JANE SEYMOUR, Parentage-Birth-Education-Maid of honour to Anne Boleyn-Courted clandestinely by Henry the Eighth-Execution of Anne Boleyn-Marriage of Henry and Jane-Progress to London-Jane is introduced to court as Queen-Her pretended royal descent-Hypocrisy of the King encouraged by parliament--The crown settled on Jane's descent-Jane's friendship for the Princess Mary-Her coronation contemplated-Her quiet, passive conduct-She takes to her chamberHer great sufferings-Henry's desire to save the child at the expense of her lifeShe gives birth to Edward the Sixth-Christening-Jane's illness-Death-Lying in state-Burial-Henry the Eighth's mourning-The Bishop of Durham's letter of condolence-Henry the Eighth buried by the side of June-Monument begun but never finished. ANE SEYMOUR, the third consort of Henry the Eighth, was the eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour, of Wolf Hall, Wilts, and Margaret, daughter of Sir John Wentworth, of Nettlestead in Suffolk. The Seymours, a Norman family, came to England with William the Conqueror, and increased their wealth and influence by alliances with rich heiresses of noble blood. For several centuries they only took rank as second-rate gentry, and although some of the name served as high sheriffs for Wilts and others were knighted in the Frenco wars, in no instance had a Seymour obtained historical celebrity, or been returned as Knight of the Shire. Jane was born about the year 1504. Her career up to the period when she won Henry's heart, is involved in obscurity. A full-length portrait of her by Holbein, in the royal collection at Versailles, entitled maid of honour to Mary of England, Queen to Louis the Twelfth, and placed by the side of that of Anne Boleyn, which bears the like designation. has given rise to the conjecture that she finished her education at the court of France, in the service of Queen Mary Tudor, and subsequently of Queen Claude, and renders it at least probable that she and Anne Boleyn proceeded together to France, lived there under the same roof, and returned to England at the same time. Whether she ever entered the service of Katherine of Arragon, is problematical. Nor is it known when, or by whom she was placed as maid of honour to Anne Foleyn. Wyatt says she was introduced to court for the express purpose of stealing the King's affections from his once idolized Queen, Anne; and many circumstances On the morning of Anne's execution, Henry attired for the chase, and attended by his huntsmen, waited in the neighbourhood of Epping or Richmond --tradition points to both these places conspire to render this statement pro- historians iaud her discretion, her mobable. Her beauty and lack of morai desty, and her virtue; but on what prinrectitude rendered her a nit instrument | cipies of morality it is difficult to confor such a purpose. Her sister, Eliza-ceive. She accented the addresses of beth, had married the son of the cratty, the husband of her mistress, knowing climbing secretary, Cromwell; it was, him to be such; and scrupied not to therefore, to his especial interest that walk over the corpse of Anne to the she should share the throne of his sove- throne. True, she retired to her materreign. Her two brothers, both esquires nal home, at Wolf Hall, whilst the of the King's person, were ambitious tragedy which consummated the demen, eager in the pursuit of fortune, and struction of Anne was played out; but willing to sacrifice their sister's beauty it was only to prepare the gay attire and to their own personal advantage; and the sumptuous banquet to celebrate her there is too much reason to believe that marriage with the ruthless King, whilst she had powerful aid from the Duke of the blood was yet warm in the lifeless Norfolk and his party, who detested the form of the ill-fated Anne. Queen, and strenuously opposed the reformation. But, however this may be, Henry had been the husband of Anne Boleyn only about two years, when real or pretended suspicions of her fidelity, induced him to slight her, and shortly afterwards to pay clandestine court to Jane Seymour. If tradition is to be accredited, Jane had been introduced to court but a short time, when the Queen seeing a splendid jewel suspended from her neck, expressed a wish to look at it. Jane blushed, and drew back; when the Queen, whose jealousy had already been aroused against her, violently snatched it from her neck; and, on examining it, found it to contain a miniature of the King, presented by himself to her fair rival. Whether Anne Boleyn tamely submitted to this breach of her husband's conjugal vow, has not been recorded; she certainly was too hasty to bear her wrongs in silence; and when, a few days after the burial of Katherine of Arragon, she accidentally discovered Jane seated on the King's knee, and receiving his caresses with complacency, she became mad with passion, and threatening Jane with the deepest revenge, ordered her in stantly to depart from her presence, and to quit the court for ever. Jane, being a woman of consummate art, and having already advanced to the very threshold of the throne, despised the threats, and disregarded the orders of her angry mistress. Aware that her star was in the ascendant, she scrupled not to obtain her elevation by the destruction of Anne and five unfortunate noblemen. Our and immediately he heard