[Sidenote: Anne Boleyn confesses to Cranmer that she has never been lawfully married to the king.]

The queen was left till a further mystery had perplexed yet deeper the disgraceful exposure. Henry had desired Cranmer to be her confessor. The archbishop was with her on the day after her trial,[599] and she then made an extraordinary avowal,[600] either that she had been married or contracted in early life, or had been entangled in some connexion which invalidated her marriage with the king. The letter to the emperor, which I have already quoted,[601] furnishes the solitary explanation of the mystery which remains. Some one, apparently the imperial ambassador, informed Charles that she was discovered to have been nine years before married to Lord Percy, not formally only, but really and completely. If this be true, her fate need scarcely excite further sympathy.

[Sidenote: The queen is pronounced divorced.]

On Wednesday she was taken to Lambeth, where she made her confession in form, and the archbishop, sitting judicially, pronounced her marriage with the king to have been null and void. The supposition, that this business was a freak of caprice or passion, is too puerile to be considered. It is certain that she acknowledged something; and it is certain also that Lord Northumberland was examined upon the subject before the archbishop. In person upon oath indeed, and also in, a letter to Cromwell, Northumberland denied that he had ever been legally connected with her; but perhaps Northumberland was afraid to make an admission so dangerous to himself, or perhaps the confession itself was a vague effort which she made to save her life.[602] But whatever she said, and whether she spoke truth or falsehood, she was pronounced divorced, and the divorce did not save her.[603] Friday, the 19th, was fixed for her death; and when she found that there was no hope she recovered her spirits. The last scene was to be on the green inside the Tower. The public were to be admitted; but Kingston suggested that to avoid a crowd it was desirable not to fix the hour, since it was supposed that she would make no further confession.

[Sidenote: Thursday, May 18. Kingston's tribute to her conduct in the Tower.]

"This morning she sent for me," he added, "that I might be with her at such time as she received the good Lord, to the intent that I should hear her speak as touching her innocency always to be clear. 'Mr. Kingston,' she said, 'I hear say I shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time, and past my pain.' I told her it should be no pain, it was so subtle; and then she said, 'I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck,' and put her hands about it, laughing heartily. I have seen many men, and also women, executed, and they have been in great sorrow; and to my knowledge, this lady hath much joy and pleasure in death."[604]

[Sidenote: Friday, May 19. Tower Green at noon.]

We are very near the termination of the tragedy. A little before noon on the 19th of May, Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, was led down to the green. A single cannon stood loaded on the battlements; the motionless cannoneer was ready, with smoking linstock, to tell London that all was over. The yeomen of the guard were there, and a crowd of citizens; the lord mayor in his robes, the deputies of the guilds, the sheriffs, and the aldermen; they were come to see a spectacle which England had never seen before—a head which had worn the crown falling under the sword of an executioner.

[Sidenote: The scaffold, and the persons present upon it.]

On the scaffold, by the king's desire, there were present Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, and lastly, the Duke of Richmond, who might now, when both his sisters were illegitimized, be considered heir presumptive to the throne. As in the choice of the commission, as in the conduct of the trial, as in the summons of parliament, as in every detail through which the cause was passed, Henry had shown outwardly but one desire to do all which the most strict equity prescribed, so around this last scene he had placed those who were nearest in blood to himself, and nearest in rank to the crown. If she who was to suffer was falling under a forged charge, he acted his part with horrible completeness.

[Sidenote: The queen's last words.]

The queen appeared walking feebly, supported by the Lieutenant of the Tower. She seemed half stupified and looked back from time to time at the ladies by whom she was followed. On reaching the platform, she asked if she might say a few words;[605] and permission being granted, she turned to the spectators and said: "Christian people, I am come to die. And according to law, and by law, I am judged to death; and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that whereof I am accused and condemned to die. But I pray God save the king, and send him long to reign over you; for a gentler and more merciful prince was there never; and to me he was ever a good, a gentle, and sovereign lord. If any person will meddle of my cause, I require him to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you; and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. Oh, Lord, have mercy on me. To God I commend my soul."[606] "These words," says Stow, "she spoke with a smiling countenance." She wore an ermine cloak which was then taken off. She herself removed her headdress, and one of her attendants gave her a cap into which she gathered her hair. She then knelt, and breathing faintly a commendation of her soul to Christ, the executioner with a single blow struck off her head. A white handkerchief was thrown over it as it fell, and one of the ladies took it up and carried it away. The other women lifted the body and bore it into the Chapel of the Tower, where it was buried in the choir.[607]

Thus she too died without denying the crime for which she suffered. Smeton confessed from the first. Brereton, Weston, Rochfort, virtually confessed on the scaffold. Norris said nothing. Of all the sufferers not one ventured to declare that he or she was innocent,—and that six human beings should leave the world with the undeserved stain of so odious a charge on them, without attempting to clear themselves, is credible only to those who form opinions by their wills, and believe or disbelieve as they choose.

