A NOTICE OF THE LIFE OF

JANE SEYMOUR,

THIRD QUEEN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.

BY THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

If the ascent of Anne Boleyn to the throne of Henry the Eighth met with well-merited censure, as being purchased at the heavy cost of misery to that good and virtuous queen, Catherine of Arragon, whose repudiation, and the ingratitude, insults, and cruelties that preceded and followed it, broke the proud and loyal heart of the noble Spaniard, what can be said of the successor of the hapless Anne, Jane Seymour, who mounted the steps of the throne still ensanguined with the warm life-blood of her predecessor? That blood-shed only the previous day, and which might never have been shed had not the selfish and cruel Henry sought to remove the only obstacle to the gratification of his passion for Jane Seymour1-was hardly cold, when, forgetting all womanly feeling and decency, Jane plighted her troth to the widower of a day-the self-made widower, too!-who had condemned his wife's head to the block. As Anne Boleyn betrayed her mistress Queen Catherine, and wiled away from her the affection of the king, so did Jane Seymour win from Anne the fickle heart of Henry, and, indifferent to the anguish she

"Deux passions s'étoient en un même temps emparées de l'esprit du roi un amour violent pour Jeanne Seymour, l'une des filles d'honneur de la reine, et une extrême jalousie pour la reine sa femme. Il y a beaucoup d'apparence que celle-ci fut une suite ou une dépendence de l'autre.”—Rapin, livre xv. page 376.

inflicted, and the violent death which she must have known would follow, to make place for her on the throne, thought only of gratifying her own pride and ambition.

Of all the acts of cruelty of Henry—and they were neither "few nor far between "-there is no one more revolting than these blood-stained nuptials, the unseemly haste of which have led many impartial readers to disbelieve the crimes of which Anne Boleyn was accused, and to attribute the charges brought against her to Henry's desire to possess her unfeeling rival.'

Like Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour is said to have resided some years in the French court, and to have filled a similar position in the regal retinue of Princess Mary of England, queen to Louis the Twelfth. A portrait of her, in the royal collection at Versailles, simply labelled as maid of honour to that queen, appears to be the proof adduced of her residence in France; and as this portrait is a pendant to one of Anne Boleyn, both painted by Holbein, and in similar habiliments, the evidence, if not quite conclusive, may be received as probable.

Jane Seymour descended from an ambitious, as well as a noble family, at least, on the maternal side, claimed alliance even with kingly blood. Whether Henry really believed in the truth of this claim, disputed by able genealogists, or that he wished to give distinction to the object of his choice, certain it is that he applied for and obtained a dispensation, on the ground of kindred, for his marriage with his third queen. It was not only on this occasion that Henry sought to make it appear that the object of his affection had claim to

1 "Henri avoit acquis un tel empire sur ses sujets, que la justice et les loix ne se mesuroient plus qu'à sa volonté. Il prenoit même si peu de soin de ménager le public et sa propre réputation, qu'il épousa Jeanne Seymour des le lendemain de la mort d'Anne de Bollen; en quoi il marqua une passion qui ne servit peu à justifier la défuncte reine."-Rapin, livre xv. page 384.

royal blood, for when he ennobled Anne Boleyn by creating her Marchioness of Pembroke,' he took care that the patent should contain an allusion to this point, by its stating that a sovereign should surround his throne with many peers, the worthiest of both sexes, especially those who are of royal blood. There is no doubt this creation was but a preface to the regal dignity to which he was bent on elevating her, and the terms of the patent a sort of excuse to his subjects for the inequality of the future queen he meant to give them; for, blinded as he was by his passion, he could not but be sensible that his wedding a subject must give dissatisfaction. How must the heart of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn have trembled, and her conscience smote her, when she discovered that one of her own maids of honour was enacting towards her the treacherous part that she had played towards her royal mistress Catherine! And yet, although both Anne and Jane were alike culpable in listening to the guilty vows of a married man—the husband, too, of their good queen-Anne Boleyn was less blameable than Jane, for Anne sought not the love of Henry-nay, more, retired from the court to avoid it, and had it not been for the efforts and interference of Cardinal Wolsey, urged on by Henry, would have become the wife of Percy, the object of her affection. Long did she cherish this passion, and resist all the vows with which Henry pursued her; while Jane Seymour secretly laid herself out to attract the king and win him from Queen Anne, conscious, as she must have been, of the destruction it must bring down on her unhappy mistress. It is said, that such faith did Anne place in the love of the king, that no suspicion of his growing tenderness for another dawned on her mind until the fearful truth broke on it by detecting her rival in so familiar a

Strickland's Queens of England, vol. iv. page 221.

position with Henry,' and so unresistingly receiving his caresses, that no doubt could be left that this habit of dalliance had been of some date. Other authors assert that the discovery was made by Anne's seeing a valuable ornament worn by Jane, which, wishing to examine more closely, Jane betrayed so much embarrassment, that the queen, growing suspicious, snatched it, and found it contained the portrait of the king: but we incline to the first statement. The queen was then about to become a mother; and such was the shock her frame sustained by the discovery of the infidelity of her husband, that a premature labour came on, during the pangs of which her life was in great danger, and, instead of presenting an heir to his crown, so longed for by Henry, she gave birth to a still-born son, whose life was destroyed by the mental anguish of his mother. This last event—the consequence of his own conduct—instead of exciting any pity in the breast of the selfish Henry, broke the tie that bound him to his slighted wife. Had she given him a living heir to his throne, she might have lived on a neglected wife, spared for the sake of their son; but now he saw in her but the obstacle to the gratification of his passion for a newer flame, and while not yet two years his wife, he felt impatient to drive her from the throne to which he had raised her. There is something peculiarly dreadful in the fact, that while this lately-cherished object of his passionate love was enduring all the misery of a fallen favourite and a degraded wife, deserted by those who had flattered and hourly bent the knee before her-nay, more, denied the solace of solitude, and continually harassed by the presence of her triumphant enemies?—Henry was impatiently waiting the condemnation

1 Strickland's Queens of England, vol. iv. page 252.

2 "On fit coucher dans sa chambre Madame Bollen, femme de son oncle, avec laquelle elle étoit extrêmement brouillée."-Rapin, page 378.