Meanwhile Roger, the younger son of John Seymour, lord of Undy manor, had left Wales, and chosen instead to live at Even Swindon (in Wiltshire). His marriage to Cecily, daughter of John de Beauchamp, third Lord Beauchamp of Hache in Somerset, had brought him into union with one of the most noble and wealthy families in the kingdom, and in 1363, on the death of her brother John without heirs, Cecily became co-heir with her sister, to all the Beauchamp estates.1 Roger and Cecily had five children, of whom William, the elder, married Margaret, daughter of Simon de Brockbarn, and resided for the most part of his life at Undy. He died before his mother in 1390, seised of the manors of Hatch Beauchamp (in Somerset) and Brockbury Erdesleye and Undy (in Hereford and the Marches of Wales). His son and heir, Roger, succeeded not only to the paternal estates, but also to the wealth and property of his grandmother, Cecily, on her death in 1393.

This Roger (1366-1420) possessed the family capacity for making a fortunate marriage. He married Maud, one of the daughters and co-heirs of William Esturmy,2 knight, Lord of Wolf Hall (co. Wilts), the bold and fearless Speaker of the House of Commons, best remembered as the leader of the Layman's Parliament of 1405, which proposed the application of the revenues of the Church to State pur

1 Her share comprised the manors of Hatch Beauchamp, Shepton Beauchamp, Murifield, and a third of Shepton Malet (co. Somerset); certain lands in Sturminster Marshall (co. Dorset); the manors of Bolbury and Harberton (co. Devon); the manor of Dorton (co. Bucks); Little Hawes (co. Suffolk), and two-thirds of Snelling (co. Kent).

It was in memory of this ancestress that Henry VIII. created Edward Seymour (brother of his Queen Jane), Viscount Beauchamp.

The Esturmys had been bailiffs and guardians of the forest of Savernake from the time of Henry III., and their hunter's horn of huge size, tipped and mounted with silver, was in the possession of the Seymour family for many generations (Camden).

poses. John, son of Roger and Maud, became Sheriff of Southampton, and held many important offices in Wiltshire. In 1424 he married Isabel, daughter of Mark Williams of Bristol, who, after her husband's death in 1464, took vows of chastity and became a nun at Westbury. Their son John was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Coker of Lydiard St. Lawrence (in Somerset), and died in 1463, predeceasing his father. Their son John, known as John Seymour of Wolf Hall (1450-1491), married as his first wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Darrell of Littlecote (in Wiltshire), by whom he had several children, the eldest of whom was another John. By his second wife, a daughter of Robert Hardon, he had a son, Roger, and four daughters. John, the son and heir (1474-1536), who in 1491 became Lord of Wolf Hall, alone interests us here. Of Wolf Hall, his favourite residence, we know from a survey of Edward VI.'s reign that the whole manor contained approximately 1270 acres, including 'Suddene Park,' 'Horse Park,' and 'Red Deer Park.' Of this extent, two and a half acres were garden and orchard, of which ' half an acre lyeth in a gardyne within the walls and half a yard lyeth in the gardyne next the said gardyne.' There was an orchard called Cole-house orchard, a garden called 'the Great Paled Garden,' another called My Young Lady's Garden,' and another called 'My Old Lady's Garden.' Of the house itself we know little, and at the present day nothing of it survives except the fine old wooden and thatched barn in which it is said high wedding festivities took place on the occasion of Jane Seymour's marriage with Henry VIII.1 There was certainly a chapel in the house, for in one of the Household Books of the Manor which Canon Jackson brought to light, there is an account of 17d. paid for a 'pastall

