ABSTRACT
Falling between the two longest English reigns of the Tudor and Stuart age – those of Henry VIII and his younger daughter, Elizabeth – are the short and often troubled reigns of his son and his elder daughter. Royal minorities often gave rise to factional infighting, power struggles, fluctuating policies and general uncertainty and to some extent all these features can be seen during Edward’s six-year reign. During the first year of Somerset’s protectorate his own secretaries, Sir Thomas Smith and William Cecil, were more important than the King’s Secretaries of State. Somerset, in his reply to the rebels’ demands, insisted that the Protestant Book was ‘none other but the old: the selfsame words in English which were in Latin, saving a few things taken out’. Somerset had not been able to despatch reinforcements to Russell because a major rebellion had broken out in Norfolk. As Protector, Somerset had shown elements of political skill, resolution, even brutality.
