The Boleyns (17 page)

Both Henry’s and Cromwell’s actions during April 1536 have been subjected to a variety of interpretations. On the 25th the King wrote to Richard Pate, his ambassador in Rome, alluding to his ‘entirely beloved’ wife and to the likelihood of her giving him a son. It was a routine communication, instructing Pate to keep up his pressure for a reversal of papal policy, and gives no indication that Henry was in any way dissatisfied with Anne, indeed the impression is quite the reverse.
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Meanwhile, on the 24th an openended commission of Oyer and Terminer had been issued for the trial of high treasons, and it has been suggested that this indicates that Cromwell already had his evidence against the Queen’s lovers, and was intending to proceed against them. However, the normal practice was for suspects to be arrested and interrogated before any such commission was issued, so unless this Oyer and Terminer was issued speculatively, the probability is that it had nothing to do with Anne or her lovers.
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Similarly on the 27th, writs were issued for a new parliament, and this was unusual in that it was only a fortnight since the last session had been dissolved. Perhaps the Secretary was laying careful plans, because in the event one of the pieces of business which this parliament was to discharge was to fix the succession in the King’s offspring by Jane Seymour, and to bastardise Elizabeth. Or perhaps not. The parliament discharged a variety of other business, including the Franchises Act, which may well have been uppermost in his mind.
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The evidence is not clear cut, but it suggests that as late as 28 April Henry had still not made up his mind about Anne. Indeed a betting man would probably have wagered, not only on her survival, but even on her eventual triumph.

However, it was not to be, because between the 28th and the 30th the King was ‘bounced’ into a judgement which was not merely hostile to Anne, but positively paranoid in its intensity. The most plausible account of what happened is given by Lancelot de Carles, at the time serving as secretary to the French ambassador, in a piece which he wrote early in June. De Carles was not exactly an eye-witness, but he was close enough to events to have credibility. According to him a lady of the Queen’s Privy Chamber had fallen pregnant, and for reasons best known to himself her brother, who was member of the council, suspected that the child was not her husband’s. She responded by confessing her fault, but claiming that she was not the only guilty one, because her mistress had been similarly adventurous, not once but many times.
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The lady in question has been identified as Elizabeth, Countess of Worcester, and her brother as Sir Anthony Browne. Sir Anthony did not know what to do about this revelation, for fear of being accused of defaming the Queen, so he confided in two of his friends, who were also councillors, and they informed the King. One of those whom the countess had accused (with circumstantial details) was Mark Smeaton, a musician of the chamber who had often been in attendance upon the Queen. Smeaton was vulnerable, partly because he was a man of humble origins, and partly because he appears to have had a genuine feeling for Anne. On the 30th, Cromwell had him arrested and taken to his own house, where he was interrogated. Under intense pressure which may have included the threat of torture, Smeaton confessed to having had sexual intercourse with Anne. He was remitted to the Tower, and the Secretary took this confirmation of the Countess’s story to Henry.
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Several other members of the Privy Chamber were also named, including Sir Henry Norris, and that gave a sinister twist to that otherwise harmless conversation which appears to have taken place between Norris and the Queen on the 29th. Irritated by his failure to ‘come on’ to the girl whom Anne had looked out for him, she jestingly made the remark quoted above, that Norris was waiting for herself in the event of the King’s death. This story was soon all over the court, and Henry heard it almost immediately.
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In the circumstances it confirmed his worst suspicions, and he became convinced that all the stories told of his wife’s infidelities were true.

