156 



Wulfhall and the Seymours. 



that be but our Cousin of Scotland ?" 1 It is, however, a remarkable 

 fact in the history of the descent of the Crown, and one not commonly 

 known, that for nearly twelve months after her death, and King 

 James's accession, March 1603, the legal right to the throne, ac- 

 cording to the Statutes then in force, actually vested in this very 

 Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp, eldest son of the Earl of Hertford 

 and the Lady Katharine Grey. James's hereditary pretensions were 

 not acknowledged and ratified by Parliament until March, 1604. 2 



We must now go back to the old house at Wulfhall, the text of 

 my story. The Earl of Hertford having been a minor several years 

 after his father the Protector's execution, came of age about 1559. 

 I find from letters {Appendix, No. xiv.) written by him as he drew 

 near his majority, that he had proposed to come down into the 

 county, where he was quite unknown, to be introduced by Sir John 

 Thynne to some of the principal friends near his place, and to stop 

 there for a fortnight to shoot bucks for the benefit of the said friends ; 

 and he hoped Sir John would let him have 100 marks for the ex- 

 penses of his journey. But it was just after this design that the 

 troubles of his marriage and imprisonment began. So that for those 

 ten years, lacking one month, he saw very little of Wulfhall until 

 1569. Early in that year, (six after Lady Katharine's death), he 

 sends down into Wiltshire a letter to Sir John Thynne for some in- 

 formation as to the condition of his house, which he had heard on 

 credible report was in the way of utter ruin, and desiring some 

 estimates to be obtained of the entire expense of putting it into 

 repair. Appendix, No. xiv., 5.) Something in this way was done, 

 for in September of that year (1569) he writes from Wulfhall 



1 Readers in the present day, accustomed to attach to the word u rascal" the 

 sense of "scoundrel," would instantly, and most properly, be glad to put a 

 charitable construction upon the poor Queen's language, and say that in the 

 moment of expiring faculties she had forgotten herself. But there seems to be 

 no occasion for this. Rascal was a word of the Forest, and at that time was 

 used to signify a lean or inferior deer, as distinguished from those in full con- 

 dition. All that the Queen probably meant was, that she would have for her 

 succesor one of Jull blood Royal: not one whose blood was of less fine quality. 

 The word is so used, with reference to deer, in Appendix, No. vii., Letter 4, 

 2 Sir H. Nicolas. Chronology of History, p. 320. 