To this end the queen had come at last, and silence is the best comment which charity has to offer upon it. Better far it would have been if the dust had been allowed to settle down over the grave of Anne Boleyn, and her remembrance buried in forgetfulness. Strange it is that a spot which ought to have been sacred to pity, should have been made the arena for the blind wrestling of controversial duellists. Blind, I call it; for there has been little clearness of judgment, little even of common prudence in the choice of sides. If the Catholics could have fastened the stain of murder on the king and the statesmen of England, they would have struck the faith of the establishment a harder blow than by a poor tale of scandal against a weak, erring, suffering woman: and the Protestants, in mistaken generosity, have courted an infamy for the names of those to whom they owe their being, which, staining the fountain, must stain for ever the stream which flows from it. It has been no pleasure to me to rake among the evil memories of the past, to prove a human being sinful whom the world has ruled to have been innocent. Let the blame rest with those who have forced upon our history the alternative of a reassertion of the truth, or the shame of noble names which have not deserved it at our hands.

[Sidenote: Fresh perplexity in the succession.]

[Sidenote: Elizabeth now illegitimate.]

[Sidenote: Lord Thomas Howard and Lady Margaret Douglas.]

No sooner had the result of the trial appeared to be certain, than the prospects of the succession to the throne were seen to be more perplexed than ever. The prince so earnestly longed for had not been born. The disgrace of Anne Boleyn, even before her last confession, strengthened the friends of the Princess Mary. Elizabeth, the child of a doubtful marriage which had terminated in adultery and incest, would have had slight chance of being maintained, even if her birth had suffered no further stain; and by the Lambeth sentence she was literally and legally illegitimate. The King of Scotland was now the nearest heir; and next to him stood Lady Margaret Douglas, his sister, who had been born in England, and was therefore looked upon with better favour by the people. As if to make confusion worse confounded, in the midst of the uncertainty Lord Thomas Howard, taking advantage of the moment, and, as the act or his attainder says,[608] "being seduced by the devil, and not having the fear of God before his eyes," persuaded this lady into a contract of marriage with him; "The presumption being," says the same act, "that he aspired to the crown by reason of so high a marriage; or, at least, to the making division for the same; having a firm hope and trust that the subjects of this realm[609] would incline and bear affection to the said Lady Margaret, being born in this realm; and not to the King of Scots, her brother, to whom this realm hath not, nor ever had, any affection; but would resist his attempt to the crown of this realm to the uttermost of their powers."[610]

[Sidenote: The council and the peers urge the king to an instant re-marriage.]

Before the discovery of this proceeding, but in anticipation of inevitable intrigues of the kind, the privy council and the peers, on the same grounds which had before led them to favour the divorce from Catherine, petitioned the king to save the country from the perils which menaced it, and to take a fresh wife without an hour's delay. Henry's experience of matrimony had been so discouraging, that they feared he might be reluctant to venture upon it again. Nevertheless, for his country's sake, they trusted that he would not refuse.[611]

[Sidenote: He marries Jane Seymour.]

Henry, professedly in obedience to this request, was married, immediately after the execution, to Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour. The indecent haste is usually considered a proof entirely conclusive of the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin.[612] Under any aspect it was an extraordinary step, which requires to be gravely considered. Henry, who waited seven years for Anne Boleyn, to whom he was violently attached, was not without control over his passions; and if appetite had been the moving influence with him, he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world upon him, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which he was the sovereign. If Jane Seymour had really been the object of a previous unlawful attachment, her conduct in accepting so instantly a position so frightfully made vacant, can scarcely be painted in too revolting colours. Yet Jane Seymour's name, at home and abroad, by Catholic and Protestant, was alike honoured and respected. Among all Henry's wives she stands out distinguished by a stainless name, untarnished with the breath of reproach.

If we could conceive the English nation so tongue-tied that they dared not whisper their feelings, there were Brussels, Paris, Rome, where the truth could be told; yet, with the exception of a single passage in a letter of Mary of Hungary,[613] there is no hint in the correspondence, either in Paris, Simancas, or Brussels, that there was a suspicion of foul play. If Charles or Francis had believed Henry really capable of so deep atrocity, no political temptation would have induced either of them to commit their cousins or nieces to the embrace of a monster, yet no sooner was Jane Seymour dead, than we shall find them competing eagerly with each other to secure his hand.

It is quite possible that when Anne Boleyn was growing licentious, the king may have distinguished a lady of acknowledged excellence by some in no way improper preference, and that when desired by the council to choose a wife immediately, he should have taken a person as unlike as possible to the one who had disgraced him. This was the interpretation which was given to his conduct by the Lords and Commons of England. In the absence of any evidence, or shadow of evidence, that among contemporaries who had means of knowing the truth, another judgment was passed upon it, the deliberate assertion of an act of parliament must be considered a safer guide than modern unsupported conjecture.[614]

[Sidenote: June 8. Parliament meets.]

