Some historians have endeavoured to justify Henry's wavering foreign policy, and all his forcible-feeble wars with Continental powers, by the plea that, if he got no gain in land or gold thereby, yet he raised England to a higher place among European nations than she had held in his father's day. But this statement seems unwise. Henry, though much flattered and courted at times, was in fact the mere dupe of Francis I. and Charles V., each of whom cheated him again and again, and left him hopelessly in the lurch. England's growing wealth and power would have won her back her proper place in Europe far better than Henry's chaotic intrigues. His whole foreign policy was a mistake and a tangle from first to last. [Sidenote: =The regency.--The Duke of Somerset Protector.=] It remained to be seen who would now sway the sword and sceptre that the dead tyrant had gripped so firmly. In his last years Henry had surrounded himself by ministers less notable and less capable than Wolsey or Cromwell. The chief place was held by his brother-in-law, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, the brother of the unfortunate Queen Jane, and the uncle of Prince Edward, the heir to the crown. It was natural that the charge of the young king--a bright and promising, but delicate lad, now in his tenth year--should fall to his uncle; but the late king, distrusting Hertford's wisdom, had left the regency, not to him individually, but to a council of sixteen members, of which he was but the president. Seymour, however, succeeded in getting a more complete control over his colleagues than had been intended, mainly by bribing them to consent with titles and large gifts of money. They allowed him to make himself "Protector of the realm and of the king's person," and to create himself Duke of Somerset. In return he made the two chief members of the council earls; Wriothsley, head of the Anglo-Catholic party, became Earl of Southampton; Dudley--son of that Dudley who had paid with his head for serving Henry VII. too well--was created Earl of Warwick. [Sidenote: =Protestantism of Somerset.--First English Prayer-book.=]