the boom of the signal gun, which was to assure him that she breathed no more, exclaimed in exultation, "Uncouple the hounds, and away!" and paying no regard to the direction taken by the game. galloped off with his courtiers at full speed to Wolf Hall, which he reached at night-fall. Early the next morning, Saturday, May the twentieth, 1536, and attired in the gay robes of a bridegroom, he conducted Jane Seymour to the altar of Tottenham church, Wilts, and in the presence of Sir John Russell, and other members of his obsequious privy council, made her his bride. From Wolf Hall, the wedding party proceeded through Winchester, by an easy journey, to London; on the twenty-ninth of May, a great court was held, at which Jane was introduced as Queen. Feasts, jousts, and other entertainments in honour of the royal nuptials followed; and Sir Edward Seymour was created Viscount Beauchamp, and Sir Walter Hungerford received the title of Lord Hungerford. where Henry pretended, for it was but a pretence, that Jane, through her mother Margaret, had descended from the royal blood of England; and Cranmer, having no desire to dispute the matter with hin, on the very day that Anne Boleyn was beheaded, granted a dispensation for whilst the Protestants, equaily actuated by party motives, have extolled her, not from any real merit, on her part, but | solely from complaisance to her son. Edward the Sixth, and to her brother, Somerset. Jane whilst Queen, warned by the fate of Anne Boleyn, of the impropriety of a too great freedom of speech and manners, took to the opposite extreme, put a bridle on her tongue, and led such a passive existence, that until the birth of her son, we have nothing of importance to record of her. In June, 1536, she accompanied the King to see the procession of the city watch. In the sharply freezing January of 1537, she crossed the frozen Thames with him on horseback to Greenwich palace; and she went with him in the spring to Canterbury, his purpose being to see that the shrine of Thomas à Becket had been demolished, and that he was not cheated out of his share of the plunder. nearness of kin, between Jane and Henry, | to Anne Boleyn, that the Catholic writers the latter of whom. be the relationship have lavished such praise on Queen Jane, what it might, certainly obtained by this marriage a brother-in-law who bore the not very aristocratic name of Smith, and another (the son of Cromweil), whose grandfather was a blacksmith at Putney. A few days afterwards, the King summoned a new parliament; and he there, in his speech, made a merit to his people that notwithstanding the misfortunes at tending his two former marriages, he had been induced, for their good, to venture on a third. The speaker, the notorious Richard Rich, received this hypocritical profession with complacency; and he took thence occasion to load his oration with the most fulsome and false flattery of the King, comparing him for justice and prudence to Solomon, for strength and fortitude to Samson, and for beauty and comeliness to Absolom. The King replied by the mouth of the Lord Chancellor Audley, that he disavowed these praises, since if he were really possessed of such endowments, they were the gift of Almighty God only. This obsequious parliament, being willing to go any length in encouraging the King's vices, and in gratifying his most lawless passions, ratified his divorce from Anne Boleyn, attainted that Queen and all her accomplices, declared the issue of both his former marriages illegitimate, made it treason to assert their legitimacy or throw any slander upon the present King, Queen, or their issue; settled the crown upon the King's issue by Jane Seymour, or any subsequent wife, and in case he should die without children, empowered him by his will or letters patent, to dispose of the crown;-an enormous authority, especially when entrusted to so capricious. so self-willed a tyrant as Henry the Eighth. Before her marriage, Jane Seymour was personally acquainted with the Princess Mary. Afterwards she remained on terms of friendship with her, and although Cromwell was the real agent, Jane was the ostensible mediatrix of the reconciliation between Henry and the Princess Mary. It is on account of this partial intercession for Henry's ill-used daughter, and also out of malevolence Henry, was particularly desirous that Jane Seymour should receive the honours of a coronation; but the prevalence of the plague a: Westrainster, and Jane's advanced state of pregnancy, caused the ceremony to be put off till after her confinement, when her unexpected death prevented her from being crowned at all. The Queen took to her chamber, at Hampton Court, on the sixteenth of September, 1537. She was taken in travail on the eleventh of October. Her sufferings were severe, and at length, on the following day, her physicians, through one of her female attendants, admonished Henry of her dangerous condition, and asked whether he would wish the mother or the child to be saved? "If you cannot save both, at least let the child live," was Henry's characteristic reply; "for other wives are easily found' A few hours afterwards, Jane was safely delivered of a Prince (afterwards King Edward the Sixth); and the appearance of the long-desired heir to the throne so intoxicated the King and the court, that, overlooking the very delicate |