CH. 11. have illicit intercourse with her; and that the act was committed at Westminster, 26th April, 26 Henry VIII.

A.D. 1536.

7. Furthermore, that the said George, Lord Rochfort, Henry Norris, William Brereton, Sir Francis Weston, and Mark Smeton, being thus inflamed by carnal love of the queen, and having become very jealous of each other, did, in order to secure her affections, satisfy her inordinate desires; and that the queen was equally jealous of the Lord Rochfort and other the beforementioned traitors; and she would not allow them to show any familiarity with any other woman, without her exceeding displeasure and indignation; and that on the 27th day of November, 27 Hen. VIII., and other days, at Westminster, she gave them gifts and great rewards, to inveigle them to her will.

'8. Furthermore, that the queen, and other the said traitors, jointly and severally, 31st of October, 27 Hen. VIII., and at various times before and after, compassed and imagined the king's death; and that the queen had frequently promised to marry some one of the traitors, whenever the king should depart this life, affirming she never would love the king in her heart.

9. Furthermore, that the king, having within a short time before become acquainted with the before-mentioned crimes, vices, and treasons, had been so grieved that certain harms and dangers had happened to his royal body.'*

* Baga de Secretis, pouch 9.

A.D. 1536.

bability of

guilt and

bability of a conspi

against her

the same

I suppose that persons who have made up CH. 11. their minds conclusively, and are resolved to abide by the popular verdict of English historians, will turn with disgust from these hideous charges; seeming, as they do, to overstep all ordinary bounds of credibility. On one side or the other there was indeed no common guilt. The colours deepen at every step. But it is to be remem- The improbered that if the improbability of crimes so the queen's revolting is becoming greater, the opposite the improimprobability increases with equal strengththat English noblemen and gentlemen could racy have made themselves a party to the invention increase in of the story. For invention is unfortunately ratio. the only word; would indeed that any other were admissible! The discovery of the indictment disposes at once of Burnet's legend, that the queen was condemned on hearsay evidence; or that her guilt was conjectured from an exaggerated report of foolish conversations. It cuts off all hope, too, of possible mistake. I have heard There is the name of Leontes mentioned as a parallel to for the Henry; and if the question lay only between the hypothesis king and his wife, we would gladly welcome the alternative. Charity would persuade us that a husband had been madly blind, sooner far than that a queen had been madly wicked. But this road for escape is closed. The mistake of Leontes The pawas transparent to every eye but his own. The Leontes charges against Anne Boleyn were presented by suggested, two grand juries before the highest judicial tri- admissible. There was nothing vague,

bunal in the realm. nothing conjectural.

The detail was given of

no room

of mistake.

rallel of

but not

A.D. 1536.

CH. 11. acts and conversations stretching over a period of two and more; and either there was evidence years for these things, or there was none. If there was evidence, it must have been close, elaborate, and minute; if there was none, these judges, these juries and noblemen, were the accomplices of the king in a murder perhaps the most revolting which was ever committed.

The difficulties in

It may be thought that the evidence was the way of pieced together in the secrets of the cabinet; supposing that the juries found their bills on a case pre

the accu

sations forged.

sented to them by the council. This would
transfer the infamy to a higher stage; but if we
try to imagine how the council proceeded in such
a business, we shall not find it an easy task. The
council, at least, could not have been deceived.
The evidence, whatever it was, must have been
examined by them; and though we stretch our
belief in the complacency of statesmen to the
furthest limit of credulity, can we believe that
Cromwell would have invented that dark indict-
ment,-Cromwell who was, and who remained
till his death, the dearest friend of Latimer? Or
the Duke of Norfolk, the veteran who had won
his
spurs at Flodden? Or the Duke of Suffolk
and Sir William Fitzwilliam, the Wellington and
the Nelson of the sixteenth century? Scarcely
among the picked scoundrels of Newgate could
men be found for such work; and shall we believe
it of men like these? It is to me impossible.
Yet, if it was done at all, it was done by those
four ministers.

Even if we could believe that they forged the

A.D. 1536.

purpose

plication

and the

number of

accusations, yet they would at least limit the CH. 11. dimensions of them. The most audacious villain will not extend his crimes beyond what he requires To what for his object; and if the king desired only to rid the multihimself of his wife, to what purpose the multipli- of offences, cation of offenders, and the long list of acts of guilt, when a single offence with the one accom- offenders? plice who was ready to abide by a confession, would have sufficed? The four gentlemen gratuitously, on this hypothesis, entangled in the indictment, were nobly connected: one of them, Lord Rochfort, was himself a peer; they had lived, all four, several years at the court, the intimate friends, it is likely, of every member of the council. Are we to suppose that evidence was invented with no imaginable purpose, for wanton and needless murders?-that the council risked the success of their scheme, by multiplying charges which only increased difficulty of proof, and provoked the interference of the powerful relations of the accused?*

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

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 Ampt-
hill aforesaid. And at my coming
in at the other gate Master
Bryan perceived me, and of his
much gentleness came towards
meeting me; to whom I said,

CH. II.

Friday,
May 12.

Such are the difficulties in which, at this early stage of the transaction, we are already implicated. They will not diminish as we proceed.

Friday, the 12th of May, was fixed for the The court opening of the court. On that day, a petty jury was returned at Westminster, for the trial of Sir

opens.