CH. II. A.D. 1536. Friday, May 5. Henry writes to the queen with a promise of she will confess. She per and open with him. Persons who assume that the whole transaction was the scheme of a wicked husband to dispose of a wife of whom he was weary, will believe that he was practising upon her terror to obtain his freedom by a lighter crime than murder. Those who consider that he pospardon if sessed the ordinary qualities of humanity, and that he was really convinced of her guilt, may explain his offer as the result of natural feeling. But in whatever motive his conduct originated, it was ineffectual. Anne, either knowing that maintain she was innocent, or trusting that her guilt could not be proved, trusting, as Sir Edmund Baynton thought, to the constancy of Weston and Norris,* declined to confess anything. If any man accuse that there me,' she said to Kingston, 'I can but say nay; witness of and they can bring no witness.'+ Instead of acknowledging any guilt in herself, she perhaps retaliated upon the king in the celebrated letter which has been thought a proof both of her own innocence, and of the conspiracy by which she was destroyed. This letter also, although at sists in ing her innocence, Being satisfied was no wo. ... The sentence is mutilated, but the meaning seems intelligible: The queen standeth stiffly in her opinion that she 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. 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 the uncertainty which I have felt about it. It is not an original. It is not an official copy. It does not appear, though here + Kingston to Cromwell I cannot speak conclusively, to SINGER, p. 457. be even a contemporary copy. : once so well known and of so dubious authority, CH. 11. it is fair to give entire.. A.D. 1536. Saturday, May 6. me, Her letter am 'Sir, - Your Grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are things so strange unto as what to write, or what to excuse, I altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing [me] to confess a truth, and to obtain your favour) by such an one whom you know to be mine antient professed enemy, I no sooner conceived this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your command. to the king. more loyal 'But let not your Grace ever imagine that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault where not so much as a thought thereof proceeded. And to speak a truth, never Never prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all prince had true affection, than you have ever found in wife. Anne Boleyn; with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your Grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as now I She, howfind for the ground of my preferment being on always no surer foundation than your Grace's fancy, the what now least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other subject. You The only guide to the date is the decisive.-Note to the 2nd edi ever, looked for she finds. CH. II. have chosen me from a low estate to be your A.D. 1536. queen and companion, far beyond my desert or She begs for a fair trial, desire. If then you found me worthy of such honour, good your Grace, let not any light fancy or bad counsel of mine enemies withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal heart towards your good Grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess, your daughter. 'Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial; and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and my judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame. Then shall you see either mine innocency cleared, your suspicions and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared; so that, whatsoever God or you may determine of me, your Grace And if she may be freed from an open censure; and mine offence being so lawfully proved, your Grace is Henry may at liberty, both before God and man, not only to follow his execute worthy punishment on me, as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection already settled on that party for whose sake I am now as is con demned, lawfully new fancy. If her fate is already decided, she prays I am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto; your Grace not being ignorant of my suspicion therein. 'But if you have already determined of me; and that not only my death, but an infamous slander, must bring you the enjoying of your pardon his desired happiness; then I desire of God that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise God will great sin, my A.D. 1536. enemies the instruments thereof; and that He CH. 11. will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment-seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear; and in whose judgment, I doubt not, whatsoever the world may think of me, mine innocence shall be openly known and sufficiently cleared. that her may suffice, tlemen be 'My last and only request shall be, that my And also self may only bear the burden of your Grace's dis- own death pleasure, and that it may not touch the innocent and the souls of those poor gentlemen who, as I under-poor genstand, are likewise in strait imprisonment for spared. my sake. If ever I have found favour in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request; and I will so leave to trouble your Grace any further; with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity, to have your Grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this 6th of May. Your most loyal and ever faithful wife, 'ANNE BOLEYN.' ,米 This letter is most affecting; and although it is better calculated to plead the queen's cause with posterity than with the king, whom it could only exasperate, yet if it is genuine it tells (so far as such a composition can tell at all) powerfully in her favour. On the same page of the manuscript, carrying the same authority, and subject to the * BURNET'S Collectanea, p. 87; Cotton. MS. VOL. II. I I A second requisition to confess from the king, and a second refusal. CH. II. same doubt, is a fragment of another letter, supposed to have been written subsequently, and A.D. 1536. Saturday, therefore in answer to a second invitation to May 6. confess. In this she replied again, that she could confess no more than she had already spoken; that she might conceal nothing from the king, to whom she did acknowledge herself so much bound for so many favours; for raising her first from a mean woman to be a marchioness; next to be his queen; and now seeing he could bestow no further honours upon her on earth, for purposing by martyrdom to make her a saint in heaven.* This answer also was unwise in The tone of point of worldly prudence; and I am obliged to the queen's add, that the tone which was assumed, both in not what it this and in her first letter, was unbecoming (even have been, if she was innocent of actual sin) in a wife who, on her own showing, was so gravely to blame. It is to be remembered that she had betrayed from the first the king's confidence; and, as she knew at the moment at which she was writing, she had never been legally married to him. answers ought to even on her own showing. Her spirits meanwhile had something rallied, though still violently fluctuating. 'One hour,' wrote Kingston,† 'she is determined to die, and the next hour much contrary to that.' Sometimes Her wild she talked in a wild, wandering way, wondering the Tower. Whether any one made the prisoners' beds, with other of those light trifles which women's minds words in *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. Kingston to Cromwell: SINGER, p. 456. |