622 Recent WiltsJdre Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c. 



The Seymour Family. History and Romance. By 



A. Audrey IiOCke. Illustrated. London : Constable & 

 Company, Ltd., 1911. 



Sjin. X 5|in., pp. including titles viii. + 386, with eleven portraits. 



The book beginsi practically with William St. Maur, the builder 

 of Penhow Castle, in Monmouthshire, some time after 1235. From 

 his younger son, Roger, the Dukes of Somerset are descended. This 

 Koger had a son, John, whose younger son, Roger, married Cecily, d. 

 of John, 3rd Lord Beauchamp of Hache in Somerset, and came to 

 live at Even Swindon. His grandson, Roger, married Maud, d. and 

 coheir of Sir William Esturmy, Lord of Wolf Hall, Speaker of the 

 House of Commons. Their great grandson, John Seymour of Wolf 

 Hall (1450—1491), married Elizabeth, d. of Sir George Darrell of 

 Littlecote. John, their son, of Wolf Hall (14V4 — 1536), who was in 

 great favour both with Hen. VII. and Hen. VIII., and was one of the 

 knights of the body to the latter King, was the father of Queen Jane 

 Seymour, with whom Chapter I. is concerned. The story of the King's 

 courtship, and of the importance attached by the Ambassador of the 

 Emppror to the death of Anne Boleyn and the marriage with Jane as 

 a political measure is told from contemporary letters and reports. 

 The next chapter, "■ The Brothers of a Queen," deal with the careers 

 of Edward, Earl of Hertford, Duke of Somerset, the Protector, and 

 Thomas, the Lord Admiral, Lord Seymour of Sudeley. The former 

 received in 1536, the following Manors in Wilts : — Broad Town, 

 Sherston, Amesbury, Winterbourne, " Alleworthbury," Easton, Frox- 

 field, Grafton, Corsley, Monkton, Tidworth, Berwick Bassett, Richard - 

 ston, Langden, Midghall, Studley, Costow, Farley, Chippenham, 

 Thornhill, Broome, Urchfont, and All Cannings, with the sites of the 

 Priories of Easton and Farley. In 1537 these were followed by the 

 Manors of Slaughterford, Allington, Maiden Bradley, Yarnfield, and 

 Kingston Deverill. Thomas received lands in Suffolk and on the 

 Welsh marches and elsewhere, married Queen Katherine Parr, and 

 both before the marriage and after the Queen's death, aspired to the 

 hand of the Princess Elizabeth herself, and so came into collision with 

 the policy and power of his brother, the Lord Protector, and was by 

 him committed to the Tower and executed in 1548. The author is 

 inclined to believe that Elizabeth really had a strong personal affection 

 for him, but that he like his brother the Protector was actuated only 

 by ambition and lust of power. The characters of the two brothers 

 are well brought out. Edward, second son of the first wife of the 

 Protector, Duke of Somerset, was restored to blood by Act of Parlia- 

 ment in 1553, settled at Berry Pomeroy, in Devon, and was the 

 ancestor of the Seymours of that place, the present Dukes of Somerset. 

 The secret marriage of Edward, Lord Hertford, son of the Protector 

 by his second wife, and Katherine Grey, and of the long perse- 

 cution that the young couple underwent at the hands of Elizabeth is 

 given at some length, with the pitiful story of the wife's death at 

 Cockfield Hall in 1567—8. She was buried at Yoxford, but was later 



