Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

  Anne would have been even more horrified had she known just how desperate Henry was to be rid of her. Not only was he planning to have her executed for high treason, but he had ordered Cranmer on the day of her arrest to find grounds for annulling his marriage to her. Once Anne was dead, there must be no impediment to Jane's children taking precedence in the order of succession.

  News of the Queen's arrest had spread around the court by the evening of 2 May. Chapuys learned of it with relief, seeing Anne's fall as a manifestation of divine vengeance for all the wrongs she had inflicted upon Katherine and Mary. Nor did he have any difficulty at this stage in believing the charges against her, predicting that the outcome of the affair would be hir execution. Indeed, there was little doubt in anyone's mind that this would be Anne's fate. When the people learned she was in the Tower, they were unmoved, believing her guilty as charged. No one spoke up in her favour. Nevertheless, Henry refrained from going out in public while Anne was in the Tower. His only sorties out of the palace were into the gardens and on evening trips by barge to visit Jane, who had just returned from Wulfhall and was temporarily staying at an unknown lodging.

  By now Henry had convinced himself that Anne had been a monster of lechery. He remembered her ruthlessness in hounding Wolsey to his death, how she had more or less admitted her involvement in the plot to poison Fisher, and how she had urged him to have Katherine and Mary executed or murdered. Henry had heard the rumours that Katherine had died of poison, and was now convinced that Anne had been responsible. When Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond came to bid his father goodnight on the evening after Anne's arrest, Henry embraced him and wept as he told him that he and his half-sister Mary ought to thank God for escaping 'that cursed and venomous whore, who tried to poison you both'. There was no evidence for this, but Henry was prepared to believe that no crime was too monstrous to have been committed by Anne. And when Richmond died of consumption the following July, Henry and most other people would believe that Anne had administered a slow- working poison which caused his death.

  The Lady Mary learned of the Queen's arrest on the following day from Chapuys, who boasted that he had been instrumental in bringing it about. Mary instructed him to join forces with Cromwell and the many other people who were working for the advancement of Jane Seymour; Chapuys had, of course, been doing this for months already.

  One person who did feel sorrow on behalf of Anne was Cranmer, who wrote to the King to express his sorrow and loyalty.

  My mind is clean amazed [he wrote], for I never had better opinion of woman, but I think your Highness would not have gone so far if she had not been culpable. I loved her not a little for the love which I judged her to bear towards God and the Gospel. Next unto your Grace, I was most bound unto her of all creatures living.

  He hoped and prayed she would declare her innocence. 'I am exceedingly sorry that such faults can be proved by the Queen,' ended Cranmer, 'but I am, and ever shall be, your faithful subject.' He would now go on to do exactly as the King bade him: against his sense of self-preservation, his long-standing affection for Anne counted for very little.

  In the Tower, Anne learned of her brother's arrest, and declared that Norris and Rochford would vindicate her. After a night in prison she still veered from black despair to buoyant confidence and back again, as panic took her: 'One hour she is determined to die, and the next hour much contrary to that,' Kingston told Cromwell. Anne could not stop talking about the men accused with her. She told Mrs Cosyn she had made Norris swear to her almoner that she was a good woman, for she had teased him about delaying his marriage, saying he looked for dead men's shoes, 'for if aught came to the King, you would look to have me!' Norris, shocked, had denied this, but Anne had feared that her remarks had been overheard and could be misconstrued, so she made him swear to her virtue. Mrs Cosyn then deliberately let slip that Sir Francis Weston was being questioned by the Privy Council about his relationship with the Queen. Anne expressed some apprehension about what he would say, as he had told her on Whit Monday that Norris 'came more into her chamber for her sake than for Madge Shelton's [his mistress]'. Weston himself had been asked teasingly by Anne if he loved Madge, and he had replied that 'he loved one in her house better than [Madge or his wife]', which was the correct courtly answer to such a_ question. 'Who?' the Queen had asked. 'It is yourself,' he replied. This was all grist to Cromwell's mill, for, taken literally, it could prove very damaging indeed.

