SEYMOUR, ANNE, MARGARET, AND JANE,
Daughters of Edward, Duke of Somerset, were known for their poetical talents. Their one hundred and four Latin distichs on the death of Margaret of Valois, Queen of France, were translated into French, Greek, and Italian, and printed in Paris in 1551, but possess little merit. Anne married the Earl of Warwick, and afterwards Sir Edward Hunter. Margaret and Jane died single. Jane was maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, and died in 1560, at the age of twenty.
SEYMOUR, JANE,
Was married to Henry the Eighth, in May, 1536, the day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded, and died, October, 1537, two days after the birth of her son, Edward the Sixth. Henry is said to have been very much attached to her during their brief union; but she seems to have been cold and insipid in her character, retaining his affections more by her yielding disposition, than by any other quality. She never interfered in state affairs. She was maid of honour to Anne Boleyn at the time that Henry fell in love with her; and witnessed Anne's fall and death without the slightest appearance of sensibility.
SFORZA, BIANCA MARIA VISCONTI,
Was the natural child of Filippo Visconti; and, being his only daughter, she was legitimated, and apportioned with the dowry of a princess; and, in 1441, she was married to Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. She was then fifteen years of age, and distinguished among all the ladies of the court for beauty and elegance. The duchess, though not of a race eminent for piety, had always an inclination for promoting religious institutions; by her influence over her husband, who loved her passionately, she was now in a situation to gratify her pious wishes. She placed the first stone In the temple of St. Agnes, in Milan; and, nine years afterwards, erected the church of St. Nicolas, and founded the monastery of Corpo Cristo, in Cremona. But her most useful and greatest establishment was the grand hospital of Milan, a magnificent edifice, which she caused to be begun in 1456, but which was not completed until 1797. After the death of her husband, she was regent of her son, Galeazzo. In her administration she exhibited the utmost strictness, good sense, and political ability. Her son, when arrived at manhood, ungratefully forgetting all he owed to her care and prudence, rendered his conduct so distasteful to her, by his arrogance and rudeness, that she retired to an estate she possessed at Marignard, where she began a plan of life to be pursued in good works and pious duties; when a sudden death terminated her existence at the age of forty-two, in the year 1468.
SFORZA, BONA,
Queen of Poland, was born in Naples, in 1501. She was the daughter of Isabella of Arragon, and of Servanni Galleozzo Sforza, nephew of the founder of the Sforza dynasty in Milan. She lost her father in infancy, and was brought up with great care by her mother. In 1518, she was married by proxy to Sigismond the