This fairly straightforward account, however, creates some difficulties. Why did Henry postpone a trip which he was apparently planning to make to Calais, and why did he allow a public tournament to go ahead on 1 May, a tournament in which both Norris and George Boleyn were taking part? He seems to have ridden off unexpectedly before the conclusion of this event, whereat Edward Hall tells us ‘many men mused’.
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The details of the King’s behaviour suggest a mind in turmoil. Norris was one of those who accompanied Henry when he left the tiltyard, and the latter seems to have taken advantage of the short ride from Greenwich to Westminster to persuade Norris to confess the truth. It was only when he persisted in his denial that his arrest was ordered, and then not until the following morning. At the same time Anne was herself arrested, and George, who seems to have been intent on finding out what was going on, was taken into custody later the same day.
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So the timing of Henry’s conviction presents some difficulties. Was he persuaded a week earlier, when he decided to postpone the Calais trip? Or on the evening of the 29th when he heard about Anne’s indiscreet remarks? Or did something happen during the tournament which finally converted him? The suggestion is that Cromwell informed him of Smeaton’s confession in the course of that day, and that it was the receipt of that news which caused his sudden departure, and his confrontation with Norris.
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That is plausible, because what is clear is that Cromwell had won and over the next few days consolidated his advantage by building a case against the Queen which would admit no rebuttal. Francis Weston and William Brereton, both members of the Privy Chamber, were also arrested and charged with the same offence, although how they came to be identified as suspects is not clear. What is clear is that they both, along with Henry Norris, denied any wrongdoing. As Sir Edward Baynton, who had been involved in the interrogations, wrote to William Fitzwilliam a few days later, the problem was ‘that no man will confess anything against her, but all-only Mark of any actual thing. Whereof (in my foolish conceit) it should much touch the King’s honour if it should no further appear …’.
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In other words to secure a conviction on the evidence available would involve overt pressure on the court of a kind which the King was not supposed to apply. Nevertheless, by using circumstantial stories, of which there was a great abundance, Cromwell soon had enough for his purpose, and juries were empanelled on 9 May. Indictments were found with convincing details of dates and places where the alleged offences took place, and their trial was ordered for the 12th. It was obviously intended, by securing the conviction of the accomplices first, to leave the trials of the principals as foregone conclusions. And so it transpired. The juries were packed with Cromwell’s clients and agents, who did their duties as required and all the four defendants were condemned to a traitor’s death.
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Meanwhile Anne was her own worst enemy. Taken to the Tower with a handful of attendants, she began to indulge in inconsequential chatter which seems, as reported, to have had an hysterical edge to it. While consistently denying the charges against her, she recalled a number of flirtatious conversations of the kind which were bound to arouse suspicion. Flirting seems to have been second nature to her, and Norris and Smeaton were not the only ones on the receiving end of her attentions. She seems at the same time to have indulged in a certain ribald humour at the King’s expense, casting doubt upon his virility in a manner which was bound to arouse the ire of a man who was notoriously sensitive on that subject.
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Brought before the Lord Marshall’s court on 15 May, she and her brother were separately tried, and in spite of a composed and intelligent defence, both were found guilty. The Lord Marshall was the Duke of Norfolk, who in spite of being Anne’s uncle was sufficiently alienated from her to be a reliable agent for such a service. Their father, the Earl of Wiltshire apparently wished to serve on the court but was excluded, although whether on the grounds of his blood relationship or to spare his feelings is not apparent. The only substance to the charges against Rochford was provided by his known affection for his sister, and by the regular access to her which their blood relationship guaranteed. Nevertheless, he was indicted and found guilty of certain specific offences, incest being particularly obnoxious both in the eyes of the law and of the King.
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Witchcraft was not mentioned, but one of the charges specifically levelled against Anne was that she had conspired to poison both Mary and Henry Fitzroy, an indictment which seems to have owed its provenance to the King’s personal conviction, and for which the supporting evidence is nebulous. When the news of her condemnation reached him, Henry’s first thought was, typically, for himself, and how he had been abused by this notorious woman. The conservative party in the court rejoiced, but Cromwell, knowing the volatility of the King’s emotions, could not afford to relax until she was safely dead.

He assiduously encouraged Henry’s quite irrational belief that his wife had had a hundred lovers, and even Chapuys, who had no time at all for Anne or her family, found the proceedings against her ‘very strange’.
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He was not alone in his reaction, and for the first time in her life the ex-Queen found some public sympathy. Archbishop Cranmer, who had been close to her, even made a half-hearted attempt to intercede for her, an attempt which it took all Cromwell’s vigilant control over access to the King to frustrate. Above all, the remnants of the Boleyn faction must be kept away. That was one of the reasons why Lord Rochford was pursued with such fury. After Anne he was the most formidable member of that party, and nothing but his death would prevent the possibility of his making a come-back. ‘Stone dead’, as was to be observed of the Earl of Wentworth over a century later ‘hath no fellow’. Sir Francis Bryan was only allowed to see Henry when he had been summoned to court and briefed by the Secretary. Sir Thomas Wyatt was imprisoned, but not charged, and even such humble functionaries as George Taylor, Anne’s Receiver General, were hugely relieved once the investigations were over.
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No one who had had regular access to the Queen could assume that he was safe until she was dead. Only the Earl of Wiltshire appears to have escaped suspicion, and that was by making the extent of his religious estrangement from Anne’s agenda sufficiently obvious. Whether he believed the wild charges levelled against his daughter we do not know, but given his silence on the subject, probably not. Anne seems to have spent the last few days of her life in a mixture of tearful despair and religious devotions. There had been some talk of despatching her to a nunnery, and at times she clung to that as a hope of life. At others she discussed the details of her own execution with Sir William Kingston, the Lieutenant of the Tower, with apparent relish.
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The omens were not good. On the 17th, Archbishop Cranmer was constrained to find some pretext for dissolving her marriage to Henry – that marriage which he had pronounced good and true only three years earlier. Because the cause papers have disappeared, we do not know the reason which was found, but it could not have been her subsequent adultery. That could have been a ground for ending the marriage, but not for declaring it null in the first place.
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Anne was being erased from the record as though she had never been, and their daughter consequently became illegitimate. George was executed on the 17th, making a suitable scaffold speech in which, without confessing to the truth of any of the charges against him, he submitted to the law, and admitted that he deserved death for having been a ‘great reader of the scripture’, but a poor follower thereof.
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Then at noon on the 19th, it became Anne’s turn, the Calais executioner, who used a sword rather than an axe, having been specially imported for the occasion. Whatever her sins may have been, she made a splendid exit. She is reported as saying: