court of France. Her portrait in the Louvre as a French maid of honour has given rise to this idea. It is probable that she entered the service of Mary Tudor, which her brother certainly did; for in a list of the persons forming the bridal retinue of that queen, signed by the hand of Louis XII.,1 may be observed, among the children or pages of honour, the son of M. Seymour. This must have been Jane's brother Edward, afterwards so celebrated as the Protector Somerset. He was younger, however, than Jane, and it is very possible that she had an appointment also, though not of such importance as Anne Boleyn, who was grand-daughter to the duke of Norfolk, and was associated with two of the sovereign's kinswomen, the ladies Gray, as maids of honour to Mary queen of France. Jane could boast of no such high connexions as these, and, perhaps from her comparatively inferior birth, did not excite the jealousy of the French monarch like the ladies of maturer years. It is possible that Jane Seymour was promoted to the post of maid of honour in France after the dismissal of the other ladies. Her portrait in the Louvre2 represents her as a beautifully full-formed woman, of nineteen or twenty, and seems an evidence that, like Anne, she had obtained a place subsequently in the household of queen Claude, where she perfected herself in the art of coquetry, though in a more demure way than her unfortunate compeer, Anne Boleyn. It was sir John Seymour3 who first made interest for his daughter to be placed as a maid of honour to Anne Boleyn. Anne Stanhope, afterwards the wife of his eldest son, Edward Seymour, was Jane's associate.

Henry's growing passion for Jane soon awakened suspicion in the mind of queen Anne; it is said that her attention was 1 This document is preserved among the Cotton. MSS.

2 It is a whole-length, and one of Holbein's master-pieces. The face and dress resemble minutely the younger portraits of Jane Seymour in England. It is merely entitled "Maid of honour to Marie d'Angleterre, queen of Louis XII.," and is placed as companion to another, a magnificent whole-length of Anne Boleyn, likewise entitled "Maid of honour to the queen of Louis XII." These two well-known portraits are clad in the same costume, though varied in ornaments and colour; they are not recognised in France as pictures of English queens, but as compagnons suivantes of an English princess, queen of France.

3 Helyin. Fuller's English Worthies, 848.

one day attracted by a jewel which Jane Seymour wore about her neck, and she expressed a wish to look at it. Jane faltered and drew back, and the queen, noticing her hesitation, snatched it violently from her, so violently that she hurt her own hand,' and found that it contained the portrait of the king, which, as she most truly guessed, had been presented by himself to her fair rival. Jane Seymour had far advanced in the same serpentine path which conducted Anne herself to a throne, ere she ventured to accept the picture of her enamoured sovereign, and well assured must she have been of success in her ambitious views before she presumed to wear such a lovetoken in the presence of the queen. Anne Boleyn was not of a temper to bear her wrongs patiently, but Jane Seymour's star was in the ascendant, hers in the decline: her anger was unavailing. Jane maintained her ground triumphantly, even after the disgraceful dénouement which has been related in the biography of Anne Boleyn. One of the king's love-letters to his new favourite seems to have been written while the fallen queen was waiting her doom in prison.

"HENRY VIII. TO JANE SEYMOUR.2

"MY DEAR FRIEND AND MISTRESS,

"The bearer of these few lines from thy entirely devoted servant will deliver into thy fair hands a token of my true affection for thee, hoping you will keep it for ever in your sincere love for me. Advertising you that there is a ballad made lately of great derision against us, which if it go abroad and is seen by you, I pray you to pay no manner of regard to it. I am not at present informed who is the setter forth of this malignant writing; but if he is found out, he shall be straitly punished for it.

"For the things ye lacked, I have minded my lord to supply them to you as soon as he could buy them. Thus hoping shortly to receive you in these arms, I end for the present,

"Your own loving servant and sovereign,

"H. R."

While the last act of that diabolical drama was played out which consummated the destruction of poor Anne, it appears that her rival had the discretion to retreat to her paternal mansion, Wolf-hall, in Wiltshire. There the preparations for

1 Heylin. Fuller's English Worthies, 848.

2 Published by Halliwell, in Letters of the Kings of England, vol. i. p. 353, being his modernised transcript from the Gough MSS. There is no authority as to the depository of the original, but it is in Henry VIII.'s style.-See his letters to Anne Boleyn.

