But Somerset had a more dangerous enemy than his brother; and this was the Earl of Warwick, who obtained great popularity by his suppression of a dangerous insurrection, the greatest the country had witnessed since Jack Cade's rebellion, one hundred years before. The discontent of the people appears to have arisen from their actual suffering. Coin had depreciated, without a corresponding rise of wages, and labor was cheap, because tillage lands were converted to pasturage. The popular discontent was aggravated by the changes which the reformers introduced, and which the peasantry were the last to appreciate. The priests and ejected monks increased the discontent, until it broke out into a flame. The protector made himself unpopular with the council by a law which he caused to be passed against enclosures; and, as he lost influence, his great rival, Warwick, gained power. Somerset, at last, was obliged to resign his protectorship; and Warwick, who had suppressed the rebellion, formed the chief of a new council of regency. He was a man of greater talents than Somerset, and equal ambition, and more fitted for stormy times. As soon as his power was established, and the country was at peace, and he had gained friends, he began to execute those projects of ambition which he had long formed. The earldom of Northumberland having reverted to the crown, Warwick aspired to the extinct title and the estates, and procured for himself a grant of the same, with the title of duke. But there still remained a bar to his elevation; and this was the opposition of the Duke of Somerset, who, though disgraced and unpopular, was still powerful. It is unfortunate to be in the way of a great man's career, and Somerset paid the penalty of his opposition--the common fate of unsuccessful rivals in unsettled times. He was accused of treason, condemned, and executed, (1552.) [Sidenote: Rivalry of the Great Nobles.]