Are we too severe upon this lady, by thus divesting her of the ancient trappings of renown that she has worn undisturbed for ages? Surely not: for if in the eyes of woman the rule of right is to be perverted by the false lights of a political influence, how is upright conduct to be appreciated, or where on earth to be found? There is a woe, and a bitter one, denounced against those who call good evil, and evil good.

The sixteenth century abounded with examples of glorious resistance to evil effected by female virtue; and let us not place the passively wicked Jane Seymour on the same historical pedestal as the nobly independent Jane Grey, or the suffering Anne Askew. Neither let us scruple to visit with just abhorrence that adultery of the mind, which caused Jane Seymour to be wooed and won while Henry's wife was living; since short time for courting there was between Anna Boleyn's dying and Jane Seymour's wedding day for the former occurred on the 19th, and the latter on the 20th of May, 1536. Henry was married to Jane Seymour at Wolfhall, in Wiltshire: a fact scarcely mentioned in history. He was thus absent from the metropolis at the time of Anna Boleyn's execution; so that humanity was spared the outrage of seeing the wedding and murder going on in the same vicinity on two succeeding days. Henry paid Jane the compliment of marrying her at her family residence.

The family of St. Maur, or St. Martha, now called Seymour, came originally from a town of the same name in Normandy. Their ancestor followed the fortunes of William the Conqueror, and shared in his success. We find this notice in Camden, in his account of Monmouthshire: Not far from Caldecot are Woundy and Penhow, the seats of the illustrious family of St. Maur, now corruptly called Seymour. About the year 1240, Gilbert Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, aided William St. Maur to wrest Woundy from the Welsh; and St. Maur kept possession by the law of the strongest. The Seymours in the next century increased their consequence by marrying an heiress of one of the branches of the illustrious family of the Beauchamps."

Mistress Jane Seymour, as she is called in chronicle, was the third daughter of Sir John Seymour, of Wolfhall, in Wiltshire, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Wentworth, of Nettlested, in Suf

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folk her father, previous to her elevation, held the situation of governor of Bristol Castle.

The first occurrence known with any certainty of this lady is that she was one of the maids of honour to Anna Boleyn; and as it is said that the friendship of these ladies was of long continuance, it is probable that this attendance commenced before the marriage of Anna, since we find she had other ladies of as good a family as the Seymours in her household while the divorce was pending, and Anna held the chains of the fickle king's fancy. king's fancy. At this time Jane Seymour was her favourite friend, and, if we may judge from Holbein's pictures, nearly the same age with her unfortunate mis

tress.

That Anna Boleyn was a zealous protestant is well known; and with the ardour and energy of her decisive character, she laboured to convert all around her to the protestant faith, and from her Jane Seymour received the first principles of protestantism. It is to be feared that both the friends were partisans of a fierce controversy, rather than true disciples of the pure reformed religion. Had the faith of either reached as far as conscience, Anna would have shrunk with horror from the passion of the king, the husband of the virtuous Catherine; while Jane in her turn would not have received the king's adulterous addresses, with the further aggravation that he was the husband of her benefactress, the friend of her youth. The religion of each must have been selfended, or it would have produced purer conduct. These ladies, then, instead of being regarded as the pillars and promoters of our church, are, if tried by the inflexible rule of right and wrong, its shame and reproach; for they made religion a party to their own selfish views. Reformation must per force have taken place in England about that era; and it is the worst sorrow of the Church of England, that catholicism received its first blow from the vile passions of Henry VIII. Conscientious protestants mourned it then they mourn it now, and with deep reason; for the abuses that Henry's wickedness interwove with the Reformation, are the excuses which the enemies of the Church of England ever plead in order to effect her destruction.

We have said that Anna Boleyn was an active agent in obtaining protestant

converts, and one little anecdote will show that in her own household she left nothing undone which could promote the work of controversy. It is related by Strype. During the time of Henry's courtship of Anna Boleyn, while the divorce was pending, Anna was attended with little less than royal state. Among the ladies of her retinue there was a fair young gentlewoman named Gaynsford; and her equerry was George Zouch, a young gentleman of noble lineage; between these two some affection presently sprang up, and in the course of their "love tricks," George one day snatched a book from the hands of Mistress Gaynsford, who was busily reading instead of attending to him. It was a book that her mistress Anna Boleyn had lent her, strictly charging her to read it in order to complete her conversion to the protestant faith. This book was one of Tindal's forbidden works, which Wolsey had carefully concealed from the king; and he had taken measures, in the unsettled state of his mind in regard to religion, that Henry should never see it. George Zouch kept the book from Mrs. Gaynsford, in order that it might never engage her attention from him: again the young lady with tears and prayers begged him to restore it to her, but as George liked to be implored by her he loved, he remained perversely obstinate, and kept it to tease her. One day when he was at service in the King's chapel, he took it into his head to read the book of his beloved, and was entirely captivated with the style. The dean of the chapel, desirous to see what the young gentleman was perusing with so much attention, snatched it out of his hand, and finding that it was the forbidden protestant book, he carried it to Cardinal Wolsey. Meantime Anna Boleyn questioned the young lady respecting the book she had lent her, whereupon the girl, terrified at the loss of a book of so much consequence, fell on her knees, and confessed that her lover had stolen it, and tormented her by keeping it from her. Anna Boleyn sent for the culprit, and inquired into the matter; and when she heard the fate of her book, she was not angry with the young lovers; "but," said she, "it shall be the dearest book that ever dean or cardinal took away." Then hastening to the king, she entreated that Henry would interpose to recover the stolen volume; a request with which the monarch