her marriage with Henry VIII. were proceeding with sufficient activity to allow her royal wedlock to take place the day after the executioner had rendered the king a widower. Henry himself remained in the vicinity of the metropolis, awaiting the accomplishment of that event. The traditions of Richmondpark and Epping-forest quote each place as the locale where he waited for the announcement of his wife's death. Richmondpark has decidedly the best claim, for the spot pointed out is a promontory of the highest portion of the cliff or ridge commanding the valley of the Thames, called Richmond-hill. About a quarter of a mile to the left of the town an extensive view to the west reposes under the eye. The remains of the oak beneath which Henry VIII. stood are now enclosed in the grounds at present occupied by lord John Russell, therefore we were prevented from personally examining this historical spot. Yet its geographical features could be ascertained, and they prove that Henry was a full hour nearer Wiltshire than if he had started from the hunting-tower at Pleshet, near East Ham.1 On the morning of the 19th of May, Henry VIII., attired for the chase, with his huntsmen and hounds around him, was standing under the spreading oak, breathlessly awaiting the signal-gun from the Tower which was to announce that the sword had fallen on the neck of his once entirely beloved Anne Boleyn." At last, when the bright summer sun rode high towards its meridian, the sullen sound of the death-gun boomed along the windings of the Thames. Henry started with ferocious joy. "Ha, ha!" he cried with satisfaction, "the deed is done. Uncouple the hounds and away!" The chase that day bent towards the west, whether the stag led it in that direction or not. The tradition of Richmond adds, that the king was likewise advised of the execution by a signal from a flag hoisted on the spire of old St. Paul's, which was seen through a glade of the park to the east.2

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1 The chief objection to this story is, that, robust as Henry then was, it would have been scarcely possible for him to have reached Wiltshire on the 19th of May, if he commenced his journey in the afternoon from Epping-forest. 2 The dome of St. Paul's may be seen from the same spot.

At nightfall the king was at Wolf-hall, in Wilts, telling the news to his elected bride; the next morning he married her. It is commonly asserted that the king wore white for mourning the day after Anne Boleyn's execu tion; he certainly wore white, not as mourning, but because he on that day wedded her rival. Wolf-hall,' the scene of these royal nuptials, was a short distance from Totten. ham-park, in Wiltshire. Of the ancient residence some re

2

mains now exist, among which is the kitchen, where tradition declares a notable royal wedding-dinner was cooked: a detached building is likewise still entire, in which the said dinner was served up, the room being hung, on this occasion, with tapestry. As late as the time of Defoe the same building, which he calls "the large barn at Wolf-hall," in which the nuptial-feast of Henry VIII. and queen Jane Seymour was served, had tenter-hooks, on which small bits of tapestry were hanging. "The people of the neighbourhood showed these tatters as proof of the honourable use to which the barn had been put. Between Wolf-hall and Tottenham was a noble avenue bordered with lofty trees, in which the royal bride and bridegroom walked; it was in the seventeenth century known by the name of 'king Harry's walk.'3

Several favourite members of the king's obsequious privy council were present at the marriage, therefore the authenticity of its date is beyond all dispute. Among others, was sir John Russell, (afterwards earl of Bedford,) who, “having been at church with the royal pair," gave as his opinion, “That the king was the goodliest person there, and that the richer queen Jane was dressed the fairer she appeared; on the contrary, the better Anne Boleyn was apparelled the worse she looked; but that queen Jane was the fairest of all Henry's wives, though both Anne Boleyn, and queen Katharine in her younger days, were women not easily paralleled." The bridal

1 It was the inheritance of sir John Seymour from his grandmother, the heiress of Esturmy. Previous to this lucky marriage, the family of St. Maur (Seymour) were settled in Monmouthshire, at Woundy: they were some of the marchmen who kept the Welsh in bounds. 2 Britton's Wiltshire, p. 685.

3 Defoe's Tour through Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 43.
Lord Herbert's Life of Henry VIII.

1 Probably Tottenham church.

party proceeded after dinner to Marwell, near Winchester, a country-seat belonging to the bishops of that see, which Henry had already wrested from the church and bestowed on the Seymours. The queen's chamber is still shown there.' From Marwell the king and his bride went to Winchester, where they sojourned a few days, and from thence returned to London, in time to hold a great court on the 29th of May. Here the bride was publicly introduced as queen, and her marriage festivities were blended with the celebration of Whitsuntide. The king paid the citizens the compliment of bringing his fair queen to Mercer's-hall, and she stood in one of the windows to view the annual ceremony of setting the city watch on St. Peter's-eve, June 29th.

The lord chancellor Audley, when parliament met a few days after, introduced the subject of the king's new marriage in a speech so tedious in length, that the clerks who wrote the parliamentary journals gave up its transcription in despair. Yet they fortunately left extant an abstract, containing a curious condolence on the exquisite sufferings the monarch had endured in matrimony. "Ye well remember," pathetically declaimed chancellor Audley, "the great anxieties and perturbations this invincible sovereign suffered on account of his first unlawful marriage; so all ought to bear in mind the perils and dangers he was under when he contracted his second marriage, and that the lady Anne and her complices have since been justly found guilty of high treason, and had met their due reward for it. What man of middle life would not this deter from marrying a third time? Yet this our most excellent prince again condescendeth to contract matrimony, and hath, on the humble petition of the nobility, taken to himself a wife this time, whose age and fine form give promise of issue." He said, "that the king had two objects in view in summoning a parliament; to declare the heir-apparent, and to repeal the act in favour of the succession of Anne Boleyn's issue." The crown was afterwards entailed on the children of queen Jane, whether male or female. After expatiating on all the self-sacrifices Henry had endured for the 1 Milner's Winchester.