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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 served 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 honor to the queen, a young lady of singular beauty and merit, had obtained an entire ascendant over him; and he was determined to sacrifice every thing 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 honored 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 connection 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 meant only 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 candor and sincerity of her confession, regarded these indiscretions only as preludes to greater and more criminal intimacies.
* Burnet, vol. i. p. 198. ** Strype, vol. i. p. 281.
Of all those multitudes whom the beneficence of the queen’s tamper 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 favored, 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 endeavored 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. Morris, 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 Wingfield, 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 confession; for they never dared to confront him with her; and he was immediately executed; as were also Brereton and Weston. Norris had been much in the king’s favor, 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.
* See note K, at the end of the volume. ** Burnet, vol. i. p. 202.
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. Upon what proof or pretence the crime of incest was imputed to them, is unknown: the chief evidence, it is said, amounted to no more than that Rocheford had been seen to lean on her bed before some company. 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 twenty-fifth 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 to heaven, 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: he recalled to his memory, that a little after her appearance in the English court, some attachment had been acknowledged between her and the earl of Northumberland, then Lord Piercy; and he now questioned that 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 by menaces of executing the sentence against her in its greatest rigor, 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.
