thout incurring any penalty or forfeiture from any
law, statute, proclamation, or ordinance whatsoever.[*] Even had this
patent been more moderate in its concessions, and had it been drawn by
directions from the executors appointed by Henry, its legality might
justly be questioned; since it seems essential to a trust of this
nature to be exercised by the persons intrusted, and not to admit of a
delegation to others: but as the patent, by its very tenor, where
the executors are not so much as mentioned, appears to have been
surreptitiously obtained from a minor king, the protectorship of
Somerset was a plain usurpation, which it is impossible by any arguments
to justify. The connivance, however, of the executors, and their present
acquiescence in the new establishment, made it be universally submitted
to; and as the young king discovered an extreme attachment to his
uncle, who was also, in the main, a man of moderation and probity, no
objections were made to his power and title. All men of sense, likewise,
who saw the nation divided by the religious zeal of the opposite sects,
deemed it the more necessary to intrust the government to one person,
who might check the exorbitancies of faction, and insure the public
tranquillity. And though some clauses of the patent seemed to imply a
formal subversion of all limited government, so little jealousy was then
usually entertained on that head, that no exception was ever taken
at bare claims or pretensions of this nature, advanced by any person
possessed of sovereign power. The actual exercise alone of arbitrary
administration, and that in many, and great, and flagrant, and unpopular
instances, was able sometimes to give some umbrage to the nation.

* Burnet, vol. ii. Records, No. 6.

The extensive authority and imperious character of Henry had retained
the partisans of both religions in subjection; but upon his demise, the
hopes of the Protestants and the fears of the Catholics began to
revive, and the zeal of these parties produced every where disputes and
animosities, the usual preludes to more fatal divisions. The protector
had long been regarded as a secret partisan of the reformers; and being
now freed from restraint, he scrupled not to discover his intention of
correcting all abuses in the ancient religion, and of adopting still
more of the Protestant innovations. He took care that all persons
intrusted with the king's education should be attached to the same
princip