6

1 See below, p. 15.

2

2 A large wax candle used at Easter. See Wilts Arch. Mag. xv. 140 et seq.

for the chapel of 1lb weight; 6d. for two tapers for the chapel, and £2 a year salary for the priest of the chapel. There was also a kennel of hounds attached to the manor ; while the household establishment consisted of forty-four men and seven women. The highest salary, £3 10s. a year, was paid to the steward, the lowest, 13s. 4d., to the two turnspits. Such in its main outlines was the household of John Seymour of Wolf Hall in the early sixteenth century. He himself was in great favour both with Henry VII. and Henry VIII. He fought for the king in 1497 against the Cornish rebels under the command of Lord Audley, and Henry VII., seeing his military genius, knighted him for his services. Being engaged in the campaigns in France and Flanders during the early years of the reign of Henry VIII., he was present at Terouenne and Tournay and at the Battle of the Spurs. Later, he was made Sheriff of Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire, and one of the knights of the body to the king. In 1517 he and his son Edward held the office of Constable of Bristol Castle; in 1520 he attended at Guisnes and Ardres at the meetings between Henry and Francis 1. of France, and in 1532 accompanied the king to Boulogne as Groom of the Bedchamber on the occasion of the second interview

between Henry and Francis. He had married Margery. daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlestead in Suffolk, who was descended from John of Gaunt. Hence royal

blood was brought into the family as if in preparation for the honours that were to come to the children of John and

Margery.

CHAPTER I

'JANE THE QUENE'

'Whenas King Henry ruled this land

He had a queen, I understand,

Lord Seymour's daughter, fair and bright.'—Ballad.

'Comme le phénix elle meurt en donnant la vie à un autre phénix. -Callier, Reines d'Angleterre.

IN the timber-framed house of the manor of Wolf Hall in the Great Paled Garden,' or in 'My Young Lady's Garden,' or in the orchard called Cole-house orchard,' lived and played the eight children of Sir John Seymour. Three of these were to play a chief part in the drama of the history of their day. One was to become third queen of Henry VIII., and mother of the boy in whose reign reform was to sweep forward to the utmost limits, to the inevitable rebound. Of the two others, one, by force of personal magnetism and fortunate or unfortunate circumstance, was to determine the course of the early events of that reign; the other with as great, if not greater personality, and certainly with as much strength of character, was to give colour to events in another and not less vital way.

It is not difficult to conjure up some picture of the early life of Jane Seymour. Born about 1509, the eldest daughter of the family of eight, she probably lived the quiet and somewhat humdrum life of fifteenth-century girlhood, working at her books little and at her tapestry much. Some of the needlework that she did when a girl at Wolf Hall was in existence as late at least as 1652. 'Five Pieces of

chequered hangings of a coarse making having the Duke of Somersett's Arms in them. . . . One furniture of a Bed of Needlework with a chaise [chair] and cushions suitable thereunto... said to be wrought by the Queene the Lady Jane Seymour' were in that year compounded for with Parliament by William, Marquis of Hertford, by payment of £60. The work had come into the possession of the Crown, probably on the marriage of Jane with Henry VIII., and had remained as Crown property until given to the Marquis of Hertford in 1647 by Charles I.

Outside the quietness of the country home there had been wars and rumours of wars in the early years of Jane's life. Her father had served at Terouenne and Tournay, and had won the honour of Knight Banneret by his bravery. Less than ten years later there was a fashion of jousts and tournaments and Cloth of Gold displays at court, and in these her father and her elder brothers joined. Soon for Jane herself some taste of court life came, as, like Anne Boleyn, she seems to have been early trained in the accustomed etiquette and intrigue in the French court as maid-of-honour to Marie, Queen of Louis XII. This fact, however, rests on the somewhat insecure evidence of a picture in the Louvre of one of the French Queen's maids, identified, but with no certainty, as Jane Seymour. Anyhow there is no doubt that already, before Katherine of Arragon was discarded, Jane Seymour was attached to her household as lady-inwaiting. When Anne Boleyn became Queen in 1533, Jane Seymour's services were transferred to the new queen. Of their relation with one another nothing is known or hinted until the beginning of the course of incidents which was to change the whole course of their two lives, and to bring one to the scaffold, the other to the throne.

Already, before Henry's infatuation for Jane Seymour had begun, Anne Boleyn had had good reason to suspect