The prisoner himself confessed that he had expressed his intention of murdering Northumberland and the other lords; but had not formed any resolution on that head: and when he received sentence, he asked pardon of those peers for the designs which he had hearkened to against them.

The people, by whom Somerset was beloved, hearing the first part of his sentence, by which he was acquitted from treason, expressed their joy by loud acclamations: but their satisfaction was suddenly damped on finding that he was condemned to death for felony.[*] {1552.} Care had been taken by Northumberland's emissaries to prepossess the young king against his uncle; and lest he should relent, no access was given to any of Somerset's friends, and the prince was kept from reflection by a continued series of occupations and amusements.

At last the prisoner was brought to the scaffold on Tower Hill, amidst great crowds of spectators, who bore him such sincere kindness, that they entertained to the last moment the fond hopes of his pardon.[**] Many of them rushed in to dip their hand-kerchiefs in his blood, which they long preserved as a precious relic; and some of them soon after, when Northumberland met with a like doom, upbraided him with this cruelty, and displayed to him these symbols of his crime.

Somerset indeed, though many actions of his life were exceptionable, seems in general to have merited a better fate; and the faults which he committed were owing to weakness, not to any bad intention.

His virtues were better calculated for private than for public life; and by his want of penetration and firmness, he was ill fitted to extricate himself from those cabals and violences to which that age was so much addicted.