This matter having been accomplished, the king returned to London to meet parliament. The Houses assembled on the 8th of June; the peers had hastened up in unusual numbers, as if sensible of the greatness of the occasion. The Commons were untried and unknown; and if Anne Boleyn was an innocent victim, no king of England was ever in so terrible a position as Henry VIII. when he entered the Great Chamber fresh from his new bridal. He took his seat upon the throne; and then Audeley, the Lord Chancellor, rose and spoke:[615]

[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor's speech at the opening.]

[Sidenote: The succession must be reconsidered.]

[Sidenote: And the king desires the parliament to name an heir apparent.]

"At the dissolution of the late parliament, the King's Highness had not thought so soon to meet you here again. He has called you together now, being moved thereunto by causes of grave moment, affecting both his own person and the interests of the commonwealth. You will have again to consider the succession to the crown of this realm. His Highness knows himself to be but mortal, liable to fall sick, and to die.[616] At present he perceives the peace and welfare of the kingdom to depend upon his single life; and he is anxious to leave it, at his death, free from peril. He desires you therefore to nominate some person as his heir apparent, who, should it so befall him (which God forbid!) to depart out of this world without children lawfully begotten, may rule in peace over this land, with the consent and the good will of the inhabitants thereof.

"You will also deliberate upon the repeal of a certain act passed in the late parliament, by which the realm is bound to obedience to the Lady Anne Boleyn, late wife of the king, and the heirs lawfully begotten of them twain, and which declares all persons who shall, by word or deed, have offended against this lady or her offspring, to have incurred the penalties of treason.

[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor's advice to the Houses.]

"These are the causes for which you are assembled; and if you will be advised by me, you will act in these matters according to the words of Solomon, with whom our most gracious king may deservedly be compared. The "wise man" counsels us to bear in mind such things as be past, to weigh well such things as be present, and provide prudently for the things which be to come. And you I would bid to remember, first, those sorrows and those burdens which the King's Highness did endure on the occasion of his first unlawful marriage—a marriage not only judged unlawful by the most famous universities in Christendom, but so determined by the consent of this realm; and to remember further the great perils which have threatened his most royal Majesty from the time when he entered on his second marriage.

[Sidenote: The gratitude due to the king for his third adventure into marriage.]

"Then, turning to the present, you will consider in what state the realm now standeth with respect to the oath by which we be bound to the Lady Anne and to her offspring; the which Lady Anne, with her accomplices, has been found guilty of high treason, and has met the due reward of her conspiracies. And then you will ask yourselves, what man of common condition would not have been deterred by such calamities from venturing a third time into the state of matrimony. Nevertheless, our most excellent prince, not in any carnal concupiscence, but at the humble entreaty of his nobility, hath consented once more to accept that condition, and has taken to himself a wife who in age and form is deemed to be meet and apt for the procreation of children.

"Lastly, according to the third injunction, let us now do our part in providing for things to come. According to the desire of his most gracious Highness, let us name some person to be his heir; who, in case (quod absit) that he depart this life leaving no offspring lawfully begotten, may be our lawful sovereign. But let us pray Almighty God that He will graciously not leave our prince thus childless; and let us give Him thanks for that He hath preserved his Highness to us out of so many dangers; seeing that his Grace's care and efforts be directed only to the ruling his subjects in peace and charity so long as his life endures, and to the leaving us, when he shall come to die, in sure possession of these blessings."

[Sidenote: The speech digested into a statute.]

[Sidenote: July 1. Reassertion of the independence of the realm.]

Three weeks after Anne Boleyn's death and the king's third marriage, the chancellor dared to address the English legislature in these terms: and either he spoke like a reasonable man, which he may have done, or else he was making an exhibition of effrontery to be paralleled only by Seneca's letter to the Roman Senate after the murder of Agrippina. The legislature adopted the first interpretation, and the heads of the speech were embodied in an act of parliament. While the statute was in preparation, they made use of the interval in continuing the business of the Reformation. They abolished finally the protection of sanctuary in cases of felony, extending the new provisions even to persons in holy orders:[617] they calmed the alarms of Cranmer and the Protestants by re asserting the extinction of the authority of the pope;[618] and they passed various other laws of economic and social moment. At length, on the 1st of July, in a crowded house, composed of fourteen bishops,[619] eighteen abbots, and thirty-nine lay peers,[620] a bill was read a first time of such importance that I must quote at length its own most noticeable words.

[Sidenote: Second great Act of Succession. The parliament endorse all the proceedings in the late trials.]

