Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession (27 page)
In the first few days of her imprisonment, Anne was a nervous wreck, desperately trying to work out why she had been imprisoned by the husband who had once pursued her so obsessively. To Kingston’s confusion, she alternated between weeping and laughing and she also spoke unguardedly, apparently trying to make sense of what could have caused her fall. On her arrival in the Tower, Anne asked Kingston why she was in the Tower and he said he did not know. She then asked him about her brother, pleading ‘O [where ys] my swet brod’er?’. Anne then said that she thought she would be accused with three men, presumably referring to her brother, Henry Norris and Mark Smeaton and she cried out ‘[O Nor]es, hast thow accused me, thow ar in the Towre with me, & [thou and I shal]l dy to gether and, Marke, thou art here to. O my mother, [thou wilt dy] for sorow’. Anne then piteously asked Kingston ‘[shall I dy] with yowt just[ice]’. Kingston replied that ‘the porest sugett the kyng [hath had justis]’ and Anne burst out laughing.
Anne had always been proud of her intelligence and self-possession, but in her first few days at the Tower she was a piteous sight, desperately turning over any incident in her head that could have caused her to fall so far. According to Kingston, soon after her arrival in the Tower:
‘The queen spake of West[on that she] had spoke to hym by cause he dyd love hyr kynswoma[n Mrs Shelton and that s]he sayd he loves not hys wyf and he made anser to hyr [again that he] loved won in hyr howse better then them bothe[; she asked him who is that? To which he answered] that it ys your selfe; and then she defied hym’.
Francis Weston who was, like Norris, a member of Henry’s privy council, had not previously come to the attention of Anne’s investigators, but Anne’s words were enough to damn him and that night he also found himself a prisoner in the Tower.
Anne was clearly thinking hard to find any incident that could have caused her arrest, and she also spoke of Mark Smeaton in the Tower. Anne told Kingston that Smeaton was the worst cherished of any man in her household because he was not a gentleman. According to Kingston, she then stated ‘bot he wase never in m[y chamber but at Winchestr, and] ther she sent for hym to ple[y on the virginals, for there my] logyng was [above the kings]’. She then continued:
‘For I never spake with hym syns, bot apon Saturday before May day, and then I found hym standing in the ronde wyndo in my chamber of presens, and I asked why he wase so sad, and he answered and sayd it was now mater, and then she sayd, yu may not loke to have me speke to you as I shuld do to anobull man, by cause you be aninferer person. No, no, madam, aloke sufficed me, and thus far you well’.
Anne considered Smeaton as beneath her notice and the idea that he might be her lover would have made her laugh. She also spoke to Kingston of her brother and, when it was confirmed that he was also in the Tower, she replied ‘I am very glad, said sh[e that we] bothe be so ny together’. For Anne, these were probably innocent words, but her mention of Norris, Weston, Smeaton and George Boleyn were all noted and reported to Cromwell and used as evidence against her.
Norris, Weston, Smeaton and George were not the only men arrested during the early days of Anne’s imprisonment and William Brereton, another member of Henry’s privy council was also taken to the Tower as one of Anne’s alleged lovers. Brereton is a particularly unlikely choice for a lover. In 1536, he was in his late forties and the fact that Anne never mentioned him in the Tower suggests that he was not well known to her. Some of Anne’s own contemporaries also speculated that he was innocent and George Constantine, who knew Brereton personally, asserted that ‘yf any of them was innocent, it was he. For other he was innocente or else he dyed worst of them all’. Constantine spoke to Brereton on the day of his arrest and he made no sign that he was expecting to be caught up in the matter himself. Brereton was married to the sister of the Earl of Worcester and it is therefore possible that it was Lady Worcester who first mentioned his name. In the suspicious days following Anne’s arrest, a mention was all that it took and Thomas Wyatt was also committed to the Tower due to his past links with Anne. A further man, Sir Richard Page, was also arrested, although his connection with Anne is entirely unclear.
