instrument to work out any of his designs. The eighteen months' of her regal life were passed in a manner utterly obsequious to the king, and the fear of that axe which had fallen on her predecessor. No word or sentence of hers was of sufficient merit to be recorded; the only official act to which her signature is appended is the order for the delivery of two bucks to the keeper of the chapel royal and one of the most remarkable facts of her short reign, was riding on horseback, with the king and court, across the Thames at Greenwich in the severe frost of January, 1537. She is said to have behaved with great kindness to the Princess Mary, and to have won Henry to tolerate her. Of the helpless infant Elizabeth, then in her fourth year, historians give us no reason to believe that she took any notice, although the position of the poor child might well excite commiseration and sympathy, stripped of the title of Princess of Wales, which she had borne since her birth, and deprived of a mother by a violent death. Jane could not have been deterred from showing kindness to the child by any dread of offending her stern husband; for Henry had Elizabeth brought up under his own eye, and invariably evinced great affection for her, while towards her elder half-sister he behaved with coldness, if not dislike, angered by her long resistance to sign the acknowledgment of his supremacy, the renunciation of the power of the pope, the invalidity of the marriage of her mother with Henry, and consequently the illegitimacy of her own birth. It cannot be wondered at that the Princess Mary, then of an age to comprehend her own position, objected to sign articles alike contrary to her conscience and interest, until finding that nothing else would conciliate her hard-hearted and stubborn father, she was compelled to yield. Perhaps it was to this obedience to Henry's wishes, rather than to the queen's interference in her favour, that she owed her toleration by him, even though Jane Seymour gave proofs of kindness towards her, for which Mary expressed her sense of gratitude not only by applying the endearing epithet of mother to her, but by praying God to grant her a prince-a prayer the sincerity of which we cannot help doubting, as its fulfilment must shut out herself from her chance of the throne.

Unlike her two predecessors, Jane Seymour was never crowned. This ceremony had been postponed owing to the plague, then prevalent in London, and most of all in Westminster, where it greatly raged; and when its violence had abated, the queen was in a state that

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promised to give Henry the longed-for heir, and rendered him fearful of exposing her to the fatigue of a coronation. He announced her condition with no less pride than satisfaction; but even then did not conceal that he took a much more lively interest in the unborn child than its mother. One passage in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk furnishes a proof of this, as well as of the coarseness of the writer. It is that in which he expresses his intention of remaining near her. He writes :-" Considering that being but a woman, upon some sudden and displeasant rumours and broils that might, by foolish or light persons, be blown abroad in our absence, she might take to stomach such impressions as might engender no little danger or displeasure to the infant with which she is now pregnant (which God forbid), it hath been thought by our council very necessary that, for avoiding such perils, we should not extend our progress further from her than sixty miles." The substitution of taking to stomach, instead of taking to heart, shows how much more Henry was sensible of physical than moral effects, and that he thought more of his future heir than of his wife, and leads us to believe the reported assertion that when the dangerous labour of the queen induced her attendants to ask the king whether the infant or mother were to be saved, he answered, without a moment's hesitation, "The child, by all means; for other wives could be easily found." On the 12th of October, 1537, Jane gave birth to Prince Edward, in Hampton Court Palace; an event which filled the king with transport, and consequently delighted his courtiers. His joy was manifested by noisy hilarity, and theirs by an affectation of irrepressible rapture.

This turbulent joy, however gratifying to the newly-made mother's feelings, was very injurious to her in the weak state to which she had been reduced; and the christening, which followed only three days after, from appearing at a portion of which splendid but tedious ceremony she was not exempted, proved too much for her exhausted frame. This solemn rite took place at midnight in the chapel of Hampton Court, with all the etiquette peculiar to such occasions; and when concluded, the infant prince was borne back to receive the benediction of his mother, attended by a stately procession, heralded by loud clarions, and as loud shouts of rejoicing—a terrible trial to the queen in her state of languor, and from the effects of which she never recovered. In twelve days after her confinement she resigned her breath, ere yet satiety had weaned from her the affection of her fickle husband, and while he was still rejoicing in the birth of his new-born

heir. Henry, albeit unused to give way to grief, evinced some natural sorrow for his lost queen. He wore mourning for her three months, an honour he never paid to any of her predecessors or successors, and his courtiers observed the same etiquette. All respect and honours were shown to the remains of the departed queen. Every insignia of royalty was used to attest her dignity; innumerable masses were offered up for the repose of her soul; and, after lying in state till the 12th of November, her body was removed, attended by a grand funeral procession, from Hampton Court to Windsor for interment, where it was laid in the vault of St. George's Chapel. In the will of Henry, directions were found inserted, that the bones of his "loving Queen Jane" were to be placed in his tomb-instructions which were faithfully carried into effect.