The preamble commenced with reciting those provisions of the late acts which were no longer to remain in force. It then proceeded, in the form of an address to the king, to adopt and endorse the divorce and the execution. "Albeit," it ran, "most dread Sovereign Lord, that these acts were made, as it was then thought, upon a pure, perfect, and clear foundation; your Majesty's nobles and commons, thinking the said marriage then had between your Highness and the Lady Anne in their consciences to have been pure, sincere, perfect, and good, and so was reputed and taken in the realm; [yet] now of late God, of his infinite goodness, from whom no secret things can be hid, hath caused to be brought to light evident and open knowledge of certain just, true, and lawful impediments, unknown at the making of the said acts; and since that time confessed by the Lady Anne, before the Most Reverend Father in God, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, sitting judicially for the same; by the which it plainly appeareth that the said marriage was never good, nor consonant to the laws, but utterly void and of none effect; by reason whereof your Highness was and is lawfully divorced from the bonds of the said marriage in the life of the said Lady Anne:

"And over this, most dread Lord, albeit that your Majesty, not knowing of any lawful impediments, entered into the bonds of the said unlawful marriage, and advanced the same Lady Anne to the honour of the sovereign estate of the queen of this realm; yet she, nevertheless, inflamed with pride and carnal desires of her body, putting apart the dread of God and excellent benefits received of your Highness, confederated herself with George Boleyn, late Lord Rochfort, her natural brother, Henry Norris, Esq., Francis Weston, Esq., William Brereton, Esq., gentlemen of your privy chamber, and Mark Smeton, groom of your said privy chamber; and so being confederate, she and they most traitorously committed and perpetrated divers detestable and abominable treasons, to the fearful peril and danger of your royal person, and to the utter loss, disherison, and desolation of this realm, if God of his goodness had not in due time brought their said treasons to light; for the which, being plainly and manifestly proved, they were convict and attainted by due course and order of your common law of this realm, and have suffered according to the merits:"

[Sidenote: The late queen declared attainted.]

In consequence of these treasons, and to lend, if possible, further weight to the sentence against her, the late queen was declared attainted by authority of parliament, as she already was by the common law. The Act then proceeded:

[Sidenote: Opinion of parliament upon the king's third marriage.]

"And forasmuch, most gracious Sovereign, as it hath pleased your royal Majesty—(notwithstanding the great intolerable perils and occasions which your Highness hath suffered and sustained, as well by occasion of your first unlawful marriage, as by occasion of your second); at the most humble petition and intercession of us your nobles of this realm, for the ardent love and fervent affection which your Highness beareth to the conservation of the peace and amity of the same, and of the good and quiet governance thereof, of your most excellent goodness to enter into marriage again; and [forasmuch as you] have chosen and taken a right noble, virtuous, and excellent lady, Queen Jane, to your true and lawful wife; who, for her convenient years, excellent beauty, and pureness of flesh and blood, is apt to conceive issue by your Highness; which marriage is so pure and sincere, without spot, doubt, or impediment, that the issue presented under the same, when it shall please Almighty God to send it, cannot be truly, lawfully, nor justly interrupted or disturbed of the right and title in the succession of your crown: May it now please your Majesty, for the extinguishment of all doubts, and for the pure and perfect unity of us your subjects, and all our posterities, that inasmuch as the marriage with the Lady Catherine having been invalid, the issue of that marriage is therefore illegitimate; and the marriage with the Lady Anne Boleyn having been upon true and just causes deemed of no value nor effect, the issue of this marriage is also illegitimate; the succession to the throne be now therefore determined to the issue of the marriage with Queen Jane."[621]

[Sidenote: The succession determined to the issue of the king by Queen Jane.]

[Sidenote: A reason for demurring to the popular judgment in this matter.]

Thus was every step which had been taken in this great matter deliberately sanctioned[622] by parliament. The criminality of the queen was considered to have been proved; the sentence upon her to have been just. The king was thanked in the name of the nation for having made haste with the marriage which has been regarded as the temptation to his crime. It is wholly impossible to dismiss facts like these with a few contemptuous phrases; and when I remember that the purity of Elizabeth is an open question among our historians, although the foulest kennels must be swept to find the filth with which to defile it; while Anne Boleyn is ruled to have been a saint, notwithstanding the solemn verdict of the Lords and Commons, the clergy, the council, judges, and juries, pronounced against her,—I feel that with such a judgment caprice has had more to do than a just appreciation of evidence.

[Sidenote: The contingency to be provided for, of the last marriage proving unfruitful.]

The parliament had not yet, however, completed their work. It was possible, as the lord chancellor had said, that the last marriage might prove unfruitful, and this contingency was still unprovided for. The king had desired the Lords and Commons to name his successor; they replied with an act which showed the highest confidence in his patriotism; they conferred a privilege upon him unknown to the constitution, yet a power which, if honestly exercised, offered by far the happiest solution of the difficulty.

Henry had three children. The Duke of Richmond was illegitimate in the strictest sense, but he had been bred as a prince; and I have shown that, in default of a legitimate heir, the king had thought of him as his possible successor. Mary and Elizabeth were illegitimate also, according to law and form; but the illegitimacy of neither the one nor the other could be pressed to its literal consequences. They were the children, each of them, of connexions which were held legal at the period of their birth. They had each received the rank of a princess; and the instincts of justice demanded that they should be allowed a place in the line of inheritance. Yet, while this feeling was distinctly entertained, it was difficult to give effect to it by statute, without a further complication of questions already too complicated, and without provoking intrigue and jealousy in other quarters. The Princess Mary also had not yet receded from the defiant attitude which she had assumed. She had lent herself to conspiracy, she had broken her allegiance, and had as yet made no submission. To her no favour could be shown while she remained in this position; and it was equally undesirable to give Elizabeth, under the altered circumstances, a permanent preference to her sister.

