affectionate letter, -wishing her confinement safe over, and twenty-one days afterwards, being the thirtieth of the same month, she gave birth to a healthy girl; both parents had hoped for a boy, but the disappointment was scarcely if at all felt. Seymour, overflowing with the raptures of paternity, wrote such an exaggerated account of the beauties of his new-born daughter to Ins brother, Somerset, that that noble, at the foot of a letter of severe reproof, which he had penned to him bot a moment before receiving the joyous tidings, congratulated him that the Queen had made him father of so pretty a daughter; thus concluding : l i And although, had God so ordained it, it would have been both to ns and to you a more joy and comfort had this first-born been a son, yet the escape of ine danger, and the prophecy and good hansell of this to a great sort of happy sons,* which, as you write, we trust no less than to be true, is no small joy and comfort to us, as we are sure it is to you and to her grace also, to whom you shall make our hearty commendations, with no less gratulation of such good success. Thus we bid you a hearty farewell. From Sion, the first of September, 1584. " E. SOMERSET." Katherine's joy at becoming a mother was brief; her accouchement was favourable ; the next day all appeared to be well; but, the day following, she was attacked with alarming symptoms of puerperal fever. She became distressingly irritable in mind and body; her husband, overwhelmed with anguish at her dangerous condition, vainly exerted his utmost to soothe and comfort herthe fever baffled the skill of her physicians, and on the fifth day she became delirious, and on the seventh died. Sir Thomas Seymour's enemies declared that he poisoned her, but the charge may be deemed a malicious fabrication, founded on his improper conduct with Elizabeth, and his desire to make that Prin * From this remark, it is probable that Sir Thomas Seymour had been consulting astrologers, a common practice with all persona, from the peasant to the peer, in that era. cess his bride, immediately after his wife's death. Katherine Parr died in tbe thirtysixth year of her age ; and hers being the first royal funeral solemnized according to the early Protestant rites, we give the particulars of it in full, from a curious old MS. in the College of Arms, simply modernizing the orthography and phraseology. " A breviate of tbe interment of the Lady Katherine Parr, Queen-Dowager, late consort to King Henry the Eighth, and afterwards wife to Sir Thomas,Lord Seymour of Sudcley, and High Admiral of England. " Item—On "Wednesday, the third of September, between two and three in the morning, died the aforesaid lady, late Quecn-Dowager, at the Castle of Sudelcy, in Gloucestershire, 154S, and lieth buried in the chapel of the said castle. " Item—She was cored and chested in lead, and so remained in her privy chamber till all things were in readiness. The chapel was hung with black cloth, garnished with escutcheons of Henry the Eighth and hers, in pale; under the crown, her own, in lozenge ; under the crown, also, the arms of the Admiral and hers, in pale, without the crown. The rails were covered with black cloth, for the mourners to sit within, with stools and cushions accordingly, and two lighted escutcheons stood upon the corpse during the service. " The order in proceeding to Chapel. "First, two conductors in black, with black staves ; then, in order as here set down, gentlemen and esquires, knights, officers of the household, with their white staves ; gentlemen ushers ; Somerset, herald, in tho tabard coat; then the corpse, borne by six gentlemen in black gowns, with their hoods on their heads, followed by eleven staff torches borne on each side by yeomen ; round about the corpse, and at each of the four corners, a knight, for assistance, with their hoods on "their heads ; then the Lady Jane Grey, as chief mourner, her train borne by a noble maiden ; then six other ladies, followed by ladies and gentlemen two and two, yeomen three and three, and all the other mourners.