Of the wives of Henry VIII. it is told that Katherine of Arragon entered London wearing “a broad round hat.” She rose at five, and she used to say that dressing-time was murdered time; and she wore the habit of St. Francis of the third order, of which she was a member, beneath her ordinary attire. Anne of Boleyn was a lady of another quality. She was as long at her mirror as any modern maiden of them all; and, when arrayed for conquest, perhaps no woman was ever more decidedly armed against the peace of mankind. Her costume was almost daily varied, the only permanent fashion being the hanging sleeve, to conceal the double tip of the little finger of her left hand; and the kerchief over the neck, on which was a slight mark, which she had worn from her birth. Of course, kerchief collar-bands and hanging sleeves were adopted by all who recognized in Anne the undisputed Queen of Fashion. Jane Seymour, who married Anne’s husband the day after he had beheaded Anne herself, was far from having the taste of her predecessor. She enjoyed the better fortune of dying a natural death, and Henry wept for her, poor man! because he lost the opportunity of otherwise disposing of her. When Anne of Cleves first presented herself to him, she was attired in abundance of petticoats, “after the Dutch fashion.” The King was horrified at such fashion, but sturdy Anne wore more petticoats, in the same national mode, on her wedding-day; nor was it till the morrow that she put off her national dress and assumed one shaped according to the English mode, and which, we are told, made her look more tolerable than she was before. She had the most splendid wardrobe of all Henry’s Queens, with the worst taste in dress. She was fonder of experimental cooking than of dress,—was more made for a buxom hostess than a Queen, and was most fortunate _as_ Queen when she laid down her dignity and retired with a pension, and a neck secured against the King’s violent affection for it. Katherine Howard was in most things her very opposite, in taste for dress as well as in observance of duty; and Katherine Parr, the sixth wife, was superior to both. The first Protestant Queen of England and preserver of Cambridge University was not only a scholar but a “very woman,”—in which phrase I recognize one with a whole string of virtues and accomplishments. She was a perfect mistress of the needle (Queen Adelaide herself was not a greater); and her taste in dress was shown by her uniting magnificence of material with simplicity of form. She was the third of our Queens who descended from royalty to wed with a “mere nobleman;” but as Lady Seymour, good Queen Katherine was still the Queen of Hearts, and when the ivy peered into her coffin at Sudeley Chapel, and wound a wreath about her unconscious head, she gained a crown which caused her less uneasiness than that she had worn as living Queen.