[Sidenote: The parliament grant the king a power to bequeath the crown by will.]

The parliament, therefore, with as much boldness as good sense, cut the knot, by granting Henry the power to bequeath the crown by will. He could thus advance the Duke of Richmond, if Richmond's character as a man fulfilled the promise of his youth; and he could rescue his daughters from the consequences of their mother's misfortunes or their mother's faults. It was an expression of confidence, as honourable to the country as to the king; and if we may believe, as the records say, that the tragedy of the past month had indeed grieved and saddened Henry, the generous language in which the legislature committed the future of the nation into his hands, may have something soothed his wounds.

[Sidenote: The reasons alleged for this measure.]

"Forasmuch as it standeth," they said, "in the only pleasure and will of Almighty God, whether your Majesty shall have heirs begotten and procreated from this (late) marriage, or else any lawful heirs or issues hereafter of your own body, begotten by any other lawful wife; and if such heirs should fail (as God defend), and no provision be made in your life who should rule and govern this realm, then this realm, after your transitory life, shall be destitute of a governor, or else percase [be] encumbered with a person that would count to aspire to the same, whom the subjects of this realm shall not find in their hearts to love, dread, and obediently serve[623] as their sovereign lord; and if your Grace, before it be certainly known whether ye shall have heirs or not, should suddenly name and declare any person or persons to succeed after your decease, then it is to be doubted that such person so named might happen to take great heart and courage, and by presumption fall to inobedience and rebellion; by occasion of which premises, divisions and dissensions are likely to arise and spring in this realm, to the great peril and destruction of us, your most humble and obedient servants, and all our posterities: For reformation and remedy hereof, we, your most bounden and loving subjects, most obediently acknowledging that your Majesty, prudently, victoriously, politicly, and indifferently, hath maintained this realm in peace and quietness during all the time of your most gracious reign, putting our trust and confidence in your Highness, and nothing doubting but that your Majesty, if you should fail of heirs lawfully begotten, for the love and affection that ye bear to this realm, and for avoiding all the occasions of divisions afore rehearsed, so earnestly mindeth the wealth of the same, that ye can best and most prudently provide such a governour for us and this your realm, as will succeed and follow in the just and right tract of all your proceedings, and maintain, keep, and defend the same and all the laws and ordinances established in your Grace's time for the wealth of the realm, which we all desire, do therefore most humbly beseech your Highness, that it may be enacted, for avoiding all ambiguities, doubts, and divisions, that your Highness shall have full and plenary power and authority to dispose, by your letters patent under your great seal, or else by your last will made in writing, and signed with your hand, the imperial crown of this realm, and all other the premises thereunto belonging, to such person or persons as shall please your Highness.

"And we, your humble and obedient subjects, do faithfully promise to your Majesty, by one common assent, that after your decease, we, our heirs and successors, shall accept and take, love, dread, and only obey such person or persons, male or female, as your Majesty shall give your imperial crown unto; and wholly to stick to them as true and faithful subjects ought to do."[624]

NOTES:

[536] Speech of the Lord Chancellor: Lords' Journals, p. 84

[537] Strype's Memorials, Vol. I. p. 370.

[538] Sir Edmund Bedingfield to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. I. p. 451.

[539] Strype's Memorials, Vol. I.; and see Appendix, p. 241, et seq.

[540] State Papers, Vol. I. p. 452

[541] Lord Herbert, p. 188.

[542] Lord Herbert, p. 188. It will have been observed, that neither in this letter, nor in the other authentic papers connected with her death, is there any allusion to Cardinal Pole's famous story, that being on her deathbed, Queen Catherine prayed the king to allow her to see her daughter for the last time, and that the request was refused. Pole was not in England at the time. He drew his information from Catholic rumour, as vindictive as it was credulous; and in the many letters from members of the privy council to him which we possess, his narrative is treated as throughout a mere wild collection of fables. I require some better evidence to persuade me that this story is any truer than the rest, when we know that Catherine allowed the king to hear that she was dying, not from herself, but from a foreign ambassador; and that such a request could have been made in the few days which intervened between this intimation and her death, without some traces of it appearing in the close account which we possess of her language and actions during those days, is in a high degree unlikely.

[543] See Lingard, Vol. V. p. 30. Hall says: "Queen Anne wore yellow for mourning."

[544] The directions for the funeral are printed in Lingard Vol. V., Appendix, p. 267.

[545] It ought not to be necessary to say that her will was respected—Lord Herbert, p. 188; but the king's conduct to Catherine of Arragon has provoked suspicion even where suspicion is unjust; and much mistaken declamation has been wasted in connexion with this matter upon an offence wholly imaginary.

