privy chamber; Mark Smeaton, a man of inferior rank, who, on account of his skill as a performer on musical instruments, had been promoted to be groom of the chamber; and George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, Anne's brother. The indictment, which is in barbarous Latin, is too gross for the public eye; and the very grossness of the accusations is a strong presumption of their being base and clumsy fabrications. It represents her as being in every instance the seducer, and while the charges go back nearly three years, there is always an interval of several days, sometimes of several weeks, between her solicitations and the commission of the crime, a circumstance unlike the impetuosity of passion, and giving the document very much the appearance of having been manufactured for the occasion. "It is hard to believe," says Sir James Mackintosh, “that Anne could have dared to lead a life so unnaturally dissolute, without such vices being more easily and very generally known in a watchful and adverse court. It is still more improbable that she should in every instance be the seducer; and that in all cases the enticement should systematically occur in one day, while the offence should be completed several days after." Turner, the apologist of Henry, and by no means a partizan of Anne, after giving an abstract of the indictment from one of the Birch manuscripts, observes, "These circumstances do not resemble those of a true case, nor suit the natural conduct of a shameless woman. I have more doubt of her criminality since I met with this specifying record than I had before. The regular distinctions between the days of allurement and the days of offence are very like the made up facts of a fabricated accusation." " "The first alleged offence," says Miss Strickland, "is with Norris, and is dated October 6, 1533, within a month after the birth of the princess Elizabeth, which statement brings its own refutation, for the queen had not then quitted her lying-in chamber." 1 History of England, vol. ii., p. 196. 2 It is printed in full in Bayle's Dictionary, art. Boleyn. As to the imputation involving her brother, the only circumstance adduced in proof was that he was once seen leaning on her bed --a circumstance to which only such as were malignantly set of framing a criminal charge from nothing would have attached the ast importance. How malicious the enemies by whom she was serranded, and with what minute unceasing attention must her dact have been watched and pried into, when a harmless incident ke this was converted into a monstrous crime! The more unnaSara and consequently the more improbable the crime, every prineple of reason and of justice demanded that the proof of guilt ld be so much the stronger. And if, upon the slender cirtance mentioned, her enemies-in their eagerness to ruin her hour, and blast her name, and bring her to the scaffoldpraced her guilty of the atrocious, the unnatural crime of Last, we may be sure that they would have little scruple in probing her guilty of all the other accusations, however lame the erilence. In their ardour to find criminating matter against her, her eemies had recourse to the artifice of insinuating or directly sayg to each of the prisoners, which was a base falsehood, that his ews had confessed, in order to induce him to make confession. The artice was practised even upon Anne, who was told by her uncle, or by his orders, that Norris had confessed the truth of all the charges, which was false. Verily, men who could make use of caprincipled arts, would stick at no falsehood, however flagrant, 29 sort or size of calumny, by which they might compass the destruction of their victim. Saton was the only one of the prisoners who confessed anything to her disadvantage. But how his confession was obtained, how far it extended, or what were the conditions of it, we are ignonat' Whatever was its amount, it is said to have been obtained Burner's Reformation, vol. i., p. 197. Sates's Reformation in England, vol. ii., p. 135.—Sir James Mackintosh's History England, vol. 1, p. 196. by means of the rack, though, from the secrecy with which his examination was conducted, this has not been authenticated. "Upon May-day in the morning," says Constantine, a contemporary, "he was in the Tower; the truth is he confessed it, but yet the saying was that he was first grievously racked, which I could never know of a truth." It has also been said that he was encouraged to confess by a promise of life. "He was provoked thereunto," says Grafton, "by the Lord Admiral Fitzwilliams, that was after Earl of Southampton, who said unto him, Subscribe Mark (meaning to a confession, criminating himself, the queen, and others), and see what will come of it."2 A confession obtained by such means, in a case like the present, is entitled to little credit. And what is to be thought of statesmen who, in their eagerness to accomplish the purpose of their master, were so base as to make such a promise, while they had no intention of keeping it? The other three, Lord Rochford, Norris, Weston, and Brereton, persisted to the last in denying their own criminality, and in asserting their conviction of the queen's innocence. Norris in particular, though offered his life by Henry if he would make confession against her, spurned the offer. His humanity and generosity revolted at the idea of purchasing life upon such terms, and he declared that in his conscience he believed her to be blameless, and that he would die a thousand deaths rather than betray the innocent. On hearing this strong protestation of Norris, Henry cried out, "Hang him up, then! Hang him up, then!" the words of a man who, maddened into demoniacal fury against the woman whom he now mortally hated, could have thrust the dagger to the very hilt in her heart with his own hand, and who was clearly determined to get quit of her, at whatever cost. The fact that Smeaton alone would criminate the queen, greatly perplexed her enemies. Sir Edward Baynton thus writes with much concern to Sir William Fitzwilliams, treasurer of the household, a very active agent in the plot :-"Mr. Treasurer, this shall be to advertise you, Archæologia, vol. xxiii., p. 64. 2 Grafton's Chronicle, edit. London, 1809, vol. ii., p. 456. 3 Godwin. |