  Anne's fragile confidence would have been shattered had she known that her husband was already planning his wedding to Jane Seymour. On 4 May, Jane took up temporary residence at Beddington Park, the Surrey home of Sir Nicholas Carew, a magnificent house built in 1500 and set in a large park; the great hall, on which the one at Hampton Court is said to have been modelled, still survives today. Here, Henry could visit Jane discreetly. His visits took place under cover of darkness, though nothing improper occurred; the royal swain had insisted on Jane's parents and brother Edward being present when he came courting. He was taking no chances with Jane's reputation: no one would ever be able to accuse her of light behaviour in the years to come.

  Chapuys tells us that it was during one of these visits that Jane brought up the delicate subject of Mary, daring to say that when she was queen she hoped to see Mary reinstated as heir apparent. This irritated Henry, who told her she was a fool, who 'ought to solicit the advancement of the children they would have together, and not any others'. Jane replied that she did think of them, but also of Henry's peace of mind, for unless he showed justice to Mary, Englishmen would never be content. Jane intended to have her own way over Mary, and she would not give up easily.

  On the day that Jane arrived at Beddington, Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton, having failed to convince the Council of their innocence, were taken to the Tower, Brereton having previously confided to George Constantine that 'there was no way but one with any matter alleged against him', meaning that he was innocent. The next day, Friday, 5 May, saw the last arrests, those of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sir Richard Page. Neither was ever charged, and it is probable that Cromwell had never intended that they should be: if two of those accused with the Queen were allowed to go free, it would underline the guilt of the rest. Wyatt was a natural choice, as his earlier love for Anne was well known. As for Page, nothing is known of him.

  Of the prisoners in the Tower, Rochford showed the most agitation. 'When shall I come before the King's Council?' he asked Kingston. 'I think I shall not come forth till I come to my judgement.' Then he burst into tears. Anne was glad that she and her brother were under the same roof. Yet when she was told of the arrests of Weston, Brereton, Wyatt and Page, she burst out laughing uncontrollably at the absurdity of it all. She showed no compassion for Smeaton when told he was manacled in irons, saying only that he 'was a person of mean birth, and the others were all gentlemen'. Smeaton, she said, had only once been in her chamber, and that was at Winchester the previous year, when she had sent for him to play the virginals for her; nothing improper had happened then, and the only other time she could remember having spoken to the musician was the previous Saturday, when she had chided him for aspiring to a courtly flirtation with her: 'You may not look to have me speak to you as I would do to a nobleman, because you are an inferior person.' 'No, no, a look sufficeth!' Smeaton had protested, and that was the end of the matter.

  Anne told Kingston that if her bishops were with the King, they would all speak for her. In fact, their silence had been deafening. Of her imprisonment she said, 'I think the King does it to prove me,' and according to Kingston, 'did laugh withal, and was very merry'. But the merriment did not last, and she was soon weeping again, saying, 'My lord my brother will die!'

  Henry VIII moved to Hampton Court on Saturday, 6 May, and set in train preparations for his wedding to Jane Seymour. In a high good humour, he had his hair cropped, where hitherto he had worn it long over his ears; Anne had liked him clean-shaven, thus he was also growing a beard, which he would never ag
ain shave off.

