to be conveyed to the Tower. When, therefore, the chancellor appeared, with forty of the poursuivants, he saw, with astonishment, the King and Queen conversing amicably together in the garden. Henry forgetting, or chusing to forget, his orders of the preceding day, treated him with the greatest severity, and with a liberal bestowal of the opprobious appellations of knave, fool, and beast, commanded him to depart his presence. Such, it may be presumed, was the manner with which this boisterous tyrant behaved to men of the first rank, and his most confidential ministers. Catherine would have interposed to mitigate his anger, but he said to her, "Poor soul, you know not how little this man is entitled to your good offices." From that time, the Queen having escaped the danger which so nearly threatened her, forebore even the slightest opposition to his wild and capricious humours. As his infirmities increased, she attended him with the most tender and affectionate care; and endeavoured, by every soothing art and compliance, to allay the violent gusts of passion to which he was become so subject. But, though thus sufficiently fortunate in appeasing resentment when directed against herself, she was unable to save those whom she most respected. Catherine and Cranmer excepted, the King punished, with the most unfeeling rigour, all who presumed to differ from him in religious opinions; but, more especially, in that capital tenet, transubstantiation. It may be said, and the words are not to be considered as metaphorical, that almost every day witnessed the execution of some illustrious or obscure victim to his political suspicions, or religious barbarity. At length the death of Henry liberated his subjects from the terrors by which they were continually assailed. The Queen-Dowager retired from court, and appears to have resumed her station in private life, with her customary calmness and serenity. The sum of 4000l. bequeathed to her by Henry's will, was all the advantage she derived from having been Queen of England. This, with the possessions she still held, as widow of Lord Latimer, must have composed a very moderate income, even in these days, and cannot but appear inconsistent with the dignity to which she had been elevated. It is remarkable, indeed, that the King, who had appointed no less than sixteen executors to his will, some of them of a degree inferior to a knight, and a numerous council for the management of affairs, during the minority of Edward the Sixth, with his usual caprice, overlooked the unaspiring merit of his illustrious consort, whose rank seemed to point her out as the only proper regent of his kingdoms, and whose sagacity and prudence might have prevented, or abated, much of the party violence which succeeded his death. That she was not so appointed-that her name never occurs in the political occurrences of those times-may be acribed to the unambitious serenity of her mind. Her character, and the remembrance of her former rank, were sufficient to enforce respect; and she might have long adorned a peaceful and happy retirement, had she not, in an evil hour, too hastily given her hand to Seymour. Thomas Seymour, Lord Admiral of England, was the younger brother of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset; who, notwithstanding the provisions in the late King's will, had acquired the supreme direction of government, under the title of Protector. The character of the two brothers were essentially different. The Protector, of a mild and moderate temper, appears to have been raised ID ENGLAND.] • CATHERINE PARR. to his high station, from the consideration of his rank,, as uncle to the young King, rather than by any exertions of his own. The Admiral was a man of insatiable ambition-arrogant, assuming, implacable-and, though supposed to be possessed of superior abilities to the Duke, did not, in the same degree, enjoy the confidence and affection of the people. By his flattery and address, he so insinuated himself into the good graces of the QueenDowager, that, forgetting her usual prudence and regard to decency, she married him very soon after the demise of the late King. She is suspected, indeed, of having favoured his addresses before her marriage with Henry; upon whose death, her love for Seymour revived. Her marriage with him was privately celebrated; but it took place so soon, that it is said, had she proved early pregnant, it would have been doubtful whose child it was. This hasty union was, however, extremely unfortunate, and proved a source of continual uneasiness to Catherine. The credit of such an alliance had gratified the ambition of the Admiral, but it had also given umbrage to the Duchess of Somerset, his sister-in-law; who, offended that the younger brother's wife should take precedency of her, employed all her influence over her husband, which was too great, first to create, and then to inflame, a quarrel between the two brothers. Seymour engaged in several plots against the regency of Somerset, and seemed openly to aspire to the sole government of the kingdom. In order to attain this object, he endeavoured to seduce the young Edward to his interest-found means to hold a private correspondence with him-and publicly decried the Protector's administration. His designs, however, were discovered before their execution could be accomplished. The mo derate and humane disposition of Somerset, made him willing to overlook these enterprises of the Admiral, and a reconciliation seemed to be effected; but so turbulent a spirit could not be easily appeased. His disappointed ambition increased the acerbity of a disposition naturally reserved and gloomy. The many qualifications he possessed, which had so recently captivated the heart of Catherine, disappeared, or were no longer displayed, when the objects, for which he solicited her hand, were no longer within his grasp. His temper was soured by these occurrences, and vented itself upon his innocent wife. She experienced, from him, the most injurious treatment; and, neither the meekness of her disposition, nor the excellence of her character, could secure her from the indignities which embittered the remainder of her life. It was still further clouded, and, perhaps, shortened, by a more alarming instance of his cruelty and indifference, which disclosed itself only a short time before her death. The ambition of Seymour, the object of her free and voluntary choice, not satisfied with having married the widow of the great Henry, aspired to an alliance with the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of that monarch. He saw the declining health of the young King-he knew that the nation dreaded the accession of the bigotted Mary-and, by paying his court to the Princess Elizabeth, then in her sixteenth year, he hoped one day to become the husband of the reigning Queen, if not King himself. And such a design, daring as it was, might probably have succeeded, had he been allowed more time, and had he been less impetuous in his desires. Elizabeth, whom even the hurry of business, and the pursuits of ambition, could not, in her more ad ENGLAND.] CATHERINE PARR. vanced years, entirely restrain from the more tender passions, seems to have listened to the insinuations of a man, who possessed every talent that could captivate the female heart. The life of Catherine, if that had been the only obstacle, would not long have retarded the success of his measures. The pride of her sisterin-law, and the ill-humour of a husband, whom she adored to the last, were constant sources of uneasiness to this unfortunate woman. A settled grief preyed upon her spirits, and her exhausted frame could not resist this last glaring proof of his infidelity. She was delivered of a daughter, at the Castle of Sudley, in Gloucestershire; and expired seven days afterwards, of a broken heart. Those who knew, or suspected, the ambitious designs of the Admiral, strongly accused him of having rewarded, with poison, the Queen, who had honoured him with her hand. Could the meek and sainted spirit of Catherine have glanced upon futurity-had it been at all susceptible of anger or revenge-it might have rejoiced at the subsequent fate of Seymour; who, in less than six months after her death, was engaged in open acts of rebellion, and whose own brother was, at length, compelled to sign the warrant, which dismissed him to the scaffold. The following epitaph was composed for Catherine, by Dr. Parkhurst, her chaplain: Hoc Regina novo dormit Katherina sepulchro |