instantly complied. The first use Anna Boleyn made of her restored treasure was, to entreat the king to read it; the king complied, and said that "it was fit for him and all kings to read." The perusal of this book is supposed to have settled Henry's wavering mind, in regard to the great change that followed.

From this circumstance may be gathered, that the active mind of Anna Boleyn was constantly employed in converting all around her to the protestant doctrines; and to her may be traced the conversion of Jane Seymour, who succeeded her unhappy mistress as head of the protestant party, which was necessarily the political as well as religious faith of the Seymour family, seeing that it was opposed to the catholic, who considered the Princess Mary as rightful heiress to the crown. When Queen Anna Boleyn lost her boy by a premature confinement, it is said that the accident was occasioned by the bitter grief the queen felt at witnessing the attentions that the king paid to her friend Jane Seymour, whereby she well knew that she had lost his fickle heart. Unfortunately the king had constantly the opportunity of beholding the dangerous beauty of Jane in the intimate intercourse of private life, owing to the affection that Anna ever cherished for her, which caused her to have her insidious rival ever near her. Jane Seymour was the court beauty, though very little younger than Anna Boleyn, having seen only her thirtieth year. It is already mentioned that Jane Seymour espoused the king the very day after the murder of her friend. * In the eyes of some this may not appear a degree more atrocious than Anna Boleyn's conduct to the admirable Queen Catherine, whom she supplanted; but it must be remembered that there were no ties of early love between them they had never taken "sweet counsel together, or been familiar

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friends."

The Seymours were a climbing family; and Queen Jane, and her celebrated brothers, sacrificed every kindly feeling of the heart to ambition: for Jane the queen, Thomas the lord high admiral, and Edward duke of Somerset and Protector, fell in turn miserable victims to their pride of place.

At Wolfhall, her father's seat, in Wiltshire, whither Henry went during the execution of Anna Boleyn.

Jane Seymour enjoyed the throne of her wretched friend little more than a year. Her advancement opened an extraordinary career of honours to her handsome aspiring brothers. Whatever was done in the political world was effected by them; the queen remained a quiet cipher; and the only circumstance recorded of her is, that, in company with Henry, she once rode across the Thames from Westminster to Greenwich, when it was frozen over in 1537.

On the 12th of October, 1537, she gave birth to the long-desired heir to the English throne. To aggravate the imputation of brutality justly affixed to the conduct of Henry on many occasions, some writers have assigned as the cause of Jane Seymour's death, the anxiety of Henry to save his child, and that he mercilessly commanded that the wretched mother should be sacrificed for the well-being of the infant. Such were the reports of the day: though they were attributed to the calumnies of the papists, such conduct was but too like the monster, and is corroborated by the death of the unfortunate lady. The birth of Edward VI. and the death of his mother took place at Hampton Court-that magnificent palace which the rapacious king had a few years before wrested from Cardinal Wolsey, and he himself newly fixed his residence therein.

The infant prince was born on the morning of the vigil of St. Edward; and this young professor of protestantism was named after one of the most catholic saints in the calendar, Edward the Confessor, who was likewise considered as his patron saint. His birth was hailed with great rejoicings by the populace. The baptismal service was performed on the day of the infant's birth, apparently after the catholic ritual, in the chapel of Hampton Palace; and to make the scene more extraordinary, Archbishop Cranmer and the catholic Duke of Norfolk stood godfathers to the infant; and his sister the Lady Mary, afterwards the queen, of persecuting memory, answered as godmother to her baby brother, holding him in her arms during the service, and perhaps wishing all the time to strangle him. The font, which was of silver, was guarded by Sir John Russell, Sir Francis Brian, Sir Nicholas Carewe, and Sir Anthony Brown, in aprons, with towels about their shoulders. And figuring in this ceremony we find the

wretched father of Anna Boleyn, Sir Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, who bore a great wax taper, and wore a towel about his neck. * The Princess Elizabeth, then an infant not three years old, was carried by Edward Seymour, the brother of the dying Queen Jane. The office of the little princess was to bear the chrysm, the white robe in which infants that are baptised are enveloped, according to the catholic ceremonial. The Marchioness of Exeter followed with the child, which she held till it was transferred to the godmother. When the ceremony had been performed, and the gifts offered at the font, the unconscious infant was borne in state to the apartment of the queen, to receive the blessing of its dying mother.