In making her bequests, Catherine continued to regard herself as the king's wife, in which capacity she professed to have no power to dispose of her property. She left her legacies in the form of a petition to her husband. She had named no executors; and being in the eyes of the law "a sole woman," the administration lapsed in consequence to the nearest of kin, the emperor. Some embarrassment was thus created, and the attorney-general was obliged to evade the difficulty by a legal artifice, before the king could take possession, and give effect to the bequests.—See Strype's Memor., Vol. I., Appendix, pp. 252-255. Miss Strickland's valuable volumes are so generally read, that I venture to ask her to reconsider the passage which she has written on this subject. The king's offences against Catherine require no unnecessary exaggeration.

[546] See Vol. I. pp. 175, 176.

[547] Foxe speaks very strongly on this point. In Ellis's Letters we find many detailed instances, and indeed in all contemporary authorities.

[548] Cranmer's Letter to the King: Burnet, Vol. I. p. 323.

[549] More's Life of More; and see Chap. IX.

[550] Il Re de Inghilterra haveva fatto venire in la Corte sua il majordomo de la Regina et mostrava esserse mitigato alquanto. La causa della mitigation procede del buon negotiar ha fatto et fa la Catolica Mata con lo Ambaxiatore del Re de Inghilterra con persuadirle con buoni paroli et pregeri che debbia restituir la Regina in la antigua dignita.

Dicano anchore che la Anna e mal voluta degli Si di Inghilterra si per la sua superbia, si anche per l'insolentia et mali portementi che fanno nel regno li fratelli e parenti di Anna e che per questo il Re non la porta la affezione que soleva.—"Nuevas de Inglaterra": MS. Archives of Simancas.

[551] Il Re festeggia una altra donna della quale se mostra esser inamorato; e molti Si di Inghilterra lo ajutano nel seguir el preditto amore per desviar questo Re de la pratica di Anna.—Ibid.

[552] Burnet's Collectanea, p. 87.

[553] Pilgrim, p. 117.

[554] Le Laboureur, I. 405: quoted in Lingard, Vol. V. p. 30.

[555] Quoy qu'il en soit l'on me luy peult faire grand tort quand cires l'on a repute pour meschante. Car ce a este des longtemps son stile.—The Regent Mary to Ferdinand: MS. Brussels.

[556] Later writers point to the ladies of the court, but report could not agree upon any single person: and nothing is really known.

[557] Baga de Secretis, pouch 8: Appendix II. to the Third Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records.

[558] Cranmer to the King: Burnet, Vol. I. p. 322.

[559] I must draw particular attention to this. Parliament had been just dissolved, and a fresh body of untried men were called together for no other purpose than to take cognizance of the supposed discovery.—See the Speech of the Lord Chancellor: Lords' Journals, p. 84. If the accusations were intentionally forged by the king, to go out of the way to court so needless publicity was an act most strange and most incomprehensible.

[560] Constantyne says, Smeton was arrested first on Saturday evening, at Stepney; but he seems inconsistent with himself. See his Memorial, Archaeologia, Vol. XXIII. p. 63.

[561] His name repeatedly occurs in "the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII."

[562] Five years later, after the shameful behaviour of Catherine Howard, the duke wrote to the king of "the abominable deeds done by two of my nieces against your Highness;" which he said have "brought me into the greatest perplexity that ever poor wretch was in, fearing that your Majesty, having so often and by so many of my kyn been thus falsely and traitorously handled, might not only conceive a displeasure in your heart against me and all other of that kyn, but also in manner abhor to hear speak of any of the same."—Norfolk to Henry VIII.: State Papers, Vol. I. p. 721.

[563] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer's Cavendish, p. 456 et seq., in Strype's Memorials, Vol. I.

[564] Sir Edward Baynton to the Lord Treasurer, from Greenwich: Singer's Cavendish, p. 458.

[565] See Lingard, Vol. V. p. 33. It is not certain whether the examination of the prisoners was at Greenwich or at the Tower. Baynton's letter is dated from Greenwich, but that is not conclusive. Constantyne says (Archaeologia, Vol. XXIII. p. 63) that the king took Norris with him to London, and, as he heard say, urged him all the way to confess, with promises of pardon if he would be honest with him. Norris persisted in his denial, however, and was committed to the Tower. Afterwards, before the council, he confessed. On his trial, his confession was read to him, and he said he was deceived into making it by Sir W. Fitzwilliam: an accusation against this gentleman very difficult to believe.

[566] Letter to the Lord Treasurer.

[567] Kingston to Cromwell; Singer's Cavendish, p. 451.

[568] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer's Cavendish, p. 451.

[569] She said, "I think it much unkindness in the king to put such about me as I never loved." I shewed her that the king took them to be honest and good women. "But I would have had of mine own privy chamber," she said, "which I favour most."—Kingston to Cromwell: Ibid. p. 457.

[570] Ibid. p. 453.

[571] The disorder of which the king ultimately died—ulceration in the legs—had already begun to show itself.

