pieces of ordinance, and shot into the city; which did little harm, howbeit his good will appeared. About three of the clock, these riotous persons severed, and went to their places of resort, and by the way they were taken by the mayor and the heads of the city, and some sent to the Tower, and some to Newgate, and some to the counters, to the number of three hundred: some fled, and specially the watermen and priests and serving-men; but the poor prentices were taken. About five of the clock, the earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey, which had heard of this riot, came to London with such strength as they had; so did the Inns of Court, and divers noblemen: but, or they came, all the riot was ceased, and many taken as you have heard.

Then were the prisoners examined, and the sermon of Doctor Bele called to remembrance, and he taken, and sent to the Tower, and so was John Lincoln: but with this riot the Cardinal was sore displeased. Then the fourth day of May was an oyer and determiner at London before the mayor, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Surrey, and other. The city thought that the duke bare them grudge for a lewd priest of his which the year before was slain in Chepe, in so much the duke then in his fury said, "I pray God, I may once have the citizens in my danger!" and the duke also thought that they bare him no good will; wherefore he came into the city with thirteen hundred men in harness, to keep the oyer and determiner. And upon examination it could never be proved of any meeting, gathering, talking, or conventicle, at any day or time before that day, but that the chance so happened without any matter prepensed of any creature saving Lincoln, and never an honest person in manner was taken but only he. Then proclamations were made, that no women should come together to babble and talk, but all men should keep their wives in their houses. All the streets that were notable stood full of harnessed men, which spake many opprobrious words to the citizens, which grieved them sore; and, if they would have been revenged, the other had had the worse, for the citizens were two hundred to one: but, like true subjects, they suffered patiently.

When the lords were set, the prisoners were brought in through the streets tied in ropes, some men, some lads, some children of thirteen year. There was a great mourning of fathers and friends for their children and kinsfolk: among the prisoners, many were not of the city; some were priests, and some husbandmen and labourers : the whole sum of the prisoners were two hundred and seventy-eight persons. The cause of the treason was, because the king had amity with all Christian princes, that they had broken the truce and league, contrary to the statute of king Henry V. Of this treason divers were indited; and so for that time the lords departed. And, the next day, the duke came again, and the Earl of Surrey, with two thousand armed men, which kept the streets. When the mayor, the duke, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey were set, the prisoners were arraigned, and thirteen found guilty of high treason, and adjudged to be hanged, drawn, and quartered; and for execution whereof were set up eleven pair of gallows in divers places where the offences were done, as at Aldgate, at Blanchechapelton, Gracious Street, Leadenhall, and before every counter one, and at Newgate, at Saint Martin's, at Aldresgate, at Bishopsgate. This sight sore grieved the people, to see gallows set in the king's chamber. Then were the prisoners that were judged brought to the place of execution, and executed in most rigorous manner; for the Lord Edmond Howard, son to the Duke of Norfolk and knight marshal, shewed no mercy, but extreme cruelty to the poor younglings in their execution, and likewise the duke's servants spake many opprobrious words; some bade hang, some bade draw, some bade set the city on fire; but all was suffered.

On the seventh day of May was Lincoln, Shirwin, and two brethren

called Bettes, and divers other, adjudged to die. Then Lincoln said, "My lords, I meant well; for an you knew the mischief that is ensued in this realm by strangers, you would remedy it; and many times I have complained, and then I was called a busy fellow: now our Lord have mercy on me!" Then all the said persons were laid on the hurdles, and drawn to the Standard in Chepe; and first was John Lincoln executed; and, as the other had the rope about their necks, there came a commandment from the king to respite execution. Then the people cried, "God save the king!" Then was the oyer and determiner deferred till another day, and the prisoners sent again to ward, and the harnessed men departed out of London, and all things quiet.