After lingering in great agony about thirty-six hours, Jane Seymour expired, Oct. 14, 1537.

The next ceremony that occupied the attention of the court was her funeral, which was performed with the utmost splendour. The order for the interment is dated the 29th of October, at the Herald's-office, where she is designated "most high, most excellent, and most Christian princess." Unlike her unhappy predecessor Anna Boleyn, she was not hurried to an obscure grave, but conveyed with great pomp to Windsor, and buried in the middle of the choir of the chapel of St. George. At St. Paul's, and at every parish church in London, masses and dirges were performed for this protestant lady after the catholic ritual. The king still wore mourning for her when he kept Christmas at Greenwich, nor did the court change this mournful garb till after Candlemas-day following. It is singular to remark, that the Princess Mary officiated at the funeral of her protestant mother-in-law, as well as at the baptism of her brother. Indeed, there seems to have been between these ladies an extraordinary intimacy, perhaps as much induced by Mary's hatred of Anna Boleyn, as by the pliable expediency of Jane's disposition, which

The next day the Earl of Wiltshire was summoned to surrender all his places at court to the new favourites, Edward and Thomas Seymour; he had clung to his preferment till that hour. Six months afterwards, he died broken-hearted at Blickling-hall, Norfolk, not for the loss of his gallant heir, George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, or the tragical fate of his daughter Queen Anna, but owing to his own' disgrace at court.

appears truly of that smooth unfeeling quality that courtiers of either sex are known to possess in a peculiar degree. Jane Seymour was the only one out of all Henry's wives whose memory received the marks of respect that are usually paid (out of decency at least) by widowers: nay, he carried his regard so far, as to remain unwedded two whole years, declaring that Queen Jane had been so loving, dutiful, and meek a spouse, that he felt no inclination to wed immediately, although he had received very good offers. Lord Herbert declares Jane Seymour to have been the discreetest, fairest, and humblest of all Henry's wives!! Henry left in his will that he was to be buried at Windsor, by the side of the mother of his heir. He had erected there a monument for himself and his wife,

which was never wholly completed, owing to the state of exhaustion in which he had left his treasury; and during the civil wars it was pulled down, and sold for the value of the brass. The coffins of Henry and Jane Seymour were discovered in the choir, when Charles I. was buried, and more recently, during the search that George IV., when Regent, made for the burial-place of Charles I.

Southey, in his funeral song for the Princess Charlotte, which certainly is the finest poem that has been written by any laureate on any subject belonging to his peculiar vocation, thus alludes to the grave of Jane Seymour at Windsor, and draws withal a brief and spirited sketch of the evil doings of her detestable husband:

DESCRIPTION OF THE PORTRAIT.

The chaperon is of black velvet, faced with fawn-coloured velvet, barred with gold: the point behind does not hang down as in the portrait of Anna Boleyn, but a fold of the velvet falls on the right shoulder like a lappet; the border of the head dress is a five-cornered frame of gold, studded with pearls; there are two cross folds of fawn-coloured gauze next the forehead. The dress is a superb robe of crimson velvet, with a square corsage, bordered with gold and pearls set in twos. The rebras sleeves are exceedingly graceful in form, they give a very fine fall to the shoulders; they are of fawncoloured figured plush, or velvet. The under sleeves are of the same material with the dress; they fit close to the arm, but are slashed at the wrist. The skirt of the dress is cut with a train; and robing back, faced with fawn-coloured velvet like the sleeves, it shows a white figured damask petticoat, bordered with gold. The jewels are a necklace of pearls, and

a magnificent owche of emeralds on the chest, from which depend three pear pearls. The cordeliere is of pearls, and emerald medallions of wrought gold, finishing with a rich ornament of emeralds set in gold, and a pear pearl drop. The gloves are of tanned leather, worked and cuffed with gold. It appears that Jane Seymour did not alter the taste in dress introduced by the unfortunate Anna Boleyn, since there is an apparent likeness in general fashion to the costume of Anna Boleyn, although the dress is still richer and the materials more costly. The satins and velvets of that era were of surprising beauty and durability: they were exceedingly expensive, and the European courts were supplied with them from Venice and Genoa; and these cities chiefly imported them from the coast as articles of commerce, although some were manufactured by them.

Jane Seymour, third queen of Henry VIII., King of England, married 1536 -died 1537.