"Then as she cannot saved be, Oh, save the flower though not the tree." Your queen, the flower of England's dead!' The other ballad, fragmentary only, was taken down in the early nineteenth century from the singing of a gipsy girl, to whom it had been handed down orally. It runs thus: 'Queen Jane was in travail King Henrie was sent for, The surgeon was sent for Then her right side was opened And the babe was set free. The babe it was christened And put out and nursed, So black was the mourning Six knights and six lords Bore her corpse through the grounds, In black mourning gownds. The flower of old England Was laid in cold clay, While the royal King Henrie With the exception of Katherine Parr, who survived the king, Jane Seymour, though never crowned, was the first and only wife of Henry VIII. to be undisputed queen. It was this fact, as well as her status as mother of his heir, that caused the king to command the body of his loving queen Jane' to be laid in his own tomb. Moreover, he directed that a tomb should be raised to their mutual memory in Windsor Chapel. Statues of Jane and himself were to be placed on the tomb, that of Jane reclining 'not as in death but as one sweetly sleeping'; children with baskets of red roses made of precious stones, jasper, cornelian and agate, were to sit at the corners of the tomb, 'showing' to take the roses in their hands and cast them down on and over the tomb and down on the pavement.' And the roses they cast over the tomb were to be enamelled and gilt, and the roses they cast on the steps of the said precious stones, and some were to be inlaid on 'the pavement.' This scheme, though it reached a further stage than many other of the schemes of Henry VIII., and was actually begun, was never accomplished. However, Henry was laid by the side of Jane in the vaults of St. George's Chapel, and in the nineteenth century George IV., when searching for the headless body of Charles I., found that the Roundheads had placed it close by the tomb of Henry and his queen.1 The skeleton of King Henry was accidentally unearthed, but the coffin of Queen Jane was intact and the vault was finally walled up. It is not, however, at Windsor that Queen Jane's ghost is said to walk, but at Hampton Court, where, in spite of all structural alterations, ever as the anniversary of Edward the Sixth's birth-night returns, the spectre of Jane Seymour, 'clad in flowing white garments with a lighted lamp in her hand,' is said to ascend the great staircase. Jane Seymour was fortunate in her death, gaining by it an added glory, since it took place not only before her royal husband had tired of her, but at the very moment when he was in the fulness of his joy at the birth of his heir. That memory of her remained both to people and king, that and the memory of her gentleness, which, looked at from afar, became a dearer if a negative virtue. It was the good she seemed to be that was remembered, the rest was buried in her grave and forgotten, and she was and has been acclaimed the fairest, discreetest, and the most meritorious of all Henry VIII.'s wives. As her fairness was paleness, so her discretion was near to hypocrisy, and her merit to unscrupulous attainment of her own ends. Granted that her position was difficult, she was not the only gentlewoman of honour' to whom Henry made advances, and to whom the same difficulties were presented. Granted that her religious tendencies biassed her against the Boleyn faction, and Anne as its head, Katherine of Arragon was still alive while Jane's intrigues with the king were at their height, and Katherine of Arragon was the true representative of 6 1 Byron's 'too farouche' satire on this event is well known. See Works (ed. 1904), vii. 35-36. the Roman faction. Granted that she was swept along by a force greater than herself, that her head was turned by flattery or even by the persuasions of her family; the night of the condemnation of her rival was hardly the time to receive and make merry with her royal lover, and the day of the execution was hardly the time to sit attired in rich raiment, and eat of the sumptuous delicacies prepared by the royal cook. Granted even that she loved the king, the 'discreet conduct' which Chapuys so much praised was hardly compatible with the heart of a woman who loved. Jane Seymour's character and conduct cannot be justified unless unscrupulous personal ambition can be looked upon as a justification of any action. Under the semblance of gentleness and tenderness and modesty, the keynote of Jane Seymour's life was inordinate ambition. It was by this ambition, and by this only, that she tuned her every action, and became queen of England, and the mother of an heir to the English throne. CHAPTER II THE BROTHERS OF A QUEEN 'Affection shall lead me to court, but I'll take care that interest keeps me there.'—' Maxims of the Seymours,' Sloane MSS., 1523. IT has been the pleasure of historians to contrast rather than compare the character of the two brothers of Jane Seymour, who, as uncles of Edward VI., came into power and predominance in the early years of his reign. One historian will create a hero in the person of the elder of the two brothers, Edward the Protector, and to make the dramatic situation complete, further create a villain in the person of the younger brother Thomas, the Lord Admiral. Another will see in the Protector a Cæsar Borgia, and yet another will see in the Lord Admiral one of his victims. Those who have not found themselves called upon to draw so violent a contrast have granted ambition to both, but have looked on that of the Lord Admiral as a purely personal ambition, animated only by mean and selfish motives, on that of the Protector as impersonal and animated by broad and unselfish motives. It is not difficult to see how this conception appears to be proved by facts if both are judged by their actions alone. But a man must be judged by more than his actions, and in attempting to compare the two men not only their actions but their circumstances must be taken into account. For it is always an easy thing for the man in possession to assume a lofty and dignified attitude, and seem not to care for the thing he has; the ambition |