[572] The lady, perhaps, to whom Norris was to have been married. Sir Edward Baynton makes an allusion to a Mistress Margery. The passage is so injured as to be almost unintelligible:—"I have mused much et ... of Mistress Margery, which hath used her ... strangely towards me of late, being her friend as I have been. But no doubt it cannot be but she must be of councell therewith. There hath been great friendship between the queen and her of late."—Sir E. Baynton to the Lord Treasurer: Singer, p. 458.

[573] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, pp. 452, 453. Of Smeton she said, "He was never in my chamber but at Winchester;" she had sent for him "to play on the virginals," for there her lodging was above the king's.... "I never spoke with him since," she added, "but upon Saturday before May day, and then I found him standing in the round window in my chamber of presence, and I asked why he was so sad, and he answered and said it was no matter; and then she said, 'You may not look to have me speak to you as I should to a nobleman, because you be an inferior person.'—'No, no, madam; a look sufficeth me [he said], and thus fare you well.'"—Singer, p. 455.

[574] Printed in Burnet, Vol. I. p. 322, et seq.

[575] "Mark is the worst cherished of any man in the house, for he wears irons."—Kingston to Cromwell. Later writers have assured themselves that Smeton's confession was extorted from him by promises of pardon. Why, then, was the government so impolitic as to treat him with especial harshness so early in the transaction? When he found himself "ironed," he must have been assured that faith would not be kept with him; and he had abundant time to withdraw what he had said.

[576] The sentence is mutilated, but the meaning seems intelligible: "The queen standeth stiffly in her opinion that she wo ... which I think is in the trust that she [hath in the] other two,"—i.e. Norris and Weston.—Baynton to the Lord Treasurer. The government seems to have been aware of some secret communication between her and Norris.—Ibid Singer, p. 458.

[577] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 457.

[578] My first impression of this letter was strongly in favour of its authenticity. I still allow it to stand in the text because it exists, and because there is no evidence, external or internal, to prove it to be a forgery. The more carefully I have examined the MS., however, the greater uncertainty I have felt about it. It is not an original. It is not an official copy. It does not appear, though here I cannot speak conclusively, to be even a contemporary copy. The only guide to the date is the watermark on the paper, and in this instance the evidence is indecisive.—Note to the 2d edition.

[579] Burnet's Collectanea, p. 87; Cotton. MS.

[580] Strype's Eccles. Memorials, Vol. I. Lord Bacon speaks of these words as a message sent by the queen on the morning of the execution.

[581] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 456.

[582] Ibid. p. 457.

[583] Baga de Secretis, pouches 8 and 9: Appendix II to the Third Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records.

[584] We shall meet him again in Ireland: he was the queen's cousin, and man of the very highest character and ability. The grand jury of Kent were nominated by Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was sheriff for that year. This is not unimportant, for Wyatt in past times had been Anne's intimate friend, if not her lover.

[585] The indictment found at Deptford was exactly similar; referring to other acts of the same kind, committed by the same persons at Greenwich.

[586] Baga de Secretis, pouch 9.

[587] Sir Francis Bryan, the queen's cousin, was at first suspected. He was absent from the court, and received a message from Cromwell to appeal instantly on his allegiance. The following extract is from the Deposition of the Abbot of Woburn—MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, E 4.:

"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 him upon his allegiance to come to him wheresoever he was within this realm upon the sight of his letter, and so he did with all speed. And at his next repair to Ampthill, I came to visit him there, at what time the Lord Grey of Wilton, with many other men of worship, was with him in the great court at Ampthill aforesaid. And at my coming in at the outer gate Master Bryan perceived me, and of his much gentleness came towards meeting me; to whom I said, '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 a 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 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.

[588] Baga de Secretis, pouch 8. The discovery of these papers sets at rest the controversy whether the Earl of Wiltshire took part in the trial. He was absent at the trial of his children; he was present at the trial of the other prisoners.

[589] Baga de Secretis, pouch 9.

[590] The Duke of Richmond was under age.

[591] Baga de Secretis, pouch 9.

[592] Constantyne, Archaeologia, Vol. XXIII. p. 66.

[593] Baga de Secretis. When the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out four months later, Northumberland was the only nobleman in the power of the insurgents who refused to join in the rebellion. They threatened to kill him; but "at that and all times the earl was very earnest against the commons in the king's behalf and the Lord Privy Seal's."—Confession of William Stapleton: Rolls House MS. A 2, 2. See Vol. III. of this work chap. xiii.

[594] I know not whether I should here add the details which Meteren gives of these trials. His authority, a Flemish gentleman, was in London at the time, but was not present in the court. The Lord of Milherve (that was this gentleman's name) was persuaded that the queen was unjustly accused, and he worked out of the rumours which he heard an interesting picture, touched with natural sympathy. It has been often repeated, however. It may be read elsewhere; and as an authority it is but of faint importance. If we allow it its fullest weight, it proves that a foreigner then in England believed the queen innocent, and that she defended herself with an eloquence which deeply touched her hearers. His further assertion, that "Smeton's confession was all which was alleged" against her, is certainly inaccurate; and his complaint, which has been so often echoed, of the absence of witnesses, implies only a want of knowledge of the forms which were observed in trials for high treason. The witnesses were not brought into court and confronted with the prisoner: their depositions were taken on oath before the grand juries and the privy council, and on the trial were read out for the accused to answer as they could.

