of his power, he had been at variance. It is, besides, certain, from a letter written by her father to the Duke of Somerset, that an alliance had been projected between her and the Earl of Hertford. "For the marriage of your grace's son to be had with my daughter Jane," ays he cautiously to the duke, as if leaving an opening for a change of purpose, should the chapter of accidents offer a more splendid alance, as a match with her royal cousin Edward, "I think it not meet to be written, but I shall at all times avouch my saying." "1 Or the admiral, in the event of his being thwarted in his hope of obtaining the hand of the Princess Elizabeth, may have contemplated making Lady Jane his own wife. She was indeed his junior by many years; but as he regarded the disparity of years between him and Elizabeth as no obstacle to his union with her, there is no reason to think that, though Lady Jane was three or four years younger than Elizabeth, he would have considered this difference as an insuperable impediment to his wedding her, had the step been recommended by ambitious or political considerations. The admiral's motives, in the uncommon interest he took as to the marriage of this lady, it is impossible now to determine with certainty. "The prohable conclusion," says Nicolas, "is that he was merely anxious to obtain the power of disposing of her, when she became of a marriageabie age, in such a manner as would best advance his views or support has interest, without at any time being determined whether he should espouse her, or whether she should become the wife of his nephew, or of some other nobleman on whom he could depend. Such, in all probability, were the speculations relative to this amiable girl in her childhood, and who, even at that early period of her life, seemed destined to be the victim of ambition. At no period of our history," adds this writer, "was the detestable disposition to render every connection subservient to political purposes, so much the prevailing feeling, as in the reigns of the Tudors; the ties of friendship or of Kindred were seldom suffered to interfere when opposed to the prospect of advancement; self-interest superseded every other considera

1 Howard's Lady Jane Grey and her Times, p. 161.

tion; and little as honesty and generosity are to be looked for in courtiers, the total absence of these virtues was never so manifested as when their dynasty swayed the English sceptre."

Having left Seymour's roof, Lady Jane returned to her father's house, living for the most part at the family seat at Bradgate. Here she pursued with increasing assiduity her favourite studies, encouraged by her amiable tutor, Aylmer, for whom she felt no common reverence and affection. It is somewhat remarkable that so docile and obedient a child should have been treated with undue severity by her parents. Acting apparently on the unreasonable principle that children should become perfect in everything all at once, they would harshly chide, threaten, or punish her, if on observing any defect in her manner of speaking, or keeping silence, sitting, standing, or walking, eating or drinking, sewing, playing on musical instruments, or dancing, though she did all in her power to please them. It is, however, to be observed that this injudicious severity, though, doubtless, it proceeded more from an anxiety to see her thoroughly accomplished than from a defect in parental tenderness, was, at that period, deemed necessary in the education of the young. "Severity," says Howard, "was the most frequent engine of both classes, gentry and citizens, for improving their children; and whether at home or at school, the youth of both sexes were kept in order more by fear than love. Daughters in particular, even in womanhood, are described as being obliged to stand at the cupboard-side during visits, except when permitted to have a cushion to kneel on; and then, also, it was not unusual, even before company, for ladies of the first rank to correct their grown-up daughters with the large fans which it was the fashion

On the sensitive mind of Lady Jane, this austere discipline made a deep impression; and the consequence was that she preferred the society of Aylmer to that of her parents. The hours spent in their company being frequently hours of unmerited harsh treatment, were associated in her mind with restraint and terror. The hours spent 1 Nicolas's Memoirs of Lady Jane Grey. 2 Lady Jane Grey and her Times, p. 110.

with Aylmer at her lessons were, from his affectionate manner of instructing her, explaining to her difficulties, correcting her mistakes, and encouraging her to proceed, associated with enjoyment, and when led from him she would often fall a-weeping. This gentleness of her preceptor, so favourably contrasted with the harshness of her parents, was, as she acknowledges, one reason of the great delight she took in learning. "And thus," says she, "my book hath been so mach my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more and more pleasure, that in respect of it all other pleasures in very deed be but trifles and troubles unto me."

To her intimate knowledge of the Greek language, and her ardent stody of the Grecian orators and philosophers, a high testimony is borne by an eminently qualified judge, Roger Ascham. This celebrated man visited her in the summer of 1550, at her father's seat at Bradgate, when on his way to London to attend Sir Richard Morison, on his embassy to Charles V. She was then about the fourteenth year of her age. On his arrival, her father and mother, with all the ladies and gentlemen of the household, were hunting in the park, while the fair scholar was in her own apartment, engaged in reading Plato's Phaedon in the original Greek, with as much degt, to use Ascham's illustration, as the gentlemen of that day felt a reading the merry tales of Boccaccio. Astonished at this devotion to stady, after saluting her, he inquired why she had not gone with her parents and the rest of the family to the park, to enjoy the amusement of the chase. "I wisse," she replied with a smile, "all their sport in the park is but a shadow to the pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! godik, they never felt what true pleasure means." "And how came you, madam," asked Ascham, still more astonished that a lady of her age should be so enchanted both with the language and philosophy of Plato, "to this deep knowledge of pleasure? and what did chiefly are you into it, since not only few women, but even very few men, have attained thereunto?" "I will tell you," she answered, "and tell you a truth, which, perchance, you will marvel at." She then

1 i. e., "I think."