CHAPTER I

Rise of the Somersets

HE founder of the Somerset family was born

TH

at a remarkable period of English history. When his father, the third Duke of Somerset, died at Hexham, feudal and medieval England was passing away. The age of faith and chivalry was nearing its close. The worldliness of Wolsey, the polite scepticism of Erasmus, and the wilfulness and extravagance of Henry VIII. were in the near future to show the hollowness of the one and the weakness of the other.

The Crusades had become a fanciful aspiration, or a diplomatic fiction. Protestantism, that spirit of democracy touched with religious emotion, was to shake the foundations of Church and Monarchy. The kindred ideas of direct approach to heaven and direct government by the people were in the air. Both were as yet immature. The seeds already sown required time to grow up. This was given by the resolute monarchy of the Tudors, and the crushing first of the old historical nobles and secondly of the ecclesiastical power of Rome.

When Henry VII. reached the throne, the power of the old nobility was on the wane. In place of a number of semi-independent feudal chiefs, the king had to deal with discontented nobles whose resources had been scattered in the Wars of the Roses, and whose chief strength lay in their great names. Those of the old families whose power was not broken were generally hostile to the king.

The crown, therefore, needed a new aristocracy to replace the old. Though Henry probably did not see what the tendencies of his time werefew of us indeed can do so-yet, with the political insight that distinguished his family, he recognised the instruments he needed to carry out his policy of government. The new nobles were to have power and influence derived directly from the favour of the crown, yet by their services to the crown and the nation they soon came to act as a restraint on the kingly power. The English peerage is to-day a record of past and a reward of present services to the crown and country. The history of the country from the fifteenth to the twentieth century tells us that, unless a great house is willing to serve, it cannot retain its influence, but will become a useless though interesting survival of the past, like the suits of armour and the weapons that hang on the walls of its palaces. It is this great Tudor idea that has preserved the English aristocracy in a democratic age.

Almost the first of the new nobility was Charles Somerset, whose early years were passed under the shadow of the misfortunes and death of his father, the third Duke of Somerset. So much was this the case that the date of his birth is not known, though he was always acknowledged as the Duke's son, in days when royal descent signified more and legitimacy less than in our own time. The third Duke of Somerset had been one of the great men of his day, a gallant soldier, a keen sportsman and possessing the love of splendour that has always characterised the Beauforts. The latter were also illegitimate, though the children of Katherine Swynford had been legitimatised by Act of Parliament, while at the same time they were expressly excluded from succession to the crown.

It seems likely that part of Charles Somerset's early life was passed under the care of Henry VII., who ever after watched over his fortunes and acknowledged the relationship between them. The king was not only drawn to Somerset by the ties of a common descent, but by the attraction of a common taste for sport. In examining the records of Somerset's life, it seems possible to trace a close friendship and confidence between him and the king, and he was certainly privy to Henry's two great ideas of establishing a navy and of founding a standing army. That he was a man of considerable tact and diplomatic skill may be inferred

No

from the fact that he was constantly sent on missions and embassies. His office on these occasions was, we gather, rather social and magnificent than of great political importance, for he was not the kind of man employed by kings and ministers to ferret out the state secrets of friendly courts. The ordinary ambassador of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was indeed a kind of legalised spy, whose duties somewhat resembled those the Dreyfus case has shown to be expected from certain military attachés in our own day. In Henry's time they were often men of inferior birth and were wholly dependent on the minister who appointed them, their duty being to write home the most minute and trifling occurrences at the court to which they were accredited. thing came amiss. Gossip and scandal were mixed up with more serious political matters in their communications to their Government. Then when the time arrived for the settlement of one of the innumerable treaties that no one of the parties concerned had the slightest intention of observing, a more important person was sent out on a temporary mission to bring to a close the inconclusive arrangement. On such occasions, both under Henry VII. and Henry VIII., Charles Somerset was employed. No doubt both his relationship to the sovereign and the personal friendship that existed between them gave added weight to his magnificent personality and pleasant tact.

And Charles Somerset had other titles to the

king's confidence. There is a characteristic of the Somerset family that will appear often in the course of this story. They were men of the most undaunted loyalty. Later on we find them the adherents of a lost cause and of an unpopular Church, much to their own hurt. The Somersets were slow to change sides. They were staunch to the Tudor and Stuart monarchs they served so well.

Apart too from Charles Somerset's personal character and his kinship to Henry, he had another and possibly a stronger recommendation to the royal favour in his absolute dependence on the crown. Somerset had neither means nor position save such as were given him of the royal grace and bounty. Promotion and grants of land were doled out to him at considerable intervals and only as rewards for past services. So far as I can gather, his first appointment was as Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, a force enrolled in Henry's time as a personal guard on the sovereign, and which was the germ of the standing army of later times. If then we may regard this company as the foundation on which our military organisation has been built up, a Somerset was one of the first officers of that army in which his descendants have served ever since.

Charles Somerset may also claim the credit of being one of the earliest of English admirals.

It has often been said that Henry VIII. was the