[595] Two grand juries, the petty jury, and the twenty-seven peers.

[596] Constantyne's Memor., Archaeol., Vol. XXIII. pp. 63-66. Constantyne was an attendant of Sir Henry Norris at this time, and a friend and school-fellow of Sir W. Brereton. He was a resolute Protestant, and he says that at first he and all other friends of the gospel were unable to believe that the queen had behaved so abominably. "As I may be saved before God," he says, "I could not believe it, afore I heard them speak at their death." ... But on the scaffold, he adds, "In a manner all confessed but Mr. Norris, who said almost nothing at all."

[597] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 459.

[598] The Pilgrim: Appendix, p. 116.

[599] Kingston to Cromwell; and see Constantyne's Memorial.

[600] "Now of late, God, of his infinite goodness, from whom no secret things can be hid, hath caused to be brought to light, evident and open knowledge of certain just, true, and lawful impediments, unknown at the making of the said acts [by which the marriage had been declared legitimate], and since that time confessed by the Lady Anne, by the which it plainly appeareth that the said marriage was never good nor consonant to the laws."—28 Henry VIII. cap. 7. See also the appendix to the fourth volume of this work.

[601] Vol. I. pp. 175, 176.

[602] On the day on which she first saw the archbishop, she said, at dinner, that she expected to be spared, and that she would retire to Antwerp.—to Cromwell: Singer, p. 460.

[603] Burnet raises a dilemma here. If, he says, the queen was not married to the king, there was no adultery; and the sentence of death and the sentence of divorce mutually neutralize each other. It is possible that in the general horror at so complicated a delinquency, the technical defence was overlooked.

[604] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 461.

[605] Letter of —— to ——, The Pilgrim, p. 116.

[606] Wyatt's Memoirs, Hall, Stow, Constantyne's Memorial. There is some little variation in the different accounts, but none of importance.

[607] Pilgrim, p. 116.

[608] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 24.

[609] This paragraph is of great importance: it throws a light on many of the most perplexing passages in this and the succeeding reigns.

[610] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 24.

[611] Speech of the Lord Chancellor: Lords' Journals, p. 84. Statutes of the Realm; 28 Henry VIII. cap. 7. Similarly, on the death of Jane Seymour, the council urged immediate re-marriage on the king, considering a single prince an insufficient security for the future. In a letter of Cromwell's to the English ambassador at Paris, on the day of Jane Seymour's death, there is the following passage:

"And forasmuch as, though his Majesty is not anything disposed to marry again—albeit his Highness, God be thanked, taketh this chance as a man that by reason with force overcometh his affections may take such an extreme adventure—yet as sundry of his Grace's council here have thought it meet for us to be most humble suitors to his Majesty to consider the state of his realm, and to enter eftsoons into another matrimony: so his tender zeal to us his subjects hath already so much overcome his Grace's said disposition, and framed his mind both to be indifferent to the thing and to the election of any person from any part that, with deliberation, shall be thought meet for him, that we live in hope that his Grace will again couple himself to our comforts."—State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 1.

[612] Burnet, Hume, Strickland, &c. There is an absolute consensus of authorities.

[613] "The king has, I understand, already married another woman, who, they say, is a good Imperialist. I know not whether she will so continue. He had shown an inclination for her before the other's death; and as neither that other herself, nor any of the rest who were put to death, confessed their guilt, except one who was a musician, some people think he invented the charge to get rid of her. However it be, no great wrong can have been done to the woman herself. She is known to have been a worthless person. It has been her character for a long time.

"I suppose, if one may speak so lightly of such things, that when he is tired of his new wife he will find some occasion to quit himself of her also. Our sex will not be too well satisfied if these practices come into vogue; and, though I have no fancy to expose myself to danger, yet, being a woman, I will pray with the rest that God will have mercy on us."—The Pilgrim, p. 117.

[614] Within four months the northern counties were in arms. Castle and cottage and village pulpit rang with outcries against the government. Yet, in the countless reports of the complaints of the insurgents, there is no hint of a suspicion of foul play in the late tragedy. If the criminality of the king is self-evident to us, how could it have been less than evident to Aske and Lord Darcy?

[615] Lords' Journals, p. 84.

[616] He had been very ill.

[617] 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.

[618] Ibid. cap. 10.

[619] Including Latimer and Cranmer.

[620] Lords' Journals.

[621] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 7. The three last paragraphs, I need scarcely say, are a very brief epitome of very copious language.

[622] The archbishop's sentence of divorce was at the same time submitted to Convocation and approved by it.

[623] The King of Scots: 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.

[624] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 7.



END OF VOL. II.