34 The Eminent Ladies of WiltsJiire History. 



and that this famous epitaph when sifted does seem rather extrava- 

 gantj for the plain English of it is, that so long as the world shall 

 last the like of her shall never again be seen, and that there was no 

 occasion to erect a stone memorial to her, because some other lady 

 would, reading those lines, like Niobe, be so very accommodating 

 as to turn into stone and so provide one.' The world has probably 

 produced since this amiable Countesses time many as " learnM and 

 fair and wise as she,^' but the memory of them has perished for 

 want of a few pretty lines. 



Queen Jane Seymour was born at Wulfhall, an old manor 

 house (of which a portion still remains near the Savernake Station), 

 the home of her father, Sir John Seymour. There you may also 

 still see a very long and curious old barn in which the people danced 

 at her wedding. The hooks from which the tapestry was hung 

 are still in the walls. She was sister of the Protector Somerset. 



The Protector's second wife is next to be named, the Lady Anne 

 Stanhope, not a native, but an adopted lady of the county, mistress 

 for the time of the Seymour house at Savernake and Wulfhall. This 

 lady was the cause of great domestic trouble and partly of her 

 husband's downfall. The Protector had a younger brother Thomas, 

 Lord Sudeley, who married Katherine Parr, the Dowager Queen of 

 Henry VIII. Here arose a difficulty. Anne Stanhope was wife of 

 the elder brother, who was virtually King of England, and she 

 refused to carry the train of the Queen Dowager, wife of the younger 

 brother. So from the ladies' quarrel as to which should walk out 

 first, the schism spread to the two husbands. Jealousies and dislike 

 ensued ; and Thomas was sent to the block. In a very little time 

 the Protector followed him : so, (as Dr. Fuller in his quaint way says) 

 " what with this jostling for precedence, and what between the train 

 of the Queen and the long gown of the Duchess, they raised so 

 much dust at the Court, as at last to put out the eyes of both 

 husbands. Women's brawls men's thralls." 



Wulfhall supplies us with another lady who was rather remarkable. 



^ It is fair to add (what the writer was not aware of at the time of reading this 

 paper) that Gifford the critic had pronounced the second stanza to he a " paltry- 

 addition." See Notes and Queries, 6th S., iv., 258. 



