PREFACE.

THE Volume which we have now the honour of introducing, embraces a new and important era in the annals of this country. It opens with the eventful history of the heiress of the Plantagenet kings, Elizabeth of York. This princess, as the consort of Henry VII., commences the modern series of the queens of England, and forms the connecting link between the regal lines of Plantagenet and Tudor. Elizabeth of York occupies a different position from any other queen-consort of England. According to the legitimate order of succession, she was the rightful sovereign of the realm; and, though she condescended to accept the crown matrimonial, she might have contested the regal garland. She chose the nobler distinction of giving peace to her bleeding country, by tacitly investing her victorious champion with her rights, and blending the rival roses of York and Lancaster in her bridal-wreath.

It was thus that Henry VII., unimpeded by conjugal rivalry, was enabled to work out his enlightened plans, by breaking down the barriers with which the pride and power of the aristocracy had closed the avenues to preferment against the unprivileged classes. The people, tired of the evils of an oligarchy, looked to the sovereign for protection, and the first stone in the altar of civil and religious liberty was planted on the ruins of feudality. The effects of the new system were so rapid, that in the succeeding reign we behold, to use the forcible language of a popular French writer, two of Henry VIII.'s most powerful ministers of state, Wolsey and Cromwell, emanating, the one from the butcher's shambles, the other from the blacksmith's forge. Extremes are, however, dangerous; and the despotism which these and other of Henry VIII.'s parvenu statemen contrived to establish was, while it lasted, more cruel and oppressive than the tyranny and exclusiveness of the feudal magnates; but it had only an ephemeral existence. The art of printing had become general, and the spirit of freedom

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was progressing on the wings of knowledge through the land. The emancipation of England from the papal domination followed so immediately, that it appears futile to attribute that mighty change to any other cause. The stormy passions of Henry VIII., the charms and genius of Anne Boleyn, the virtues and eloquence of Katharine Parr, all had, to a certain degree, an effect in hastening the crisis; but the Reformation was cradled in the printing-press, and established by no other instrument.

In detailing the successive historic tragedies of the queens of Henry VIII., we enter upon perilous ground. The lapse of three centuries has done so little to calm the excited feelings caused by the theological disputes with which their names are blended, that it is scarcely possible to state facts impartially, without displeasing those readers whose opinions have been biassed by party writers.

It is to be lamented that the pen of the historian has been too often taken up rather for the purpose of establishing a system than to set forth the truth. Hence it is that evidences have been suppressed or shamefully garbled, and more logic wasted in working out mere matters of opinion than is commonly employed by barristers in making the best of a client's brief, or in mystifying a jury.

To such a height have some prejudices been carried, that it has been regarded as a species of heresy to record the evil as well as the good of persons who are usually made subjects of popular panegyric; and authors have actually feared in some cases to reveal the base metal which has been hidden beneath a meretricious gilding, lest they should provoke a host of assailants.

It was not thus that the historians of holy writ performed their office. The sins of David and of Solomon are recorded by them with stern fidelity and merited censure, for with the sacred annalists there is no compromise between truth and expediency. Expediency! perish the word, if guilt have to be covered, and moral justice sacrificed to such considerations!

It is not always possible, in general history, to diverge into personal details; but in historical biography it becomes the author's duty to enter within the veil, and, without reservation or one-sided views, to bring forward every thing that tends to display character in its true light.

The records of the Tudor queens are replete with circumstances of powerful interest, and rich in the picturesque costume of an age of

pageantry and romance. Yet, of some of these ladies, so little beyond the general outline is known, that the lives of Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, and Katharine Howard, are now, for the first time, offered to the public.

In this portion of the work, due care has been taken to present facts in such a form as to render the Memoirs of all the queens of Henry VIII. available for the perusal of other ladies.

Henry VIII. was married six times, and divorced thrice. Four, out of his six queens, were private English gentlewomen, and claimed no higher rank than the daughters of knights. Of these, Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard were cousins-german: both were married by Henry during the life of a previously wedded consort of royal birth, and were alike doomed to perish on a scaffold as soon as the ephemeral passion of the sovereign, which led to their fatal elevation to a throne, had subsided. We know of no tale of romance that offers circumstances of tragic interest like those which are to be traced in the lives of these unhappy ladies.

Unencumbered by public history, or details likely to interrupt the chronological order and continuous interest of the narrative, we now place the mother and the queens of Henry VIII. before our readers. Such as they were in life we have endeavoured to show them, whether in good or ill. Their sayings, their doings, their manners, their dress, and such of their letters as have been preserved from the injuries of time and the outrages of ignorance, will be found faithfully chronicled, as far as our limits would permit. We have also given the autographs of Elizabeth of York, and of five of Henry VIII.'s queens. Of Katharine Howard no signature can be found.

