The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown (21 page)

I suspect that after their confessions, the men would have spent time praying to their Father in Heaven, the maker they would be meeting very soon.

17th May 1536 – The Executions of 5 Men and a Marriage Destroyed

On 17th May 1536, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, Mark Smeaton, Sir William Brereton and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, were led out of the Tower of London to a scaffold which had been erected on Tower Hill. I cannot imagine how they felt as they surveyed the scene and realised that death was closing in on them. Their only comfort was that their sentences had been commuted to beheading, a much more merciful death than being hanged, drawn and quartered.

Thomas Wyatt, the poet who at that point was himself imprisoned in the Tower of London, wrote a poem about their executions, entitled "In Mourning wise since daily I increase". I have included excerpts of this poem throughout the accounts of the men's executions.

George Boleyn, Lord Rochford

George had fretted the whole time he'd been in the Tower. He wasn't afraid of dying, but he was afraid that his debtors would not be paid and that those who owed him money would end up getting into trouble if they had to pay the King instead. So worked up was George that Sir William Kingston wrote to Cromwell twice, firstly saying "The said Lord desires to speak with you on a matter which touches his conscience"
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and then reiterating it in a second letter:"You must help my lord of Rochford's conscience".
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One person George was concerned about was a monk who, with Cromwell's help, George had got promoted. The monk had paid George £100 and owed a further £100, but the Abbey had now been "suppressed". The monk had no way of paying George back and George was worried that the Crown would demand the payment. Kingston begged Cromwell to step in and help George. We do not know if Cromwell ever visited George, but his worries would soon be over.

As the highest in rank, Anne Boleyn's brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, was the first to be executed. This at least spared him the ordeal of watching as his friends and colleagues were killed one by one. Before he knelt at the block, he made a speech, but it is hard to know exactly what he said; there are a few different versions of his final speech.

According to a Spanish record in Letters and Papers:

"The count (viscount) Rochefort, brother of the queen (unjustly so called) Anne Boleyn, was beheaded with an axe upon a scaffold before the Tower of London. He made a very catholic address to the people, saying he had not come thither to preach, but to serve as a mirror and example, acknowledging his sins against God and the King, and declaring he need not recite the causes why he was condemned, as it could give no pleasure to hear them. He first desired mercy and pardon of God, and afterwards of the King and all others whom he might have offended, and hoped that men would not follow the vanities of the world and the flatteries of the Court, which had brought him to that shameful end. He said if he had followed the teachings of the Gospel, which he had often read, he would not have fallen into this danger, for a good doer was far better than a good reader. In the end, he pardoned those who had condemned him to death, and asked the people to pray for his soul."
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The Chronicle of King Henry VIII (The Spanish Chronicle) says:

"Then the Duke turned to the people and said in the hearing of many "I beg you to pray to God for me; for by the trial I have to pass through I am blameless, and never even knew that my sister was bad. Guiltless as I am, I pray God to have mercy upon my soul." Then he lay upon the ground with his head on the block, the headsman gave three strokes, and so died this poor duke."
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The Chronicle of Calais records George Boleyn's execution speech as:

"Christen men, I am borne undar the lawe, and judged undar the lawe, and dye undar the lawe, and the lawe hathe condemned me. Mastars all, I am not come hether for to preche, but for to dye, for I have deserved for to dye yf I had xx. lyves, more shamefully than can be devysed, for I am a wreched synnar, and I have synned shamefully, I have knowne no man so evell, and to reherse my synnes openly it were no pleaswre to you to here them, nor yet for me to reherse them, for God knowethe all; therefore, mastars all, I pray yow take hede by me, and especially my lords and gentlemen of the cowrte, the whiche I have bene amonge, take hede by me, and beware of suche a fall, and I pray to God the Fathar, the Sonne, and the Holy Ghoste, thre persons and one God, that my deathe may be an example unto yow all, and beware, trust not in the vanitie of the worlde, and especially in the flateringe of the cowrte. And I cry God mercy, and aske all the worlde forgevenes, as willingly as I wowld have forgevenes of God ; and yf I have offendyd any man that is not here now, eythar in thowght, worde, or dede, and yf ye here any suche, I pray yow hertely in my behalfe, pray them to forgyve me for God's sake. And yet, my mastars all, I have one thinge for to say to yow, men do comon and saye that I have bene a settar forthe of the worde of God, and one that have favored the Ghospell of Christ ; and bycawse I would not that God's word shuld be slaundered by me, I say unto yow all, that yf I had followecl God's worde in dede as I dyd rede it and set it forthe to my power, I had not come to this. I dyd red the Ghospell of Christe, but I dyd not follow it; yf I had, I had bene a lyves man amonge yow : therefore I pray yow, mastars all, for God's sake sticke to the trwthe and folowe it, for one good followere is worthe thre redars, as God knowethe."
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The editor of The Chronicle of Calais points out that this speech is very similar to the one given in the Excerpta Historica, 1831, in a contemporary account by a Portuguese man. In that sense, therefore, these words are corroborated.

George followed convention by acknowledging that he had been condemned by the law and confessing that he was a sinner who deserved death. However, although he the started by saying that he was not going to preach a sermon, he "spoke the language of Zion",
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urging those witnessing his death to "stick to the truth and follow it", and not make the mistakes that he had. Powerful words indeed, especially when spoken by a man who believed that he was justified by faith, even though he may not have had the most perfect of lives.

