Volume II Part 45 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Early coolness between her and Henry.]
The strongest general evidence in her favour is that of Cranmer, who must have known her intimately, and who, at the crisis of her life, declared that he ”never had better opinion in woman than he had in her.”[548] Yet there had been circ.u.mstances in her conduct, as by her own after confessions was amply evident, which justified Sir Thomas More in foretelling a stormy end to her splendour;[549] and her relations with the king, whether the fault rested with him, or rested with her, grew rapidly cool when she was his wife. In 1534, perhaps sooner, both she herself, her brother, and her relations had made themselves odious by their insolence; her over-bearing manners had caused a decline in the king's affection for her; and on one side it was reported that he was likely to return to Catherine,[550] on the other that he had transferred his attention to some other lady, and that the court encouraged his inconstancy to separate him from Anne's influence.[551] D'Inteville confirms the account of a new love affair, particularising nothing, but saying merely that Anne was falling out of favour; and that the person alluded to as taking her place was Jane Seymour, appears from a letter written after Anne's execution, by the Regent Mary to the Emperor of Austria, and from the letter written (supposing it genuine) by Anne herself to the king before her trial.[552]
On the other hand, it is equally clear that whether provoked or not by infidelity on the part of Henry, her own conduct had been singularly questionable. We know very little, but waiving for the present the exposures at her trial, we know, by her own confession, that arrogance and vanity had not been her only faults, and that she had permitted the gentlemen who were the supposed partners of her guilt, to speak to her of their pa.s.sion for herself.[553]
In January, 1535, Henry's mind had been filled with ”doubts and strange suspicions” about his wife. There had been a misunderstanding, in which she had implored the intercession of Francis I.[554]
[Sidenote: The probable cause of that coolness.]
[Sidenote: The antecedent probabilities amount to nothing.]
In February, 1536, she miscarried, with a dead boy, which later rumour dwelt on as the cause of Henry's displeasure. But conversations such as those which she described with her supposed paramours, lay bare far deeper wounds of domestic unhappiness; and a.s.sure us, that if we could look behind the scenes, we should see there estrangements, quarrels, jealousies, the thousand dreary incidents that, if we knew them, would break the suddenness with which at present the catastrophe bursts upon us. It is the want of preparation, the blank ignorance in which we are left of the daily life and daily occurrences of the court, which places us at such disadvantage for recovering the truth. We are unable to form any estimate whatever of those antecedent likelihoods which, in the events of our own ordinary lives, guide our judgment so imperceptibly, yet so surely. Henry is said to have been inconstant, but those who most suspected Henry's motives charge Anne at the same time with a long notorious profligacy.[555] We cannot say what is probable or what is improbable; except, indeed, that the guilt or every person is improbable antecedent to evidence; and in the present instance, since, either on the side of the queen or of the king, there was and must have been most terrible guilt, these opposite presumptions neutralize each other.
[Sidenote: April. Secret investigation by a committee of the privy council.]
[Sidenote: April 27. Writs issued for a parliament.]
[Sidenote: Thursday, April 27; arrest of Sir William Brereton; and on Sunday, April 30, of Mark Smeton.]
[Sidenote: May 1. Tournament at Greenwich.]
[Sidenote: The king goes to London.]
To proceed with the story. Towards the middle of April, 1536, certain members of the privy council were engaged secretly in receiving evidence which implicated the queen in adultery. Nothing is known of the quarter from which the information came which led to the inquiry.[556]
Something, however, there was to call for inquiry, or something there was thought to be; and on the 24th of April the case was considered sufficiently complete to make necessary a public trial. On that day an order was issued for a special commission. The members of the tribunal were selected with a care proportioned to the solemnity of the occasion.[557] It was composed of the lord chancellor, the first n.o.blemen of the realm, and of the judges. The investigation had, however, been conducted so far with profound secrecy; and the object for which it was to a.s.semble was unknown even to Cranmer, himself a member of the privy council.[558] With the same mysterious silence on the cause of so unexpected a measure, the writs were issued for a general election, and parliament was required to a.s.semble as soon as possible.[559] On Thursday, the 27th, the first arrest was made. Sir William Brereton,[560] a gentleman of the king's household, was sent suddenly to the Tower; and on the Sunday after, Mark Smeton, of whom we know only that he was a musician high in favour at the court, apparently a spoilt favourite of royal bounty.[561] The day following was the 1st of May. It was the day on which the annual festival was held at Greenwich, and the queen appeared, as usual, with her husband and the court at the tournament. Lord Rochfort, the queen's brother, and Sir Henry Norris, both of them implicated in the fatal charge, were defender and challenger. The tilting had commenced, when the king rose suddenly with signs of disturbance in his manner, left the court, and rode off with a small company to London. Rumour, which delights in dramatic explanations of great occurrences, has discovered that a handkerchief dropped by the queen, and caught by Norris, roused Henry's jealousy; and that his after conduct was the result of a momentary anger. The incidents of the preceding week are a sufficient reply to this romantic story. The mine was already laid, the match was ready for the fire.