The eleventh day of May the king came to his manorof Greenwich, where the recorder of London and divers aldermen came to speak with his grace, and all ware gowns of black colour. And when they perceived the king coming out of his privy chamber into his chamber of presence, they kneeled down, and the recorder said, "Our most natural benign and sovereign lord, we know well that your grace is displeased with us of your city of London for the great riot late done; we ascertain your grace that none of us, nor no honest person, were condescending to that enormity; and yet we, our wives and children, every hour lament that your favour should be taken from us; and, forasmuch as light and idle persons were the doers of the same, we most humbly beseech your grace to have mercy of us for our negligence, and compassion of the offenders for their offence and trespass." "Truly," said the king, "you have highly displeased and offended us, and ye ought to wail and be sorry for the same; and where ye say that you the substantial persons were not consenting to the same, it appeareth to the contrary, for you never moved to let them, nor stirred once to fight with them, which you say were so small a number of light persons; wherefore we must think, and you cannot deny, but you did wink at the matter: but at this time we will grant to you neither our favour nor good will, nor to the offenders mercy; but resort to the Cardinal, our Lord Chancellor, and he shall make you an answer, and declare our pleasure" and with this answer the Londoners departed, and made relation to the mayor.

Thursday the twenty-second day of May, the king came into Westminster-Hall, for whom at the upper end was set a cloth of estate, and the place hanged with arras with him was the Cardinal, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earls of Shrewsbury, of Essex and Wiltshire, of Surrey, with many lords and other of the king's council. The mayor and aldermen, and all the chief of the city were there in their best livery, (according as the Cardinal had them appointed) by nine of the clock. Then the king commanded that all the prisoners should be brought forth. Then came in the poor younglings and old false knaves, bounden in ropes, all along, one after another, in their shirts, and every one a halter about his neck, to the number of four hundred men and eleven women. And, when all were come before the king's presence, the Cardinal sore laid to the mayor and commonalty their negligence, and to the prisoners he declared that they deserved death for their offence. Then all the prisoners together cried, "Mercy, gracious lord, mercy!" Then the lords altogether besought his grace of mercy; at whose request the king pardoned them all. And then the Cardinal gave unto them a good exhortation, to the great gladness of the hearers. And when the general pardon was pronounced, all the prisoners shouted at once, and altogether cast up their halters into the hall roof, so that the king might perceive they were none of the discreetest sort.

156. THE FALL OF ANNE BOLEYN.

HUME.

While the retainers to the new religion were exulting in their prosperity, they met with a mortification which seemed to blast all their hopes. Their patroness Anne Boleyn possessed no longer the king's favour; and soon after lost her life by the rage of that furious monarch. Henry had persevered in his love to this lady during six years that his prosecution of the divorce lasted; and the more obstacles he met with to the gratification of his passion, the more determined zeal did he exert in pursuing his purpose. But the affection which had subsisted, and still increased under difficulties, had not long obtained secure possession of its object, when it languished from satiety; and the king's heart was apparently estranged from his consort. Anne's enemies soon perceived the fatal change; and they were forward to widen the breach, when they found that they incurred no danger by interposing in those delicate concerns. She had been delivered of a dead son and Henry's extreme fondness for male issue being thus for the present disappointed, his temper, equally violent and superstitious, was disposed to make the innocent mother answerable for the misfortune. But the chief means which Anne's enemies employed to inflame the king against her, was his jealousy.

