submissiveness, which made her a bad political instrument, exactly suited a husband so imperious as Henry; and from a domestic point of view the union was successful. During the summer Jane shared in her husband's progresses and recreations, but as the months rolled on and no hope came of offspring, ominous rumours ran that Jane's coronation would be deferred until it was proved that she might bear children to the King; and some said that if she proved barren a pretext would be found for displacing her in favour of another. Indeed, only a few days after the public marriage, Henry noticed two very beautiful girls at Court, and showed his annoyance that he had not seen them before taking Jane. After six months of marriage without sign of issue, Henry began to take fright. The Duke of Richmond was dead, and both the King's daughters were acknowledged by the law of England to be illegitimate. He was already forty-six years of age, and had lately grown very obese; and his death without further issue or a resettlement of the succession would inevitably lead to a dynastic dispute, with the probable result of the return of the House of York to the throne in the person of one of the Poles under the ægis of Rome. Whenever possible, Jane had said a good word for the Princess Mary, and Henry began to listen more kindly than before to his wife's well-meant attempts to soften him in favour of his daughter. The Catholic party was all alert with new hopes that the King, convinced that he could father no more sons, would cause his elder daughter to be acknowledged his heir;[178] but the reformers, who had grown up numerously, especially in and about London, during Henry's defiance of Rome, looked askance at a policy which in time they feared might bring back the old order of things. The mainstay of this party at Court, apart from the professed Lutherans and the new bishops, were those who, having received grants of ecclesiastical property, despaired of any return to the Roman communion and the imperial alliance without the restoration of the Church property. Amongst these courtiers was Jane's brother, Edward Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp, who had received large grants of ecclesiastical lands at intervals since 1528. He was a personal friend of the King, and had taken no active part in the intrigue that accompanied his sister's elevation, though after the marriage he naturally rose higher than before in the favour of the King. He was a clever and superficially brilliant, but ostentatious and greedy man, of no great strength of purpose, whose new relationship to the King marked him out as a dominating influence in the future. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, upon whom Henry had depended as generals, were now very old and ailing, and there was no other peer but Cromwell of any ability in the Councils.