[Sidenote: Tuesday, May 2; arrest of the queen. The privy council sit at Greenwich.]
[Sidenote: She declares her innocence.]
[Sidenote: Norris, Weston, and Smeton examined.]
The king did not return: he pa.s.sed the night in London, and Anne remained at Greenwich. On the morning of Tuesday the privy council a.s.sembled in the palace under the presidency of the Duke of Norfolk, and she was summoned to appear before it. The Duke of Norfolk, her uncle, was anxious, as Burnet insinuates, on political grounds that his niece should be made away with. Such accusations are easily brought, especially when unsupported by evidence. She was unpopular from her manner. The London merchants looked on her with no favour as having caused a breach in the alliance with Flanders, and the duke was an imperialist and at heart a friend of Queen Catherine; but he had grown old in the service of the state with an unblemished reputation; and he felt too keenly the disgrace which Anne's conduct had brought upon her family, to have contrived a scheme for her removal at once so awkward and so ignominious.[562] On her examination, she declared herself innocent; the details of what pa.s.sed are unknown; only she told Sir William Kingston that she was cruelly handled at Greenwich with the king's council; ”and that the Duke of Norfolk, in answer to her defence, had said, 'Tut, tut, tut,' shaking his head three or four times.”[563]
The other prisoners were then examined; not Brereton, it would seem, but Smeton, who must have been brought down from the Tower, and Sir Henry Norris, and Sir Francis Weston, two young courtiers, who had both of them been the trusted friends of the king. Each day the shadow was stretching further. The worst was yet to come.
[Sidenote: May 2. Tuesday. Smeton confesses, and Norris, who afterwards, however, withdraws from what he has said.]
On being first questioned, these three made general admissions, but denied resolutely that any actual offence had been committed. On being pressed further and cross-examined, Smeton confessed to actual adultery.[564] Norris hesitated: being pressed, however, by Sir William Fitzwilliam to speak the truth, he also made a similar acknowledgment, although he afterwards withdrew from what he had said.[565] Weston persisted in declaring himself innocent. The result was unsatisfactory, and it was thought that it would ”much touch the king's honour” if the guilt of the accused was not proved more clearly. ”Only Mark,” Sir Edward Baynton said, would confess ”of any actual thing”[566]; although he had no doubt ”the other two” were ”as fully culpable as ever was he.”
They were, however, for the present, recommitted to the Tower; whither also in the afternoon the council conducted the queen, and left her in the custody of Sir William Kingston.
[Sidenote: The queen, in the afternoon, is taken to the Tower.]
[Sidenote: She protests her innocence, and begs to have the sacrament in her closet.]
She was brought up the river; the same river along which she sailed in splendour only three short years before. She landed at the same Tower Stairs; and, as it to complete the bitter misery of the change, she was taken ”to her own lodgings in which she lay at her coronation.” She had feared that she was to go to a dungeon. When Kingston told her that these rooms had been prepared for her, ”It is too good for me,” she said, ”Jesu have mercy on me;” ”and kneeled down, weeping a great s.p.a.ce; and in the same sorrow fell into a great laughing.”[567] She then begged that she might have the sacrament in the closet by her chamber, that she might pray for mercy, declaring ”that she was free from the company of man as for sin,” and was ”the king's true wedded wife.”
She was aware that the other prisoners were in the Tower, or, at least, that Smeton, Weston, and Norris were there. Whether she knew at that time of the further dreadful accusation which was hanging over her, does not appear; but she asked anxiously for her brother; and, if she had suspected anything, her fears must have been confirmed by Kingston's evasive replies. It is so painful to dwell upon the words and actions of a poor woman in her moments of misery, that Kingston may describe his conversation with her in his own words. Lord Rochfort had returned to London at liberty; he seems to have been arrested the same Tuesday afternoon. ”I pray you,” she said, ”to tell me where my Lord Rochfort is?”--”I told her,” Kingston wrote, that ”I saw him afore dinner, in the court.” ”Oh, where is my sweet brother?” she went on. ”I said I left him at York-place;” and so I did. ”I hear say,” said she, ”that I should be accused with three men; and I can say no more but nay, without I should open my body,”--and therewith she opened her gown, saying, ”Oh, Norris, hast thou accused me? Thou art in the Tower with me, and thou and I shall die together. And, Mark, thou art here too. Oh, my mother, thou wilt die for sorrow.” And much she lamented my Lady of Worcester, for because her child did not stir in her body. And my wife said, ”What should be the cause?” She said, ”For the sorrow she took for me.” And then she said, ”Mr. Kingston, shall I die without justice?” And I said, ”The poorest subject the king hath, had justice;” and therewith she laughed.[568]
[Sidenote: Lady Boleyn and three other ladies sent to attend upon her.]