hority, put the great
seal in commission, and had empowered four lawyers Southwell,
Tregonel, Oliver, and Bellasis, to execute in his absence the office of
chancellor. This measure seemed very exceptionable; and the more so, as,
two of the commissioners being canonists, the lawyers suspected that,
by this nomination, the chancellor had intended to discredit the
common law. Complaints were made to the council, who, influenced by the
protector, gladly laid hold of the opportunity to depress Southampton.
They consulted the judges with regard to so unusual a case; and received
for answer, that the commission was illegal, and that the chancellor, by
his presumption in granting it, had justly forfeited the great seal, and
was even liable to punishment. The council summoned him to appear before
them. He maintained that he held his office by the late king's will,
founded on an act of parliament, and could not lose it without a trial
in parliament; that if the commission which he had granted were found
illegal, it might be cancelled, and all the ill consequences of it be
easily remedied; and that the depriving him of his office for an error
of this nature, was a precedent by which any other innovation might be
authorized. But the council, notwithstanding these topics of defence,
declared that he had forfeited the great seal; that a fine should be
imposed upon him; and that he should be confined to his own house during
pleasure.[*]

* Holingshed, p. 979

The removal of Southampton increased the protectors' authority, as
well as tended to suppress faction in the regency yet was not Somerset
contented with this advantage; his ambition carried him to seek still
further acquisitions. On pretence that the vote of the executors
choosing his protector, was not a sufficient foundation for his
authority, he procured a patent from the young king, by which he
entirely overturned the will of Henry VIII., produced a total revolution
in the government, and may seem even to have subverted all the laws
of the kingdom. He named himself protector with full regal power, and
appointed a council, consisting of all the former counsellors, and all
the executors, except Southampton; he reserved a power of naming any
other counsellors at pleasure; and he was bound to consult with such
only as he thought proper. The protector and his council were likewise
empowered to act at discretion, and to execute whatever they deemed for
the public service, wi