Anne, though she appears to have been entirely innocent, and even virtuous in her conduct, had a certain gaiety, if not levity of character, which threw her off her guard, and made her less circumspect than her situation required. Her education in France rendered her more prone to those freedoms; and it was with difficulty she conformed herself to that strict ceremonial practised in the court of England. More vain than haughty, she was pleased to see the influence of her beauty on all around her, and she indulged herself in an easy familiarity with persons who were formerly her equals, and who might then have pretended to her friendship and good graces. Henry's dignity was offended with these popular manners; and though the lover had been entirely blind, the husband possessed but too quick discernment and penetration. Ill instruments interposed, and put a malignant interpretation on the harmless liberties of the queen. The Viscountess of Rocheford, in particular, who was married to the queen's brother, but who lived on bad terms with her sister-in-law, insinuated the most cruel suspicions into the king's mind; and as she was a woman of profligate character, she paid no regard either to truth or humanity in those calumnies which she suggested. Henry Norris, groom of the stole, Weston and Brereton, gentlemen of the king's chamber, together with Mark Smeton, groom of the chamber, were observed to possess much of the queen's friendship; and they served her with a zeal and attachment which, though chiefly derived from gratitude, might not improbably be seasoned with some mixture of tenderness for so amiable a princess. The king's jealousy laid hold of the slightest circumstance, and finding no particular object on which it could fasten, it vented itself equally on every one who came within the verge of its fury.

Had Henry's jealousy been derived from love, though it might on a sudden have proceeded to the most violent extremities, it would have been subject to many remorses and contrarieties; and might at last have suffered only to augment that affection on which it was founded. But it was a more stern jealousy, fostered entirely by pride. His love was transferred to another object. Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour, and maid of honour to the queen, a young lady of singular beauty and merit, had obtained an entire ascendant over him; and he was determined to sacrifice everything to the gratification of this new appetite. Unlike to most monarchs, who judge lightly of the crime of gallantry, and who deem the young damsels of their court rather honoured than disgraced by their passion, he

seldom thought of any other attachment than that of marriage; and in order to attain this end, he underwent more difficulties, and committed greater crimes, than those which he sought to avoid by forming that legal connexion. And having thus entertained the design of raising his new mistress to his bed and throne, he more willingly hearkened to every suggestion which threw any imputation of guilt on the unfortunate Anne Boleyn.

The king's jealousy first appeared openly in a tilting at Greenwich, where the queen happened to drop her handkerchief; an incident probably casual, but interpreted by him as an instance of gallantry to some of her paramours. He immediately retired from the place; sent orders to confine her to her chamber, arrested Norris, Brereton, Weston, and Smeton, together with her brother Rocheford, and threw them into prison. The queen, astonished at these instances of his fury, thought that he only meant to try her; but finding him in earnest, she reflected on his obstinate unrelenting spirit, and she prepared herself for that melancholy doom which was awaiting her. Next day she was sent to the Tower; and on her way thither she was informed of her supposed offences, of which she had hitherto been ignorant. She made earnest protestations of her innocence; and when she entered the prison she fell on her knees, and prayed God so to help her, as she was not guilty of the crime imputed to her. Her surprise and confusion threw her into hysterical disorders, and in that situation she thought that the best proof of her innocence was to make an entire confession, and she revealed some indiscretions and levities which her simplicity had equally betrayed her to commit and to avow. She owned that she had once rallied Norris on his delaying his marriage, and had told him that he probably expected her when she should be a widow: she had reproved Weston, she said, for his affection to a kinswoman of hers, and his indifference towards his wife; but he told her that she had mistaken the object of his affection, for it was herself: upon which she defied him. She affirmed that Smeton had never been in her chamber but twice, when he played on the harpsichord, but she acknowledged that he had once had the boldness to tell her, that a look sufficed him. The king, instead of being satisfied with the candour and sincerity of her confession, regarded these indiscretions only as preludes to greater and more criminal intimacies.

Of all those multitudes whom the beneficence of the queen's temper had obliged during her prosperous fortune, no one durst interpose between her and the king's fury; and the person whose advancement every breath had favoured, and every countenance had smiled upon, was now left neglected and abandoned. Even her uncle the Duke of Norfolk, preferring the connections of party to the ties of blood, was become her most dangerous enemy; and all the retainers to the catholic religion hoped that her death would terminate the king's quarrel with Rome, and leave him again to his natural and early bent, which had inclined him to maintain the most intimate union with the Apostolic See. Cranmer alone, of all the queen's adherents, still retained his friendship for her; and, as far as the king's impetuosity permitted him, he endeavoured to moderate the violent prejudices entertained against her.