  The legal process against the Queen began on 10 May when the Grand Jury of Middlesex found a True Bill against the accused on all the charges. On the following day, the Grand Jury of Kent did likewise. The case could now proceed to trial. The indictment drawn up by Cromwell was formidable. It asserted that Queen Anne, 'despising her marriage and entertaining malice against the King, and following daily her frail and carnal lust', had procured by various base means many of the King's servants to be her adulterers. Rochford, Norris, Weston, Brereton and Smeaton were named as those who had succumbed to her 'vile provocations'. Twenty separate offences were listed, yet the indictment also mentioned other unspecified ones, 'on divers days before and after 6 October 1533', something that Anne would have found very difficult to disprove - or the Crown to prove, for that matter. Nor had Cromwell checked his facts: some of the offences could not have been committed at all, because Anne was nowhere near the man in question at the time, or, on at least five occasions, was heavily pregnant. Mark Smeaton is described as 'a person of low degree', as if to emphasise how far the Queen had stooped for her pleasure, and over her alleged incestuous affair with Rochford, said to have begun in November 1534, the indictment bristled with righteous outrage, saying that Anne had 'procured her own natural brother to violate her, alluring him with her tongue in his mouth, and his tongue in hers, against the commands of Almighty God and all laws human and divine'. The charge of incest was meant to inspire horror and revulsion, but thanks to George Boleyn's testimony at his trial, it failed; it was the alleged affair with Smeaton that captured the public's imagination, and provided endless copy for writers throughout the sixteenth century.

  The indictment also alleged that, from October 1534 onwards, the Queen and her lovers, jointly and severally, had plotted the King's death, Anne having promised to marry one of them afterwards; she had also told them 'she would never love the King in her heart'.

  Henry, it concluded, had taken the news of this treachery so badly that 'certain harms and perils have befallen his royal body'. It must be said that none of these harms and perils was at all evident.

  No mention had been made in the indictment of Wyatt and Page. In fact, Cromwell had already secretly informed Wyatt's father that his son would not be harmed, for the old man wrote to him on 11 May, saying that neither he nor his son would ever forget Mr Secretary's kindness.

  On Friday, 12 May, the Duke of Norfolk, as High Steward of England, presided over the trial of Norris, Weston, Brereton and Smeaton at Westminster Hall. The Queen and Lord Rochford would be tried separately by their peers, a privilege reserved for the aristocracy only; their trials were set for the following Monday.

  The accused men were brought by river to Westminster. Few details survive of the proceedings. Witnesses were called, and one member of the jury, Sir John Spelman, related that some were ladies of the court who testified to such promiscuity on the part of the Queen that it was said in court that there was 'never such a whore in the realm'. One witness repeated the words of a deceased Lady Wingfield, which was hearsay. At the end of it all, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the four men were condemned by Lord Chancellor Audley to be drawn, hanged, castrated and quartered. Chapuys says that Brereton was 'condemned on a presumption, not by proof or valid confession, and without any witnesses'. Most courtiers reacted to the verdict with sorrow, especially on behalf of Norris and Weston, both popular and respected men. Weston's family made frantic attempts to save his life, and on 13 May it was rumoured that he might escape the death sentence. But Lord Hussey, writing to Lord Lisle on 12 May, was of the opinion that all would suffer death, even the Queen and Rochford; Anne, he said, deserved it, for her crimes had been 'so abominable' that he prayed God would give her grace to repent.

  The condemnation of the four men could not but presage an unfavourable outcome of Anne's own trial and that of her brother. Her reaction to the news of their sentence is unrecorded. Equally ominous was the dissolution of her household at Greenwich, by the King's command, on Saturday, 13 May, when her servants were discharged from their allegiance. Obviously her trial would be a mere formality.

  On 14 May, Cromwell wrote to all England's ambassadors abroad, informing them of the action taken against the Queen and the judgement on the men accused with her: 'She and her brother shall be arraigned tomorrow,' he wrote, 'and will undoubtedly go the same way. I write no particularities, the things be so abominable.' Abroad, it was shrewdly concluded by some that the King had invented the whole thing to get rid of Anne, though her reputation was so poor that there were also a great many people who believed Henry's actions justified.

  On the same day, Henry decided he could no longer live without Jane, and recalled her to London, where he installed her in the house of Sir Francis Bryan on the Strand, one mile from Whitehall, where he himself was now in residence. Here, Jane had her first taste of what it would be like to be a queen, being housed in great splendour, attired in rich garments, and waited on by the King's officers and servants, all wearing splendid liveries. She seems to have accepted her sudden elevation with complacent calm, wasting no pity on the woman she would shortly supplant. Indeed, she was awaiting the result of Anne's trial with barely concealed impatience.

