expected by the protestant house of Seymour; but it was one of the
earliest acts of Elizabeth generously to restore to Edward Seymour the
whole of the Protector's confiscated estates not previously granted to
his elder half-brother, and with them the title of earl of Hertford, the
highest which his father had received from Henry VIII., and that with
which he ought to have rested content. Still no door was opened for the
return of the duchess of Somerset to power or favor; Elizabeth never
ceasing to behold in this haughty woman both the deadly enemy of admiral
Seymour,--that Seymour who was the first to touch her youthful heart,
and whose pretensions to her hand had precipitated his ruin,--and that
rigid censor of her early levities, who, dressed in a "brief authority,"
had once dared to assume over her a kind of superiority, which she had
treated at the time with disdain, and apparently continued to recollect
with bitterness.

It appears from a letter in which the duchess earnestly implores the
intercession of Cecil in behalf of her son, when under confinement on
account of his marriage, that she was at the time of writing it excluded
from the royal presence; and it was nine whole years before all the
interest she could make, all the solicitations which she compelled
herself to use towards persons whom she could once have commanded at her
pleasure, proved effectual in procuring his release. The vast wealth
which she had amassed must still, however, have maintained her
ascendency over her own family and numerous dependents, though with its
final disposal her majesty evinced a strong disposition to intermeddle.
Learning that she had appointed her eldest son sole executor, to the
prejudice of his brother sir Henry Seymour, whom she did not love, the
queen sent a gentleman to expostulate with her, and urge her strongly to
change this disposition. The aged duchess, after long refusal, agreed at
length to comply with the royal wish: but this promise she omitted to
fulfil, and some obstruction was in consequence given to the execution
of her last will. We possess a large inventory of her jewels and
valuables, among which are enumerated "two pieces of unicorn's horn," an
article highly valued in that day, from its supposed efficacy as an
antidote, or a test, for poisons. The extreme smallness of her bequests
for charitable purposes was justly remarked as a strong indication of a
harsh and unfeeling disposition, in an age when si