those cabals and
violences to which that age was so much addicted. Sir Thomas Arundel,
Sir Michael Stanhope, Sir Miles Partridge, and Sir Ralph Vane, all of
them Somerset's friends, were brought to their trial, condemned, and
executed: great injustice seems to have been used in their prosecution.

* Hayward, p. 320, 321, 322. Stowe, p. 606. Holingshed, p.
1067.

** Hayward p. 324, 325.

Lord Paget, chancellor of the duchy, was on some pretence tried in the
star chamber, and condemned in a fine of six thousand pounds, with the
loss of his office. To mortify him the more, he was degraded from the
order of the garter; as unworthy, on account of his mean birth, to share
that honor.[*] Lord Rich, chancellor, was also compelled to resign his
office, on the discovery of some marks of friendship which he had shown
to Somerset.

The day after the execution of Somerset, a session of parliament was
held, in which further advances were made towards the establishment
of the reformation. The new liturgy was authorized; and penalties
were enacted against all those who absented themselves from public
worship.[**] To use the mass had already been prohibited under severe