brilliant talents of the young Elizabeth were drawn forth and fostered under the auspices of her highly-gifted stepmother. Lady Seymour likewise took an active part in directing the studies of the heir of England, and her approbation appears to have been the greatest encouragement the prince could receive.

In a letter, written in French, to Queen Catharine, Edward notices the beauty of her penmanship. "I thank you," says he, "most noble and excellent Queen for the letters you have lately sent me; not only for their beauty, but for their imagination. For when I see your belle ecriture, and the excellence of your genius, greatly surpassing my inven tion, I am sick of writing. But then, I think how kind your nature is; and that whatever proceeds from a good mind and will, may be acceptable, and so I write you this letter."*

The learning of Catharine has been much over-rated : she was a "clever adapter," and, as a eulogist of a century ago has had the candour to aver, "the art to fashion the ideas of past or contemporary genius as her own”—an art which would now be regarded as akin to unfair appropriation, but was then almost necessary from the scarcity of learned men and erudite productions. She was much inferior in inherent talent and grasp of mind to her two stepdaughters-Mary and Elizabeth; and failed, too, in a comparison with the benevolent qualities of her royal relatives. Her chastity has been unreproached; her love frigid and accommodating, an assumption to please or deceive her penultimate spouse. In wedding Henry she bowed to the

* Ellis's Royal Letters.

inevitable will of a despot, and at his death nature was vindicated by her espousal of Thomas Seymour. Her romantic attachment for the Admiral is a strange history. Her marriage, however, was regarded by her contemporaries as rather "unseasonable," after being the widow of three husbands. Leti states that exactly thirty-six days after Henry's death a written contract of marriage and rings of "bethrowal" were exchanged between Catharine and Sir Thomas Seymour. According to King Edward's Journal the marriage took place before his father was three months dead. About the time of the "bethrowal," Queen Catharine wrote a letter to the young King detailing her "grief for the loss of his father, and the unbounded love she entertained for him."* The letter contains many quotations from Scripture. This deception-for it was nothing else— ill became a woman who had the reputation of candour, prudence, and extreme piety ascribed to her by so many writers. The "wisdom and piety" attributed to her were manifested in eluding the perils of her royal wifehood, and in escaping the slander of hostile critics.

It

may be said with impartial justice that Lady Seymour was a very good woman for her time, and preserved many of the "proprieties " in a society filled with heartlessness, and at an epoch fraught with dishonour and duplicity.

Lady Seymour was interred in the chapel of Sudeley. In 1782, some ladies of an antiquarian turn of mind, discovered the "exact whereabouts," not more than two feet from the surface. The body was wrapped in cere-cloth. The features, particularly the eyes, were in a perfect state of

* Tytler's Life of Edward and Mary; Royal Letters in the Record Office.

preservation. Curiosity gratified, the grave was closed up

again.
grave, and describes the body as still perfect.

A yeoman, named Lucas, subsequently opened the

66

"The repose of the buried Queen," says Miss Strickland, was again rudely violated by ruffian hands, in the spring of 1784, when the royal remains were taken out of the coffin, and thrown on a heap of rubbish and exposed to the public view. An ancient woman who was present on that occasion assured my friend, Miss Jane Porter, some years afterwards, that the remains of costly burial clothes were on the body, not a shroud but a dress, as if in life; shoes were on the feet, which were very small, and all her proportions extremely delicate; and she particularly noticed that traces of beauty were still perceptible in the countenance, of which the features were at that time perfect, but by exposure to the air and other injurious treatment, the process of decay rapidly commenced. Through the interference of the vicar, the body was reinterred."

In October, 1786, a scientific exhumation was made by the Rev. Tredway Nash, and his interesting and valuable report has been published in the "Archælogia," from which the following abstract is given

"In 1786, October 14, having obtained leave of Lord Rivers, the owner of Sudeley Castle, with the Hon. J. Somers Cocks, the writer proceeded to examine the chapel. Upon opening the ground and tearing up the lead, the face was found totally decayed; the teeth which were sound had fallen. The body was perfect, but in their delicacy they forbore to uncover it. Her hands and nails were entirely of a brownish colour. The Queen must have been of low stature, as the lead that enclosed her corpse was just five feet four inches long. The cere-cloth consisted of many folds of linen, dipped in wax, tar, and gums, and the lead fitted exactly to the shape of the body."

The last time the coffin of Catharine Parr, as this lady has been generally, but incorrectly, styled, was opened, it

was discovered that a wreath of ivy had entwined itself round the temples of the corpse, a berry having fallen there, and taken root at the time of her previous exhumation, and there had silently, from day to day, woven itself into this green sepulchral coronal.

Miss Strickland says:

"A lock of hair which was taken from the head of Queen Catharine Parr, after it had lain in the dust and darkness of the grave for nearly two centuries and a half, was kindly sent for my inspection by Mrs. Constable Maxwell. It was of the most exquisite quality and colour, exactly resembling threads of burnished gold in its hue; it was very fine and with an inclination to curl naturally."

Such is the end of this notable lady's eventful history as a Queen and as a private matron.

* In 1848, Mr. Turner, of Gloucester, presented one of the golden ringlets of Catharine Parr to Miss Strickland. It was enclosed in a locket of exquisite workmanship.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FAMILY FEUD.

*

THE brothers Seymour were at deadly feud, and persistently plotted against each other. Thomas Seymour having secretly pointed out to the King the undue influence Somerset was wielding in every department of the State, aroused the Prince's suspicious against his uncle; but before his Highness could make further inquiry in the matter, Sir Thomas Seymour was himself betrayed by his agents, and commanded to appear before the Council, where he repelled the charges alleged against him with haughty disdain, and set the Council's authority at defiance; but when the law officers of the Crown informed him that the real nature of his offence "approached to something like high treason," he expressed his regret, and pleaded ignorance of the law. He was then pardoned, and the fraternal rivals became apparently reconciled, and as a proof of his "good feeling towards his brother, Somerset added £800 a year to Seymour's appointments." It was evident Somerset feared the Admiral's private influence about the King, and was jealous of the estimation in which he was held by the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. Sir Thomas Seymour's

Burnet, vol. ii. sec. 15; State Papers of Edward VI.'s reign.