up," he growled in answer to
the poor woman's complaints, as he left her, "I will talk to you." The
lady of whom Anne was jealous was probably the same that had attracted the
King at the ball given to the Admiral of France two months previously, and
had made him, as Anne hysterically complained, "forget everything else."
This lady was Mistress Jane Seymour, a daughter of Sir John Seymour of
Wolf Hall, Wilts. She was at the time just over twenty-five years of age,
and had been at Court for some time as a maid of honour to Katharine, and
afterwards to Anne. During the King's progress in the autumn of 1535, he
had visited Wolf Hall, where the daughter of the house had attracted his
admiring attention, apparently for the first time. Jane is described as
possessing no great beauty, being somewhat colourless as to complexion;
but her demeanour was sweet and gracious; and the King's admiration for
her at once marked her out as a fit instrument for the conservative party
of nobles at Court to use against Anne and the political and religious
policy which she represented. Apparently Jane had no ability, and none was
needed in the circumstances. Chapuys, moreover, suggests with unnecessary
spite that in morals she was no better than she should have been, on the
unconvincing grounds that "being an Englishwoman, and having been so long
at Court, whether she would not hold it a sin to be still a maid." Her
supposed unchastity, indeed, is represented as being an attraction to
Henry: "for he may marry her on condition that she is a maid, and when he
wants a divorce there will be plenty of witnesses ready to testify that
she was not." This, however, is mere detraction by a man who firmly
believed that the cruelly wronged Katharine whose cause he served had just
been murdered by Henry's orders. That Jane had no strength of character is
plain, and throughout her short reign she was merely an instrument by
which politicians sought to turn the King's passion for her to their own
ends.

The Seymours were a family of good descent, allied with some of the great
historic houses, and Jane's two brothers, Edward and Thomas, were already
handsome and notable figures at Henry's Court: the elder, Sir Edward
Seymour, especially, having accompanied the showy visits of the Duke of
Suffolk, Cardinal Wolsey, and the King himself to France. So far as can be
ascertained, however, the brothers, prompt as they were to profit by their
sister's elevation, were