Note 209 — CCXXIX.—To the Protector Somerset.[209]

Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, Duke of Somerset, Regent of England, under the minority of Edward VI. It was under his administration that the Reformation was victoriously established in England. Supported by Parliament, he suppressed the troubles which arose in some parts of the kingdom after the death of Henry VIII., confirmed the king's supremacy, abolished the worship of images, private masses, and restored the communion in both kinds. He held a correspondence with Calvin, who dedicated to him, June 24, 1548, his Commentary on the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy; and by advice of the Reformer, he offered an asylum to the exiles, Bucer, Fagi, Ochino, and Peter Martyr,—banished for the sake of their religion from the Continent. Beloved by the people, hated by the nobles, he made himself unpopular by his want of success in the war which he kept up against the Scots and in France; was overthrown by a conspiracy of the nobility, imprisoned in the Tower of London, (October 1549,) and only recovered his liberty the year following, to perish in 1552 on the scaffold, victim of the ambition of Warwick, Earl of Northumberland, his relative.