Page:The Queens of England.djvu/352

 312 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. opened, a short time after, the Lord Chancellor Audley, not con- tent with noticing; the recent marriage of his sovereign with all due respect, lavished on him the most fulsome panegyric as a victim to circumstances connected with his two former mar- riages, and extravagant laudation for a third time entering the bonds of wedlock, trying to make it appear that Henry did so solely for the good of his kingdom, and not to satisfy his own inclination. Audley referred, with an unfeeling and indelicate openness, to the guilt of Anne Boleyn, evincing, by so doing, that he was well aware of the gross mind of his ferocious mas- ter, for surely decency ought to have taught him to avoid all mention of her. He moved that the infant Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the ill-fated Anne, should be declared illegitimate ; as also had been the Princess Mary, daughter of the ill-used Katharine of Arragon ; and that the crown should devolve on the children, male or female, of the new queen, Jane Seymour. Low indeed must have been the state of morals, and terrible the dread inspired by the gross sensualist Henry, when a lord chancellor could thus outrage common decency and truth, in presence of parliament, without one voice being raised in dis- sent to his falsehoods ! He must have known the moral degrad- ation of those he was addressing, to count on. not merely their toleration, but their approbation. jane Seymour had acquired wisdom by the example furnished during the reign of her unhappy predecessor. Without the natural gayety and ready wit so apt to encroach on the dignity of a queen, and so dangerous in the wife of a moody and sus- picious husband, for which Anne Boleyn was so remarkable, Jane was not tempted into any of those levities and repartees which the possession of these fascinating qualities but too often induces. Calm and discrete, no less by acquired prudence than by natural temperament, she observed a dignified and queen- like demeanor, equally removed from haughtiness and familiar- ity. If she captivated few, she offended none, but pursued the even tenor of her way, satisfied with her high estate, and by no means disposed to do aught that could risk its loss by incurring the displeasure of her lord and master. Little can be recorded of a woman so discrete and cautious as Jane during the brief period she filled the place vacated by the death of Anne Boleyn. She took no part in political intrigues, leaned to no party ; and although the sister of the ambitious Somerset, never allowed herself to be made the instrument to work out any of his designs. The eighteen months' of her regal life were passed in a manner