the principal nobility; and had extended his interest
all over England: he neglected not even the most popular persons of
inferior rank; and had computed that he could, on occasion, muster
an army of ten thousand men, composed of his servants, tenants, and
retainers:[*] he had already provided arms for their use; and having
engaged in his interests Sir John Sharington, a corrupt man, master
of the mint at Bristol, he flattered himself that money would not be
wanting. Somerset was well apprised of all these alarming circumstances,
and endeavored, by the most friendly expedients, by entreaty, reason,
and even by heaping new favors upon the admiral, to make him desist from
his dangerous counsels: but finding all endeavors ineffectual, he
began to think of more severe remedies. The earl of Warwick was an ill
instrument between the brothers; and had formed the design, by inflaming
the quarrel, to raise his own fortune on the ruins of both.

* Hayne, p. 105, 106.

Dudley, earl of Warwick, was the son of that Dudley, minister to Henry
VII., who, having, by rapine, extortion, and perversion of law, incurred
the hatred of the public, had been sacrificed to popular animosity in
the beginning of the subsequent reign. The late king, sensible of the
iniquity, at least illegality, of the sentence, had afterwards restored
young Dudley's blood by act of parliament; and finding him endowed
with abilities, industry, and activity, he had intrusted him with
many important commands, and had ever found him successful in his
undertakings. He raised him to the dignity of Viscount Lisle, conferred
on him the office of admiral, and gave him by his will a place among his
executors. Dudley made still further progress during the minority; and
having obtained the title of earl of Warwick, and undermined the
credit of Southampton, he bore the chief rank among the protector's
counsellors. The victory gained at Pinkey was much ascribed to his
courage and conduct; and he was universally regarded as a man equally
endowed with the talents of peace and of war. But all these virtues were
obscured by still greater vices; an exorbitant ambition, an insatiable
avarice, a neglect of decency, a contempt of justice: and as he found
that Lord Seymour, whose abilities and enterprising spirit he chiefly
dreaded, was involving himself in ruin by his rash counsels, he was
determined to push him on the precipice, and thereby remove the chief
obstacle to his own