  Preparations for that trial, which would be held in the great hall of the Tower, had been made over the weekend. A raised platform was erected in the centre, around which were placed rows of benches, enough to accommodate the estimated 2,000 spectators who would be present. Chairs were provided for the twenty-six peers who would act as judges, and the Duke of Norfolk, as High Steward of England, was given a throne under a cloth of estate, for he represented the King. The hall has long since been demolished, but the seating placed there for the trial was still in existence in 1778.

  This was the scene that greeted Anne when she was escorted into the court by Sir Edmund Walsingham, Sir William Kingston, Lady Boleyn, and the chief executioner, with his axe turned away from her. Her entry was impressive; she presented herself at the bar with considerable dignity, curtsying to the judges and looking about her without any sign of fear, as if she had been attending some great state occasion. Gone was the hysteria, the violent mood swings; Anne was now reconciled to the inevitability of death, but she was resolved not to go down without a fight. Cromwell, knowing this, was very tense before the trial, fearing that Anne's wit and courage would undermine his case and even secure an acquittal, something he found too awful to contemplate. Far too much was at stake, including his own neck.

  When Anne was seated in a chair on the platform in the centre of the court, the indictment was read in all its detail. Her face, however, betrayed no emotion, even when another charge was added, that of having poisoned the late Queen Katherine and attempting to do the same to the Lady Mary. Instead, she listened patiently, then answered clearly to each charge, refuting them all firmly, and arguing her case with such clarity and good sense that her innocence, which she protested vehemently, seemed manifest to many of those watching her.

  Nevertheless, when the twenty-six peers were asked to give their judgement upon the Queen, every one pronounced her guilty. Anne stood unmoved as they each rose in turn to give their verdict, carrying herself as if she was receiving some great honour. Outside, the people in the crowds that had gathered were telling each other incorrectly that Anne had cleared herself by a wise and noble speech.

  Norfolk now pronounced sentence. However poor relations between him and his niece had been in recent months, family feeling took precedence at this point, and he wept as he addressed her:

  Because thou hast offended our sovereign lord the King's Grace in committing treason against his person, the law of the realm is this: that thou shall be burnt here within the Tower of London on the Green, else to have thy head smitten off, as the King's pleasure shall be further known of the same.

  There was a shriek from the gallery as Anne's old nurse, Mrs Orchard, gave way to hysterics. The Earl of Northumberland fainted, and had to be helpe
d out - he was already mortally ill, and died some months later. But Anne received the sentence calmly, raising her eyes and saying, 'O Father, O Creator, Thou who art the Way, the Life, and the Truth, knowest whether I have deserved this death.' She said she was prepared to die, but was extremely sorry that others, innocent as she, should die through her. She believed she had been condemned for reasons other than the causes alleged, and swore she had always been faithful to the King, although

  I do not say I have always shown him that humility which his goodness to me merited. I confess I have had jealous fancies and suspicions of him, which I had not discretion enough, and wisdom, to conceal. But God knows, and is my witness, that I have not sinned against him in any other way. Think not I say this in the hope to prolong my life. God hath taught me how to die, and He will strengthen my faith. As for my brother, and those others who are unjustly condemned, I would willingly suffer many deaths to deliver them, but since I see it pleases the King, I shall willingly accompany them in death, with this assurance, that I shall lead an endless life with them in peace.

  Finally, she asked for time in which to prepare her soul for death. An anonymous Frenchman who was present recorded that her speech made even her bitterest enemies pity her.

  Anne was then escorted from the court by the Constable, attended by Lady Kingston and Lady Boleyn, and the executioner with his axe turned towards her, signifying that she was condemned to die. After her departure, abuzz of conversation broke out, and the Lord Mayor expressed the opinion that 'he could observe nothing in the proceedings against her but that they were resolved to make an occasion to get rid of her'. Even Chapuys felt that Anne had been condemned upon a presumption and 'without valid proof or confession', and George Constantine told Cromwell 'there was much muttering of Queen Anne's death'.