To Seymour next her plighted hand she yields When now seven days this tender flower had bloom'd, Great Kath'rine's merit in our grief appears, Our royal breasts with rising sighs are torn; With saints she triumphs-we with mortals mourn." I Whin less than a year after Katharine's death, namely, on March 17, 1549, Seymour perished on the scaffold, under a bill of attader for high treason. Their only child, whose name was Mary, upon the death of both her parents, after remaining a short time at her uncle Somerset's house, at Sion, was, according to her father's dying request, conveyed to Grausthorpe, in Lincolnshire, the residence of Katharine, DuchessDowager of Suffolk, a Protestant and intimate friend of the deceased mer, to be brought up under the care of that lady. She was accompanied by her governess, Mrs. Aglionby, her nurse, two maids, and other servants. Her mother having made her will in favour of Seymour, and his property having been confiscated on his condemnaton, the little helpless orphan was left upon the charity of her friends At the time of her leaving Sion, her uncle, the Duke of Somerset, promised that a pension should be settled upon her for her support, and that a portion of her nursery plate and furniture, bright to Sion House, should be sent after her to Grimsthorpe ; proses which, to the disgrace of that nobleman, were never ful notwithstanding the persevering efforts of the Duchess of This noble lady repeatedly wrote to him, to his duchess, and to William Cecil, afterwards the celebrated Lord Burghley, on the subject. Miss Strickand, who has given specimens of the letters to Cecil, which are written in a familiar tone, and with a vein of humour running through them quite characteristic of the writer, asserts that they · Archeologia, vol. ix., pp. 1-9. 2 Strype's Mem. Eccl., vol. ii., p. 201. Q Saffik to prevail upon him to fulfil them.' betray a "worldly spirit and sordid temper," and that "the helpless little one," though the child of a lady who had honoured the duchess with her friendship, and shielded her from persecution, and whom she regarded as a saint, "had become the unwelcome recipient of her charity." But the letters by no means warrant this uncharitable construction. The case, as brought out in them, only requires to be fairly represented in order to vindicate the duchess from these hard censures. The maintenance of the babe, with her train, consisting of some dozen of persons, involved considerable expense, and the duchess found herself unable, without running into debt, to support this large train, considered suitable, according to the etiquette of the times, to the child of the QueenDowager and of the Lord Admiral of England. Again, Somerset, as has been just now said, had promised that a portion of the nursery plate should be delivered with the child when she was sent to Grimsthorpe, and that a pension should be granted for her mainteUnder these circumstances was it unreasonable, was it any proof of ingratitude to Katharine Parr, or of unkindness to her daughter, was it worldly or sordid for the Duchess of Suffolk to be urgent in endeavouring to obtain from Somerset the fulfilment of these promises, the more especially as the child had been wrongfully deprived of the vast wealth which she ought to have inherited from her parents? This, so far from being blameworthy, was what she was bound in duty to do. In other cases the gifted authoress of the Queens of England can carry her charity to a somewhat extravagant extent. She attempts, even in the face of facts proving the contrary, to screen Queen Mary from the guilt of the Protestant blood shed under her reign; and yet, upon such totally inadequate evidence as these letters, she holds up the Duchess of Suffolk to contempt as an ungrateful, sordid, selfish being, who, while pretending piously to venerate the memory of Katharine Parr by "editing and publishing the devotional writings of that queen," grudged a shelter and food to her only child." nance. 1 Queens of England, vol. v., pp. 125–129. 2 See Introduction, p. 21. Mary Seymour continued, it appears, for some years at least, under the care of the duchess, and she was ultimately married to Sir Edward Bushel-a respectable alliance, though inferior to what she would probably have obtained had her parents' wealth come into her possession.' 1 Queens of England, vol. v., pp. 129-131. FROM HER BIRTH TO THE CLOSE OF HER CORRESPONDENCE WITH CONTINENTAL DIVINES. EW characters in English history have occupied, within so short a time, a more important part in the political transactions of their day, than the lady whose life we are now to relate, and few are fraught with a deeper and more permanent interest. The purity and loveliness of her character, the vigour of her intellectual powers, the extent of her literary acquirements, the seraphic fervour of her devotion, were enough of themselves to have rendered her an engaging object. But the interest derived from these attractions has been greatly enhanced, and the sympathies of the human heart powerfully enlisted on her behalf, from the romantic events crowding the narrative of her brief course, and from the tragic death by which it was closed. LADY JANE GREY was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, third Marquis of Dorset, by his second wife,' Lady Frances Brandon, eldest daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by Mary, widow of Louis XII., King of France, second daughter of Henry VII. of Engand and youngest sister of Henry VIII. Thus she was of the bloodroyal of England on the mother's side, and she was also connected, though not by consanguinity, with the royal family on the father's side, her paternal great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Woodville,' relict of Er John Grey of Groby, having been queen-consort to Edward IV. Her father, Henry Grey, when he succeeded to the honours of his family, on the death of his father, which happened in 1530, was, in pent of rank, one of the first noblemen of his time. In 1547, the first year of the reign of Edward VI., he was made lord high-constable for that monarch's coronation, and was elected a knight of the garter; in 1550 he was constituted justice-itinerant of all the king's forests; in the following year he was appointed warden of the east, west, and middle marches towards Scotland; and on October 15, 1551, he was created Duke of Suffolk. If not entirely without ambation, he appears to have been a man quietly disposed; and though not possessed of those powerful talents and that force of character which exert a commanding influence over others, and which, seizing upon circumstances, can convert them into the means of promoting the cess of great undertakings, he was a warm friend of the Reformaton, and a patron of learned men. The date of Lady Jane's birth has not been exactly ascertained. If, curling to Fuller, she was eighteen years of age at the time of her Ha first wife was Katharine Fitz-Alan, daughter of William, Earl of Arundel. She is supposed to have died without issue. Etabeth Woodville and her family have been immortalized by Shakspeare in his Kay Rachard III. |