The members of the ultramontane party saw the influence of the queen in all these nominations. Who resisted the proposal that the English Church should be represented at the General Council? Who endeavored to make the king advance in the direction of the Reformation? Who threw England into the arms of the princes of Germany?—The queen, none but the queen. She felt unhappy, it was said, when she saw a day pass without having obtained some favor for the Reformation.[286] Men knew that the pope was ready to forgive everything, and even to unite with Henry against Charles V., if the king would submit to the conditions laid down in the bull—that is to say, if he would put away Anne Boleyn.[287] The condition required by the pontiff was not an impossible one, for Henry liked to change his wives: he had six. Marriage was not to him a oneness of life. At the end of 1535, Anne had been his wife for three years; it was a long time for him, and he began to turn his eyes upon others. Jane Seymour's youth eclipsed the queen's. Unfortunate Boleyn! Sorrow had gradually diminished her freshness. Jane had natural allies, who might help her to ascend the throne. Her two Papers_, vii. p. 637, 640.] brothers, Edward and Thomas—the elder more moderate, the younger more arrogant—each possessing great ambition and remarkable capacity, thought that a Seymour was as worthy as a Boleyn to wear the English crown. The first blow did not however proceed from them, but from a member of the queen's family—from her sister-in-law. There is no room for indifference between near relations: they love or, if they do not love, they hate. Lady Rocheford, so closely allied to the queen, felt continually piqued at her. Jealousy had engendered a deep dislike in her heart, and this dislike was destined to lead her on to contrive the death of the detested object. Rendered desperate by the happiness and especially by the greatness of Anne Boleyn, it became her ruling passion to destroy them. One obstacle, however, rose up before her. Lord Rocheford, her husband and Anne's brother, would not enter into her perfidious schemes. That depraved woman, who afterwards suffered capital punishment for conniving at crime, determined to ruin her sister-in-law and her husband together. It was arranged that three of the courtiers should give Henry the first hints. 'Thus began,' says an author of that day, 'a comedy which was changed into a sorrowful tragedy.'[288] Nothing was omitted that tended to the success of one of the most infamous court intrigues recorded in history.