that was once personal is easily translated into an ambition that has all the attributes of greatness. For the rival who desires but does not attain, the attitude is not so dignified nor the translation so easy. The Protector was the man in possession, the Lord Admiral was the rival.

It is not a simple task to crowd into a few pages the varied incident and vivid romance of the lives of these two men. Though they themselves were unscrupulous enough, and of strong enough personality to have in any case left their mark in history, it was the ambition of their sister and her royal marriage that lifted them to the high course along which each travelled his own way to ruin. Of the other sons of Sir John Seymour, John, the eldest of the family, had died unmarried in 1520, while Henry, the third son, of a different mettle from the two others, lived the life of a country gentleman, appearing seldom if ever at court, and seeking no honours or preferments. For him his sister's marriage brought only the solid, and, to him, satisfactory benefit of an estate carved out of the See of Winchester.

Edward, the second and eldest surviving son, seems to have been born about 1500, and to have been educated both at Oxford and Cambridge. As early as 1515, as 'le fils de messe (sic) Seymour,' he was 'enfant d'honneur' to Mary Tudor on her marriage to Louis XII. of France, and two years later he and his father were granted the constableship of Bristol castle. Chapuys notices him as having been in the service of Charles v., probably in 1522, and in the next year he accompanied the Duke of Suffolk's expedition to France, where, on account of his prowess, he was knighted by the duke. In the following year he was taking part as one of the Challengers in a grand feat of arms, was, with his father, one of those chosen to take part in Wolsey's embassy to France in 1527, and was in the royal train at the meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1532. (See the picture at Hampton Court,

in which he and his father undoubtedly figure.) During the year 1534, as numberless letters among the state papers of Henry VIII. show, he was involved in a dispute with Lord Lisle, afterwards Governor of Calais, concerning some lands in Somerset. The next year, 1535, was momentous for the Seymour family, and Sir Edward, being brought into the king's favour, not only received a grant of lands in Hampshire, but also a visit from the king at his manor of Elvetham in that county.

In the meantime his younger brother Thomas, born about 1508, had not come so much into public notice. The first mention of him is in 1530, when he was employed on frequent embassies by Sir Francis Brian, into whose service he had entered. From 1536, the year of the royal marriage, both brothers started on a further course of preferments. The elder brother was immediately (5th June 1536) created Viscount Beauchamp with a pension of twenty marks a year. The next day the King granted him manors and lands in Wiltshire, the manors of Broad Town, Sherston and Amesbury, Winterbourne and Alleworthbury; the site of the late priory of Holy Trinity, Easton, the manors of Easton, Froxfield, Grafton, Corsley, Monkton, Tidworth, Barwick Basset, Richardston, Langden, Midghall, Stodley and 'Costowe'; the site of the late priory of Farley, and the manors of Farley, Chippenham, Thornhill, Broome, Urchfount and All Cannings, with remainder in tail male to the issue of his wife Anne (Stanhope), or in default of such to the issue of any future wife. In the following month he was given the office of keeper, governor and captain of the Island of Jersey, and the castle of Gorey, alias Montorguill (Mont Orgueil) with fees as enjoyed by the late governors. In August he was made Chancellor and Chamberlain of North Wales, and was one of the seventeen peers summoned to the council at Westminster that year. Further, in the August of 1537, came a grant of the Wiltshire manors of Slaughtenford,

Allington, Maiden Bradley, Yarnfield, and Kingston Deverell. Although not keeping pace in honours with his brother, Thomas Seymour was one of the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber in 1537, and was that year granted for life, in conjunction with one George Cotton, the offices of Chief Master and Constable of the Castles of Lyons, alias Holte, Bromfield, Yale and Chirk, and also Constable and receiver of the manors of Lyons, Bromfield, Yale, Chirk, Chirkland, Kenloth and Owen in the marches of Wales.

The birth of Edward VI. brought new honours to both. Thomas Seymour was knighted and Viscount Beauchamp was created Earl of Hertford. Some reaction necessarily came with the death of Queen Jane, and, in the following years, the Earl of Hertford was described as 'young and wise,' but 'of small power.' It seemed, indeed, at that time that fortune, that is to say the king, was favouring the younger brother. In March 1538, he was granted the site of the monastery of Coggeshall, together with various manors and lands in Suffolk. There was also some talk of his marriage with Mary, Duchess of Richmond, the only daughter of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk. Indeed, the Duke of Norfolk told the king that he could well find in his herte and wold be glad standing so with the kinges pleasure to bestowe his doughter on Sir Thomas Seymour, as well for that he is so honestly advaunced by the Kinges Maiestie as also for his towardness and other his comendable merytes.' The marriage never took place because, it seems, the lady's 'fantezey would not serve to marry with him.'

Breaking for a moment into the course of events it seems well here to consider some of the moot questions that have arisen concerning the marriages of the Earl of Hertford. By his first wife, Katherine, daughter of Sir William Filliol

1 For a detailed account of his life, see Sir John Maclean's Life of Sir Thomas Seymour of Sudeley.

of Woodlands in Horton, Dorset, to whom he was married before 1519, he had two sons, John and Edward. The supposed repudiation of Katherine, and the later entail which settled his estates and titles on the issue of his second wife, Anne, have been explained in various ways. One story given by Peter Heylyn states that when the Earl, then Sir Edward Seymour, was in France, he did there acquaint himself with a learned man, supposed to have great skill in magick; of whom he obtained by grat rewards and importunities, to let him see, by the help of some magical perspective, in what estate all his relations stood at home. In which impertinant curiosity he was so far satisfied as to behold a gentleman of his acquaintance in a more familiar posture with his wife than was agreeable to the honour of either party. To which diabolical illusion, he is said to have given so much credit that he did not only estrange himself from her society at his coming home, but furnished his next wife with an excellent opportunity for pressing him to the disinheriting of his former children.' Another bit of evidence, which Horace Walpole quoted with great gusto, is found in Vincent's Baronage in the College of Arms. There a note is added to the statement that Katherine Filliol was Sir Edward Seymour's first wife, to this effect,—' repudiata quia pater ejus post nuptias, eam cognovit.' A later point of view has been to reject all this evidence as false, to suppose that Katherine was dead before the second marriage, and that the entail was due to the influence of the second wife, a lady of a high mind and haughty undaunted spirit,' or, as Baker's Chronicle puts it more forcibly, 'a woman of haughty stomach.' One piece of evidence that has not yet been used throws more light on the subject than any as yet brought under consideration. The inquisition post mortem taken on the death of Sir William Filliol in 1528 shows three things. In the first place, that his relations with his daughter and her husband were entirely changed between