As the days wore on, Anne collected herself a little and was able to complain to Kingston one day after supper that she ‘was creuely handeled’. She then continued that:
‘To be a queen and creueley handeled as was never sene; bot I [think the king] dose it to prove me, and dyd lawth with all and was very mery, and th[ein she said I shall have just]ists; and then I sayde have now dowt ther[in]; then she sayd yf hony man [accuse me I can say bot n]ay, & thay can bring now wytnes’.
Anne simply could not believe that the king who had loved her so passionately could desire her death. She also told Kingston that she wished that she could see her bishops as they would go to the king and speak for her. If Anne believed that the men that she had helped promote to bishoprics were truly ‘her’ bishops, she was mistaken and even Cranmer maintained public support for the king.
Anne had been instrumental in securing Cranmer’s appointment as archbishop and she would certainly have included him amongst ‘her’ bishops. She cannot have known that Cranmer, on hearing the news of Anne’s fall, had written to the king disassociating himself firmly from Anne in a bid to save both himself and the future of the religious reform. Cranmer wrote:
‘If it be true what is openly reported of the queen’s grace, if men had a right estimation of things, they should not esteem any part of your grace’s honour to be touched thereby, but her honour only to be clearly disparaged. And I am in such a perplexity, that my mind is clean amazed, for I never had a better opinion in woman than I had of her, which maketh me think she should not be culpable. Now I think that your grace best knoweth, that next unto your grace I was most bound unto her of all creatures living. Wherefore I must humbly beseech your grace to suffer me in that which both God’s law, nature, and her kindness, bindeth me, unto that I may (with your grace’s favour) wish and pray for her. And from what condition your grace, of your only mere goodness, took her, and set the crown upon her head, I repute him not your grace’s faithful servant and subject, nor true to the realm, that would not desire the offence to be without mercy punished, to the example of all others. And as I loved her not a little, for the love I judged her to bear towards God and his holy Gospel, so, if she be proved culpable, there is not one that loveth God and his Gospel that will ever favour her, but must hate her, for then there never was creature in our time that so slandered the Gospel. And God hath sent her this punishment, for that she frequently hath progressed the Gospel in her mouth, and not in her heart and deed, and though she hath offended, so that she hath deserved never to be reconciled to your grace’s favour, yet God Almighty hath manifoldly declared his goodness towards your grace, and never offended you’.
Anne would have agreed with Cranmer’s attempts to preserve the religious reform at all costs, but she cannot have been happy to find that she was to be abandoned by those whom she thought she could count on for support. In reality, Cranmer may not have abandoned Anne quite as fully as he assured the king and, according to Alexander Ales, he said sadly following Anne’s death that ‘she who has been the queen of England upon earth will to-day become a queen in heaven’. Cranmer then burst into tears. Anne may have had his private sympathy but he could not support her publicly and most people in England were prepared to think the worst of her following her arrest.
Whether Anne was guilty or innocent of the charges against her has been debated for centuries. Certainly, at the time of her imprisonment great attempts were made to secure further confessions and both Cromwell and Henry were disappointed that only Smeaton ever confessed. Anne’s poor reputation meant that people were prepared to believe almost anything of her and Jane Dormer, a friend of Anne’s stepdaughter, Mary, believed that Anne had committed adultery with George, Weston, Norris, Brereton and Smeaton in an attempt to conceive a son. The contemporary
Chronicle of Henry VIII,
also claimed that Anne was guilty, stating that she ‘ostentatiously tried to attract the best-looking men and best dancers to be found’. According to the
Chronicle
, Anne heard that Mark Smeaton was a good player and dancer and she sent for him to play for her. Once Mark had played, Anne danced with him and found he danced so well that she ‘at once fell in love with him’. The Chronicler was in no doubt about Anne’s guilt, referring also to Norris and Brereton as Anne’s ‘minions’. However, the Chronicler was not a member of the court and would only have based his assessment on Anne’s reputation and the rumours that surrounded her fall, as would Jane Dormer.
