Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 386, August 22, 1829 - Various - Страница 6

(For the Mirror.)

Every hint, every ray of light, which tends, in the most distant manner, to illustrate an obscure passage in the history of our country, cannot we presume, while it affords great pleasure and satisfaction to the student attentively employed in such researches, be deemed either insignificant or uninteresting by the general reader.

The birth of Edward the Sixth must always be regarded as a bright star in the horizon of the Reformation, and one, which tended greatly to blast the prospects of those who were inimical to that glorious change in our religious constitution.

The marriage of Henry the Eighth, with the Lady Jane Seymour, 3 immediately after the death of his former Queen, Anne Boleyn, is so well known as to render it superfluous, if not presuming in us to enlarge upon it in this place: suffice it to say, that the nuptials were celebrated on the day following the execution of Anne, the twentieth of May, 1536, the King "not thinking it fit to mourn long, or much, for one the law had declared criminall." 4 Old Fuller says, "it is currantly traditioned, that at her [Jane's] first coming to court, Queen Anne Bolen espying a jewell pendant about her neck, snatched thereat, (desirous to see, the other unwilling to show it,) and casually hurt her hand with her own violence; but it grieved her heart more, when she perceived it the King's picture by himself bestowed upon her, who from this day forward dated her own declining and the other's ascending in her husband's affection." 5 About seventeen months after her marriage at the Palace of Hampton Court, Queen Jane gave birth to a son, Edward the Sixth.

The precise period of the birth of this prince has been variously stated by historians. Sir John Hayward, 6 who bestowed considerable labour upon writing his life, places it on the seventeenth of October, 1537; while Sanders, 7 on the other hand, fixes it on the tenth. Herbert, Godwin, 8 and Stow, whom, all 9 his more modern biographers have followed, agree that it happened on the twelfth of the same month, and their testimony is fully corroborated by the following official letter, addressed to Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, informing him of the birth of a prince:—

By the Quene

"Right trustie and right welbeloved, wee grete you well; and, forasmuche as by the inestimable goodnes and grace of Almighty God wee be delivered and brought in childbed of a Prince, conceived in most lawfull matrimonie between my Lord the King's Majestie and us; doubtinge not but, for the love and affection which ye beare unto us, and to the commonwealth of this realme, the knowledge thereof should be joyous and glad tydeings unto you, we have thought good to certifie you of the same, to th' intent you might not onely render unto God condigne thanks and praise for soe greate a benefit but alsoe continuallie praie for the longe continuance and preservacion of the same here in this life, to the honour of God, joy and pleasure of my Lord the Kinge and us, and the universall weale, quiett, and tranquillitie of this hole realm."

"Given under our Signet, att my Lord's Mannor of Hampton Courte, the xii daie of October." 10

Edward was christened with great state, on the Monday following, in the chapel at Hampton Court, Archbishop Cranmer, and the Duke of Norfolk being the godfathers, and his sister, the Princess Mary, godmother. 11 "At his birth," says Hall, "was great fires made through the whole realme, and great joye made with thankesgeuyng to Almightie God which had sent so noble a prince to succeed to the crowne of this realme." 12

The joy, however, which the birth of a son and heir to the throne, excited in the mind of Henry was soon dispelled by the death of his queen. It was deemed necessary, both for the preservation of her life, and that of her offspring, to bring the latter into the world by means of the Caesarian operation, a mode which in the greater number of cases proves fatal to the mother. It has been maliciously, and without the least appearance of truth, asserted by Sanders, 13 one of the most bitter writers of the opposite party, that the question was put to the King by the physicians, whether the life of the Queen or the child should be saved, for it was judged impossible to preserve both? "The child's," he replied, "for I shall be able to find wives enough." Whether, however, her death originated from that terrible cause, we cannot, at this distant period, pretend to affirm, but from the report to the Privy Council of the birth of Edward the Sixth, still extant, it would appear not, as it informs us she was "happily" delivered, and died afterwards of a distemper incidental to women in that condition.

The death of Jane Seymour, like the birth of her son, is involved in considerable obscurity. Most of the chroniclers who appear to have followed Herbert 14 in this particular, fix it on the fourteenth of October, two days after the birth of Edward; Hayward, on the contrary, states that "shee dyed of the incision on the fourth day following," while Edward the Sixth, in his journal, written by himself, informs us, but without stating any precise period, that it happened "within a few dayes after the birth of her soone." 15 We shall, however, see from the following letter, that this event did not take place on either of the abovementioned days, nor until "duodecimo post die," as George Lilly truly informs us, the day also mentioned in the journal of Cecil. 16 This original document respecting the health of the Queen, which is still extant, is signed by Thomas Rutland, and five other medical men, is dated on a Wednesday, which if it were only the following Wednesday, and we shall presently prove that it was not, would, at least, make it five days afterwards.