_Attainder of Lord Seymour._--It soon became evident that, if the new administration had not fully imbibed the sanguinary spirit of their late master, they were as little scrupulous in bending the rules of law and justice to their purpose in cases of treason. The Duke of Somerset, nominated by Henry only as one of his sixteen executors, obtained almost immediately afterwards a patent from the young king, who during his minority was certainly not capable of any valid act, constituting him sole regent under the name of protector, with the assistance indeed of the rest as his counsellors, but with the power of adding any others to their number. Conscious of his own usurpation, it was natural for Somerset to dread the aspiring views of others; nor was it long before he discovered a rival in his brother, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, whom, according to the policy of that age, he thought it necessary to destroy by a bill of attainder. Seymour was apparently a dangerous and unprincipled man; he had courted the favour of the young king by small presents of money, and appears beyond question to have entertained a hope of marrying the Princess Elizabeth, who had lived much in his house during his short union with the queen dowager. It was surmised that this lady had been poisoned to make room for a still nobler consort.[50] But in this there could be no treason; and it is not likely that any evidence was given which could have brought him within the statute of Edward III. In this prosecution against Lord Seymour, it was thought expedient to follow the very worst of Henry's precedents, by not hearing the accused in his defence. The bill passed through the upper house, the natural guardian of a peer's life and honour, without one dissenting voice. The Commons addressed the king that they might hear the witnesses, and also the accused. It was answered that the king did not think it necessary for them to hear the latter, but that those who had given their depositions before the Lords might repeat their evidence before the lower house. It rather appears that the Commons did not insist on this any farther; but the bill of attainder was carried with a few negative voices.[51] How striking a picture it affords of the sixteenth century, to behold the popular and well-natured Duke of Somerset, more estimable at least than any statesman employed under Edward, not only promoting this unjust condemnation of his brother, but signing the warrant under which he was beheaded!