The queen herself wrote Henry a letter from the Tower, full of the most tender expostulations, and of the warmest protestations of innocence. This letter had no influence on the unrelenting mind of Henry, who was determined to pave the way for his new marriage by the death of Anne Boleyn. Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeton, were tried; but no legal evidence was produced against them. The chief proof of their guilt consisted in a hearsay from one lady Winkfield, who was dead. Smeton was prevailed on, by the vain hopes of life, to confess a criminal correspondence with the queen; but even her enemies expected little advantage from this

THE FALL OF ANNE BOLEYN.

confession; for they never dared to confront him with her; and he was immedi587 ately executed; as were also Brereton and Weston. Norris had been much in the king's favour; and an offer of life was made him, if he would confess his crime, and accuse the queen; but he generously rejected the proposal, and said, that in his conscience he believed her entirely guiltless, but for his part he could accuse her of nothing, and he would rather die a thousand deaths than calumniate an innocent person.

The queen and her brother were tried by a jury of peers, consisting of the duke of Suffolk, the marquis of Exeter, the earl of Arundel, and twenty-three more. Their uncle the duke of Norfolk presided as high steward. Part of the charge against her was that she had affirmed to her minions that the king never had her heart; and had said to each of them apart, that she loved him better than any person whatsoever. Which was to the slander of the issue begotten between the king and her. By this strained interpretation, her guilt was brought under the statute of the 25th of this reign; in which it was declared criminal to throw any slander upon the king, queen, or their issue. Such palpable absurdities were at that time admitted; and they were regarded by the peers of England as a sufficient reason for sacrificing an innocent queen to the cruelty of their tyrant. Though unassisted by counsel, she defended herself with presence of mind; and the spectators could not forbear pronouncing her entirely innocent. Judgment, however, was given by the court, both against the queen and lord Rocheford; and her verdict contained, that she should be burned or beheaded, at the king's pleasure. When this dreadful sentence was pronounced she was not terrified, but lifting up her hands said, "O! Father! O! Creator! thou who art the way, the truth, and the life, thou knowest that I have not deserved this fate." And then turning to the judges, made the most pathetic declarations of her innocence.

Henry, not satisfied with this cruel vengeance, was resolved entirely to annul his marriage with Anne Boleyn, and to declare her issue illegitimate. his memory, that a little after her appearance in the English court some attachHe recalled to ment had been acknowledged between her and the Earl of Northumberland, then Lord Percy; and he now questioned the nobleman with regard to these engagements. Northumberland took an oath before the two archbishops, that no contract or promise of marriage had ever passed between them. He received the sacrament upon it, before the Duke of Norfolk and others of the privy council; and this solemn act he accompanied with the most solemn protestations of veracity. The queen, however, was shaken with menaces of executing the sentence against her in its greatest rigour, and was prevailed on to confess in court some lawful impediment to her marriage with the king. The afflicted primate who sat as judge thought himself obliged by this confession, to pronounce the marriage null and invalid. Henry, in the transports of his fury, did not perceive that his proceedings were totally inconsistent, and that if her marriage were from the beginning invalid, she could not possibly be guilty of adultery.

The queen now prepared for suffering the death to which she was sentenced. She sent her last message to the king, and acknowledged the obligations which she owed him, in his uniformly continuing his endeavours for her advancement. From a private gentlewoman, she said, he had first made her a marchioness, then a queen, and now, since he could raise her no higher in this world, he was sending her to be a saint in heaven. She then renewed the protestations of her innocence, and recommended her daughter to his care. all who approached her, she made the like declarations; and continued to behave Before the lieutenant of the Tower, and herself with her usual serenity, and even with cheerfulness. she said to the lieutenant, "is, I hear, very expert; and my neck is very slender.? "The executioner."