projected greatness.

When Somerset found that the public peace was endangered by his
brother's seditious, not to say rebellious schemes, he was the more
easily persuaded by Warwick to employ the extent of royal authority
against him; and after depriving him of the office of admiral, he signed
a warrant for committing him to the Tower. Some of his accomplices were
also taker into custody; and three privy counsellors, being sent to
examine them, made a report, that they had met with very full and
important discoveries. Yet still the protector suspended the blow, and
showed a reluctance to ruin his brother. He offered to desist from the
prosecution, if Seymour would promise him a cordial reconciliation, and,
renouncing all ambitious hopes, be contented with a private life, and
retire into the country. But as Seymour made no other answer to these
friendly offers than menaces and defiances, he ordered a charge to be
drawn up against him, consisting of thirty-three articles;[*] and the
whole to be laid before the privy council. It is pretended, that every
particular was so incontestably proved, both by witnesses and his own
handwriting, that there was no room for doubt; yet did the council think
proper to go in a body to the Tower, in order more fully to examine the
prisoner. He was not daunted by the appearance: he boldly demanded a
fair trial; required to be confronted with the witnesses; desired
that the charge might be left with him, in order to be considered; and
refused to answer any interrogatories by which he might accuse himself.

* Buruet, Tol. ii. coll. 31. 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. 18.

It is apparent that, notwithstanding what is pretended, there must have
been some deficiency in the evidence against Seymour, when such demands,
founded on the plainest principles of law and equity, were absolutely
rejected. We shall indeed conclude, if we carefully examine the charge,
that many of the articles were general, and scarcely capable of
any proof many of them, if true, susceptible of a more favorable
interpretation; and that though, on the whole, Seymour appears to have
been a dangerous subject, he had not advanced far in those treasonable
projects imputed to him. The chief part of his actual guilt seems to
have consisted in some unwarrantable practices in the admiralty, by
which pirates were protected and illegal impositions laid upon the
merchants.

But the administration had at that time an easy instrument of ve