First Statute of Repeal First Statute of Repeal The First Statute of Repeal was an Act of the Parliament of England (1 Mary, st. 2, c. 2), passed in 1553 in the first Parliament of Mary I of England's reign, nullified all religious legislation passed under the previous monarch, the boy-King Edward VI, and the "de facto" rulers of that time, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. Elizabeth I's Act of Uniformity nullified this act, stating that "at the death of our late sovereign lord King Edward VI there remained one uniform order of common service and
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset had Somerset arrested and brought the king to Richmond. Edward summarised the charges against Somerset in his "Chronicle": "ambition, vainglory, entering into rash wars in mine youth, negligent looking on Newhaven, enriching himself of my treasure, following his own opinion, and doing all by his own authority, etc." In February 1550, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, emerged as the leader of the Council and, in effect, as Somerset's successor. Although Somerset was released from the Tower and restored to the Council in early 1550, he was executed for felony in January 1552 after scheming to overthrow Dudley's regime. Edward noted