Chapuys also believed that adultery had truly been discovered and that Anne’s arrest was the judgment of God. This was also the official response put about by Cromwell and, on 14 May, the minister wrote that ‘the queen’s incontinent living was so rank and common that the ladies of her privy chamber could not conceal it. It came to the ears of some of the Council, who told his Majesty, although, with great fear’. Cromwell claimed that a plot had been discovered between Anne and her lovers against the king’s life and Henry himself also went along with the pretence. In what can only be described as a staged scene, on the night of Anne’s arrest, Henry’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond, came to him to bid him goodnight. According to Chapuys, ‘the king began to weep, saying that he and his sister, meaning the Princess, were greatly bound to God for having escaped the hands of that accursed whore, who had determined to poison them’. Even Chapuys could not help noting that Henry had lodged Jane Seymour nearby and that he was attempting to cover up his affections for his new love.
Most people in England were prepared to believe the worst about Anne but among those people at court it is possible that there was a little more unease. According to Alexander Ales, even Anne’s enemies recognised that the evidence was only circumstantial and they said that:
‘It is no new thing, said they, that the King’s Chamberlains should dance with the ladies in the bedchamber. Nor can any proof of adultery be collected from the fact that the queen’s brother took her by the hand and led her into the dance among the other ladies, or handed her to another, especially if that person was one of the royal chamberlains. For it is a usual custom throughout the whole of Britain that ladies married and unmarried, even the most coy, kiss not only a brother but any honourable person, even in public’.
Those who heard the actual evidence against Anne and her ‘lovers’ may have been a little uneasy.
Although Cromwell was the driving force behind the investigation into Anne, he could not have acted without the approval of the king. By April 1536 Henry was no longer committed to his marriage to Anne and he was looking towards a new future with Jane Seymour. While Anne was certainly accused by Lady Wingfield and Lady Worcester, these accusations only provided the basis of the investigations; the decision to charge Anne and her ‘lovers’ was entirely Henry’s. What is apparent from the accusations surrounding Anne is that she enjoyed dancing and even flirtations with men but it is simply inconceivable that she would have found the opportunity, and the privacy, to commit adultery with five men. The simple fact is that by April 1536, Henry wanted rid of Anne. He wanted to ensure that the marriage ended quickly given the difficulties that he had had with Catherine of Aragon, and he wanted to ensure that his children by a new wife would be entirely legitimate. By accusing Anne of adultery, a charge many people were prepared to believe given her poor reputation, he was able to ensure that there would be no discarded wife threatening his new marriage. Henry’s love for Anne was dead and he could be ruthless to those who fell out of favour, as Anne’s enemy, Wolsey, had found. Even before her trial, Henry did not envisage Anne ever being released and, on 13 May, her household was disbanded on the command of the king. A contemporary of Anne, George Cavendish, who fully believed in Anne’s guilt, claimed that she had ‘turned trust to treason’ but, in reality, it was Henry who had done this, not Anne. As Anne gradually recovered her selfpossession, she realised that her husband had entirely forsaken her and she knew that the result of her trial was a foregone conclusion.
THE LADY IN THE TOWER
Anne spent nearly two weeks in the Tower before her trial, agonising over everything that had happened to her and dreading the days ahead. She was not permitted to see Henry, nor the men with whom she was accused and, instead, she was kept closely watched in the royal apartments in the Tower. From what little she was told, Anne began to piece together the accusations against her and she prepared to defend herself, although she would have known that the result of her trial was a foregone conclusion.
By 12 May 1536, the charges against Anne and her alleged lovers had been prepared and Norris, Brereton, Weston and Smeaton were taken under guard to Westminster Hall for their trial. On their arrival, the four men faced the king’s commissioners and were charged ‘that they had violated and had carnal knowledge of the said queen, each by himself at separate times’. This was the first time that the charges against Anne and the men had been publicly stated and the words must have sent a chill through the hearts of the men as the court was opened. It is unclear whether any evidence was presented to the men and they would have been allowed no counsel nor witnesses to speak in their defence. Details of the trial are sketchy but according to Sir John Spelman, one of the judges who oversaw the proceedings, ‘Mark [Smeaton] confessed that he had [had] carnal knowledge of the queen three times. Norris, Brereton and Weston pleaded not guilty, but were found guilty, and had judgment to be drawn, hanged, and beheaded and quartered’. Following the guilty verdict, the four terrified men were returned to the Tower from which they would never again emerge.