Our authorities for the modern series of queens are, undoubtedly, of a more copious and important nature than those from which the records of the consorts of our Anglo-Norman and Plantagenet sovereigns have been drawn. We miss, indeed, the illuminated pages, and the no less picturesque details of the historians of the age of chivalry, rich in their quaint simplicity, for the last of the monastic chroniclers, John Rous, of Warwick, closed his labours with the blood-stained annals of the last of the Plantagenet kings.

A new school of history commences with sir Thomas More's eloquent and classical life of Richard III.; and we revel in the gorgeous descriptions of Hall and Holingshed, the characteristic anecdotes of the faithful Cavendish, and the circumstantial narratives of Stowe and Speed,

and other annalists of less distinguished names. It is, however, from the Acts of the Privy Council, the Parliamentary Journals, and the unpublished Regal Records and MSS. in the State Paper Office, as well as from the treasures preserved in the Bibliothèque du Roi, at Paris, and the private MS. collections of historical families and gentlemen of antiquarian research, that our most important facts are gathered. Every person who has referred to original documents, is aware that it is a work of time and of patience to read the MSS. of the Tudor era. Those in the State Paper Office, and in the Cottonian Library, have suffered much from accidents, and from the injuries of time. Water, and even fire, have partially passed over some: in others, the mildew has swept whole sentences from the page, leaving historical mysteries in provoking obscurity, and occasionally baffling the attempts of the most persevering antiquary to raise the shadowy curtain of the past.

It is a national disgrace, most deeply to be lamented, that so many of the muniments of our history, more especially those connected with the personal expenditure of royalty, should have perished among the ill-treated records of the Exchequer. It has been reported, whether in jest or sober sadness, we cannot say, that some tons of those precious parchments were converted into isinglass. If so, it is possible that the wardrobe accounts of Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katharine Howard, and Katharine Parr, for which diligent search has been instituted in vain, may have feasted the metropolis in the form of jellies and blancmange, instead of enriching the memoirs of those queens. Seriously speaking, the destruction of records is the more to be deplored, because the leaven of party spirit so frequently diffuses itself over the pages of history, that a clear judgment can be formed on disputed points, only by reference to the original documents.

And here we have to express our grateful acknowledgments to the marquess of Normanby for his courtesy in granting us access to the State Paper Office. Unless this privilege had been accorded, it would have been impossible to give authentic biographies of some of the queens of Henry VIII., and the Tudor queens regnant.

The kindness of that learned baronet, sir Thomas Phillipps, and the liberality with which he has allowed us to transcribe from his original MSS., and afforded his aid in the task, cannot be too fully appreciated. We are obliged to sir Cuthbert Sharp for many precious extracts from his foreign collections, and to the Reverend George C. Tomlinson for several curious unpublished MSS. connected with the queens of Eng

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An increased debt of gratitude is due to Henry Howard, esq.," of Corby Castle, and most especially to his accomplished son, Philip H. Howard, esq., M. P., for the friendly assistance rendered to this work in a variety of ways.

Many thanks are offered to those amiable ladies, the countess of Stradbroke and Caroline lady Suffield, for their great kindness in the loan of several valuable works of reference. Also to the earl of Stradbroke, for the assistance derived from his library at Henhamhall.

The courteous attention of J. Glover, esq., her Majesty's librarian, in granting us access to the royal collections in the library at Windsor Castle, claims our grateful thanks and remembrance, which are also due to Frederick Devon, esq., for his friendly assistance in facilitating our researches among the regal records in the Chapter House at Westminster, and to Spencer Hall, esq., the librarian at the Athenæum. We beg to repeat our acknowledgments to sir Harris Nicolas, and to the other learned friends named in our preceding volumes.

The very gratifying manner in which the volumes containing the first series of the Lives of the Queens of England have been distinguished, both by the critical press and the public, affords our best encouragement for the introduction of the more important succession of the Tudor and Stuart queens. These princesses, approximating nearer to our own times, are more identified with the sympathies of the generality of our readers than their majestic predecessors, the Anglo-Norman and Plantagenet queens. The six consorts of Henry VIII. are peculiarly interesting, from being interwoven with the events of the Reformation; and their lives form altogether the most remarkable chain of biographies that has yet appeared in the annals of female royalty.

Since the above was committed to press, the cause of historical literature has lost one of its noblest votaries and friends by the much-lamented death of this venerable gentleman, who died March 1st, full of days and honours, carrying with him to the tomb the admiration and esteem of all parties, and the lasting regrets of those who were distinguished by his friendship.

"It is not the tear at this moment shed,

When the fresh sod has just been laid o'er him,

That can say, how beloved was the spirit that's fled,

Or how deep in our hearts we deplore him."

The late Mr. Howard, of Corby, derived his descent in a direct line from nine of the queens of England, whose Memoirs have appeared in the First and Second Volumes of this Work. His Memorials of the Howard Family," (a splendid folio volume, printed for private circulation,) has proved a most valuable addition to the historical references connected with the Lives of the Queens of England.