ANNE OF CLEVES.

THE character of Anne of Cleves differs from that of the greater number of our English queens. Neither distinguished for her personal beauty nor brilliancy of talent, our attention is arrested by a queen who was gifted with such an extraordinary serenity of mind, such indifference or insensibility to the gifts of fortune, whichever it might be, as to assume a regal diadem without ostentation, and to relinquish it without a sigh. One is naturally interested in investigating the history of such an individual; and though the particulars of Anne's life prior to her marriage with Henry the Eighth, have not been much dwelt on by historians, the little which has reached us is not unworthy of notice.

Anne, whose father was John, the third Duke of Cleves, was born September 22nd, 1517, and educated with her sisters Sybilla and Amelia, under the care of their mother Marié, a daughter of William, Duke of Juliers, Berg and Ravensburg. The young princesses were brought up in the Lutheran faith, but though well instructed in reading and writing their own language, they were ignorant of any other. We are also informed they were very skilful in needlework, but that music and dancing were not suffered to constitute a part of their studies, it being the opinion in their country that such pursuits only tended to lightness and frivolity of character.

Even during the lifetime of her father, Anne had been sought in marriage by her future husband, King Henry, who after vainly endeavouring to form an alliance with some French princess, whose high birth would consolidate his own dignity and security, had turned his thoughts to those ladies who were nearly related to the Smalcaldic League. In fact, Henry had found the utmost difficulty in procuring a wife amongst foreign princesses. He had an evil reputation for a husband, which, though it did not daunt Englishwomen, certainly

made foreign ladies shrink aghast. After the divorce of one wife, the beheading of a second, and the speedy death of his third, not even a throne could tempt a princess of any pretensions to accept the hand of the tyrant, now no longer young. He had tried all his eloquence in vain at the French court, and the witty Duchess Dowager of Milan had refused him with the very natural but very cutting remark, that "she had but one head, and could not afford to lose it!" Cromwell in a luckless hour for himself, proposed the Princess Anne of Cleves, and Henry having yielded a ready assent, a treaty was entered into with Duke John. Many impediments however delaying the conclusion of this, it was finally arranged by Duke William, Anne's brother, after his father's death, in spite of the strong opposition raised by the Elector of Saxony who had married her sister Sybilla.

Although policy was the basis of this marriage, the ideas of Henry relative to the sex were so peculiarly delicate, that he was excessively desirous to behold the object of his choice, and Hans Holbein was appointed to paint the portrait of Anne to satisfy his curiosity. This miniature was enclosed in a box of ivory, delicately carved, in the form of a white rose. It unscrewed in two places; in one of which appeared the portrait of Henry, and in the other that of Anne of Cleves. Both box and miniatures were exquisite works of art, and they are still preserved at Goodrich Court, in the collection of articles of high historic value, made by the late Sir Samuel Meyrick. A tall robust woman had been portrayed to the mind of the English king as his future wife, and no sooner had he beheld the portrait than he gave orders for Anne instantly to commence her journey to England. It is impossible to describe in the narrow limits here allotted, the royal progress of the princess from Düsseldorf. Anne quitted her native city of Düsseldorf in the month of October, 1539. She travelled on the first day as far as Berg, a distance of twenty English miles: her next stage was from Berg to Cleve, thence to Ravenstein, after that to Berlingburg, Tilburg, Haggenstrete, and then to Antwerp, at which place about four miles from the town, she was met by many English merchants attired in velvet coats with chains of gold. On entering the town itself, Anne was received "with twice fourscore torches, beginning in the daylight," and so brought to her English lodging, where she was honourably received, and open house kept for her and for her train during one day. The following morning she was conducted to Stetkyn by the English merchants, who departed after having presented a gift to the future queen, who continued her