had been seduced by his domestic in their honeymoon. He feared, as much as the pretenders hoped, to taint Elizabeth's birth. Until a prince were born, Elizabeth was his legal heir, and Henry feared to see his crown and sceptre pass into another line. So Audley was allowed to stand by his "conspiracy to compass the King's death," but he was forced to date his charge against the Queen a few days after the princess's birth.

CHAPTER V.

Trial.

1536.

1. As the indictment stood, when all these changes had been made, Norreys was to be accused of an offence committed at Westminster, commencing on the sixth and completed on the twelfth day of October, 1533; Brereton of an offence committed at Hampton Court, commencing on the third, completed on the twenty-fifth day of December, 1533; Smeaton of an offence committed at Westminster, commencing on the twelfth, completed on the twentyfifth day of April, 1534; Weston of an offence committed at Westminster, commencing on the eighth, completed on the twentieth day of May, 1534; Rochford of an offence committed at Westminster, commencing on the second, completed on the fifth day of November, 1535. To crowd so many crimes into so small a space was difficult, and Audley's ingenuity was overtaxed, even when assisted by his able and ingenious colleague Hales. Elizabeth was born on the seventh day of September, 1533, and Anne, according to their pleas, was to be charged with the indulgence of a criminal intrigue on the sixth day of October! Yet the first of Audley's charges paled in infamy before his second. Anne was delivered of a dead son in January 1536; yet

Audley's indictment was made to charge her with adultery and incest in the previous November!

2. Audley's theory being that "conspiracy to compass and imagine the King's death" had taken place in Kent and Middlesex, grand juries were summoned at Deptford and Westminster. These juries found true bills: grand juries always found true bills. On such occasions no investigation of the facts took place. No counsel was employed; no witnesses were heard. Laying a statement before his panel, Hales, the Attorney-general, asked the jurors to declare that if such and such facts were true the case was one for trial. That was all the finding of a grand jury ever meant. Whether the facts were true or false was matter for the courts and petty juries to decide. No one appeared for the accused, nor was any one allowed to speak in their behalf. Audley's juries met, and found his bills on the tenth and eleventh days of May. Norfolk and Suffolk, Exeter and Montagu, were now ready for that "open trial" which the Queen demanded in the name of justice; ready to answer by their presence on the bench, her prayer that her "accusers" might not also be her "judges!"

3. Next morning, Friday, May the twelfth, Audley took his seat in a court erected in Westminster Hall. Norfolk and Suffolk sat beside him, and the other peers were on his right and left. Wiltshire received a royal order to attend, which he obeyed in silence. Those who had meant to crush him were deceived. Anne's father was a masculine version of herself. For many years he had been thinking

of his end, and length of days seemed less to him than to almost any other man on earth. Erasmus had not written for him in vain his noble treatise on the Preparation for Death. If death were now to come, by either sudden stroke or lingering pain, Wiltshire and his children were prepared to die.

4. The three knights and the musician were brought into the dock. Hales read the charge. Each of the four prisoners was aware that he had but one hope of life, which was to turn King's evidence, and vilify the Queen. Yet no one save the varlet stooped to shame. Norreys, Brereton, Weston, each denied the charge according to their pleas. Neither the King's favourite, nor the bronzed warrior, nor the petulant youth, had done any wrong. They had not conspired amongst themselves. They had never compassed and imagined the King's death. Smeaton, while he stuck to the confession made at Greenwich in his spasm of wounded vanity, and in his fear of a gibbet, denied that he had ever conspired with his fellow-prisoners, or that he had ever sought to compass and imagine the King's death. No evidence was given, except the chatter of a woman who was dead! Hales pressed for judgment, and the court being wholly on his side, the usual sentences in case of treason were pronounced. The prisoners were to be drawn to Tyburn, to be there hung by the neck, to be then cut down alive, to have their bowels torn out and burnt, to have their bodies quartered, and their heads chopped off. Yet neither before nor after

sentence would any of the three brave gentlemen say one word against their innocent Queen.

5. Chapuys was deeply mortified. He had been. led to think that either something could be proved, or some one would be got to strengthen the indictment by confession of a fault. His hopes were dashed to pieces. Standing by itself, the evidence of Smeaton had no weight. A queen could not have had a love-affair with such a man without the women in her chamber and the gentlemen in her ante-room being well aware of it. Yet no one from her chamber was produced against these gentlemen, who stood so firmly on their innocence. "The varlet, sire, is the only one that has confessed," wrote Chapuys to his master, in a tone of deep vexation; "the others are condemned on mere presumptions and suggestions, without a word of proof."

6. So the matter stood on Friday night. On Monday, Anne was to be tried; and not a word of evidence beyond the varlet's lies was yet in Audley's hands. Hales' industry had only scraped some proof that Anne and once been seen to kiss her brother, that she had her ladies had danced with the gentlemen of her chamber, and that she had told some members of her family that she hoped to bear a son. Such stuff could hardly be presented in a court of justice, in a case of life and death, against a reigning Queen. Another effort, therefore, must be made. with Norreys. If the King's favourite would turn against the Queen, men's minds might be perplexed by doubts, and what was otherwise a case of murder