CH. 11. have illicit intercourse with her; and that the act was committed at Westminster, 26th April, 26 Henry VIII. A.D. 1536. 7. Furthermore, that the said George, Lord Rochfort, Henry Norris, William Brereton, Sir Francis Weston, and Mark Smeton, being thus inflamed by carnal love of the queen, and having become very jealous of each other, did, in order to secure her affections, satisfy her inordinate desires; and that the queen was equally jealous of the Lord Rochfort and other the beforementioned traitors; and she would not allow them to show any familiarity with any other woman, without her exceeding displeasure and indignation; and that on the 27th day of November, 27 Hen. VIII., and other days, at Westminster, she gave them gifts and great rewards, to inveigle them to her will. '8. Furthermore, that the queen, and other the said traitors, jointly and severally, 31st of October, 27 Hen. VIII., and at various times before and after, compassed and imagined the king's death; and that the queen had frequently promised to marry some one of the traitors, whenever the king should depart this life, affirming she never would love the king in her heart. 9. Furthermore, that the king, having within a short time before become acquainted with the before-mentioned crimes, vices, and treasons, had been so grieved that certain harms and dangers had happened to his royal body.'* * Baga de Secretis, pouch 9. A.D. 1536. bability of guilt and bability of a conspi against her the same I suppose that persons who have made up CH. 11. their minds conclusively, and are resolved to abide by the popular verdict of English historians, will turn with disgust from these hideous charges; seeming, as they do, to overstep all ordinary bounds of credibility. On one side or the other there was indeed no common guilt. The colours deepen at every step. But it is to be remem- The improbered that if the improbability of crimes so the queen's revolting is becoming greater, the opposite the improimprobability increases with equal strengththat English noblemen and gentlemen could racy have made themselves a party to the invention increase in of the story. For invention is unfortunately ratio. the only word; would indeed that any other were admissible! The discovery of the indictment disposes at once of Burnet's legend, that the queen was condemned on hearsay evidence; or that her guilt was conjectured from an exaggerated report of foolish conversations. It cuts off all hope, too, of possible mistake. I have heard There is the name of Leontes mentioned as a parallel to for the Henry; and if the question lay only between the hypothesis king and his wife, we would gladly welcome the alternative. Charity would persuade us that a husband had been madly blind, sooner far than that a queen had been madly wicked. But this road for escape is closed. The mistake of Leontes The pawas transparent to every eye but his own. The Leontes charges against Anne Boleyn were presented by suggested, two grand juries before the highest judicial tri- admissible. There was nothing vague, bunal in the realm. nothing conjectural. The detail was given of no room of mistake. rallel of but not A.D. 1536. CH. 11. acts and conversations stretching over a period of two and more; and either there was evidence years for these things, or there was none. If there was evidence, it must have been close, elaborate, and minute; if there was none, these judges, these juries and noblemen, were the accomplices of the king in a murder perhaps the most revolting which was ever committed. The difficulties in It may be thought that the evidence was the way of pieced together in the secrets of the cabinet; supposing that the juries found their bills on a case pre the accu sations forged. sented to them by the council. This would Even if we could believe that they forged the A.D. 1536. purpose plication and the number of accusations, yet they would at least limit the CH. 11. dimensions of them. The most audacious villain will not extend his crimes beyond what he requires To what for his object; and if the king desired only to rid the multihimself of his wife, to what purpose the multipli- of offences, cation of offenders, and the long list of acts of guilt, when a single offence with the one accom- offenders? plice who was ready to abide by a confession, would have sufficed? The four gentlemen gratuitously, on this hypothesis, entangled in the indictment, were nobly connected: one of them, Lord Rochfort, was himself a peer; they had lived, all four, several years at the court, the intimate friends, it is likely, of every member of the council. Are we to suppose that evidence was invented with no imaginable purpose, for wanton and needless murders?-that the council risked the success of their scheme, by multiplying charges which only increased difficulty of proof, and provoked the interference of the powerful relations of the accused?* *Sir Francis Bryan, the queen's cousin, was at first suspected. He was absent from the court, and received a message from Cromwell to appear instantly on his allegiance. The following extract is from the Deposition of the Abbot of Woburn. MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, E iv. The said abbot remembereth that at the fall of Queen Anne, whom God pardon, Master Bryan, being in the country, was suddenly sent for by the Lord Privy Seal, as the said Master Bryan afterwards shewed me, charging CH. II. Friday, Such are the difficulties in which, at this early stage of the transaction, we are already implicated. They will not diminish as we proceed. Friday, the 12th of May, was fixed for the The court opening of the court. On that day, a petty jury was returned at Westminster, for the trial of Sir opens. Now welcome home and never so welcome.' He, astonished, said unto me, 'Why so?' The said abbot said, 'Sir, I shall shew you that at leisure,' and walked up into the great chamber with the men of worship. And after a pause it pleased him to sit down upon a bench and willed me to sit by him, and after that demanded of me what I meant when I said, 'Never so welcome as then;' to whom I said thus: Sir, Almighty God in his first creation made an order of angels, and among all made one principal, which was the who would not be content with his estate, but affected the celsitude and rule of Creator, for the which he was divested from the altitude of heaven into the profundity of hell into everlasting darkness, without repair or return, with those that consented unto his pride. So it now lately befell in this our worldly hierarchy of the court by the fall of Queen Anne as worldly Lucifer, not content with her estate to be true unto her creator, making her his queen, but affected unlawful concupiscence, fell suddenly out of that felicity wherein she was set, irrecoverably with all those a that consented unto her lust, whereof I am glad that ye were never; and, therefore, now welcome and never so welcome, here is the end of my tale.' And then he said unto me: 'Sir, indeed, as you say, I was suddenly sent for, marvelling thereof and debating the matter in my mind why this should be; at the last I considered and knew myself true and clear in conscience unto my prince, and with all speed and without fear [hastily set] me forward and came to my Lord Privy Seal, and after that to the King's Grace, and nothing found in me, nor never shall be, but just and true to my master the King's Grace.' And then I said Benedictus, but this was a marvellous peremptory commandment,' said I, and would have astonished the wisest man in this realm.' And he said, 'What then, he must needs do his master's commandment, and I assure you there never was a man wiser to order the king's causes than he is; I pray God save his life.'' The language both of Sir Francis Bryan and the abbot is irreconcileable with any other supposition, except that they at least were satisfied of the queen's guilt. |