The king did not leave the world without expressing his views on the future with elaborate explicitness. He spent the day before his death in conversation with Lord Hertford and Sir William Paget on the condition of the country. By separate and earnest messages he commended Prince Edward to the care both of Charles V. and of Francis I. The earl, on the morning of Henry's death, hastened off to bring up the prince, who was in Hertfordshire with the Princess Elizabeth, and in the afternoon of Monday, the 31st, he arrived at the Tower with Edward. The Council was already in session, and Hertford was appointed protector during the minority of Edward. Thus, the reforming Protestant party was in full power. Cranmer set the willing example, and the other prelates consented, or were compelled to imitate him, in an acknowledgment that all jurisdiction, ecclesiastical as well as secular, within the realm, only emanated from the sovereign. On February it was ordered in council that Hertford should be Duke of Somerset, and that his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, should be Lord Seymour of Sudleye; Lord Parr was to be Marquis of Northampton; Lord Wriothesley, the chancellor, Earl of Southampton; and Viscount Lisle was to be Earl of Warwick. The Duke of Somerset was the young king's uncle, and the real power was at once in his hands. But if he was ambitious, it was only--as he persuaded himself--to do good. _Edward's Guardian_ Under his rule the spirit of iconoclasm spread fast, and the reformation proceeded to completion. Churches were cleared of images, and crucifixes were melted into coin. Somerset gave the popular movement the formal sanction of the Government. Injunctions were issued for the general purification of the churches. The Book of Homilies was issued as a guide to doctrine, care was taken that copies of the Bible were accessible in the parish churches, and translations of Erasmus's "Paraphrase of the New Testament" were provided as a commentary.