George then knelt at the block and was beheaded. I do hope that the Spanish Chronicle is wrong when it says that three strokes were required.

"As for them all I do not thus lament,
But as of right my reason doth me bind;
But as the most doth all their deaths repent,
Even so do I by force of mourning mind.
Some say, 'Rochford, haddest thou been not so proud,
For thy great wit each man would thee bemoan,
Since as it is so, many cry aloud
It is great loss that thou art dead and gone."

Thomas Wyatt

Sir Henry Norris

As the next in rank, Sir Henry Norris followed George Boleyn onto the scaffold. George Constantine, Norris's manservant and a witness of these bloody events, recorded that the others confessed, "all but Mr. Norice, who sayed allmost nothinge at all".
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I do not think that Constantine means that the men confessed to sleeping with the queen, rather that they had confessed to being sinners, as was usual at executions.

The Spanish Chronicle
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reported that Sir Henry Norris "made a great long prayer" and declared that he deserved death because he had been ungrateful to the King. He then knelt at the block and was beheaded.

"Ah! Norris, Norris, my tears begin to run
To think what hap did thee so lead or guide
Whereby thou hast both thee and thine undone
That is bewailed in court of every side;
In place also where thou hast never been
Both man and child doth piteously thee moan.
They say, 'Alas, thou art far overseen
By thine offences to be thus deat and gone.'"

Thomas Wyatt

Sir Francis Weston

Sir Francis Weston's family had fought hard for his release. However, even offers of money and the intercession of the French ambassadors, Jean, Sieur de Dinteville (one of the men portrayed in Holbein's The Ambassadors painting), and Antoine de Castelnau, Bishop of Tarbes, could not save him.
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Sir Francis Weston was the third of the men to be executed. Before he knelt at the bloody block he warned people to learn by his example, saying:

"I had thought to have lyved in abhominacion yet this twenty or thrittie yeres and then to have made amendes. I thought little it wold have come to this."
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Weston mentions living in "abomination", rather than being just a plain common and garden sinner, and this word has been used by some historians as evidence of homosexuality and illicit sexual acts. It is more likely that Weston is just referring to the fact that he, like everyone, was a sinner and that he had hoped to have had an opportunity to have put things right and to live a better life.

Weston then knelt at the bloodsoaked block and his life was taken.

"Ah! Weston, Weston, that pleasant was and young,
In active things who might with thee compare?
All words accept that thou diddest speak with tongue,
So well esteemed with each where thou diddest fare.
And we that now in court doth lead our life
Most part in mind doth thee lament and moan;
But that thy faults we daily hear so rife,
All we should weep that thou are dead and gone."
Thomas Wyatt

Sir William Brereton

Sir William Brereton was the fourth man to climb the scaffold. According to The Spanish Chronicle, he simply said, "I have offended God and the King; pray for me", but other reports have him repeating the phrase:

"I have deserved to dye if it were a thousande deethes. But the cause wherfore I dye, judge not. But yf ye judge, judge the best."
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Was Brereton simply exaggerating in his fear or do his words about deserving a thousand deaths suggest that he had led a criminal life and perhaps been involved in sodomy and illicit sexual acts? I cannot see any evidence for Retha Warnicke's view that all five men were libertines who committed sodomy on a regular basis, but it does appear that Brereton was a bit of a Tudor 'bad boy'. In his "Metrical Visions", George Cavendish, Wolsey's faithful servant and biographer, has Brereton lamenting the malicious streak which led to him causing the execution of John ap Griffith Eyton "by colour of justice".
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Norris's servant George Constantine wrote of how Brereton repeated "But if ye judge, judge the best" three or four times. Constantine felt that "If he were gyltie, I say therefore that he dyed worst of them all",
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meaning that if Brereton had been guilty then he would surely have confessed his guilt and asked God's forgiveness, rather than risking eternal damnation by dying with sins still unconfessed. Eric Ives
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points out that Brereton's wife, Elizabeth, certainly believed her husband to be innocent. The proof of this is that, at her death in 1545, she bequeathed a bracelet of "gold and Jasyndte stone"
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to her youngest son, Thomas, describing it as "the last token his father sent me".

"Brereton farewell, as one that least I knew.
Great was thy love with divers as I hear,
But common voice doth not so sore thee rue
As other twain that doth before appear;
But yet no doubt but they friends thee lament
And other hear their piteous cry and moan.
So doth each heart for thee likewise relent
That thou givest cause thus to be dead and gone."

Thomas Wyatt

Mark Smeaton

Mark Smeaton was the final man to be executed. How awful it must have been to stand by as the four men died such violent deaths in front of him, knowing that he himself had only minutes to live. He was lucky, however. As a man of lower class he could have ended his life in a much more brutal way by being hanged, drawn and quartered. The axe was preferable.

According to George Constantine, Smeaton addressed the crowd, saying:

"Masters I pray you all praye for me, for I have deserved the deeth"
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and then he was beheaded. He did not take the opportunity to retract his confession and when Anne Boleyn heard of this she said, "Did he not exonerate me... before he died, of the public infamy he laid on me? Alas! I fear his soul will suffer for it."
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"Ah! Mark, what moan should I for thee make more,
Since that thy death thou hast deserved best,
Save only that mine eye is forced sore
With piteous plaint to moan thee with the rest?
A time thou haddest above thy poor degree,
The fall whereof thy friends may well bemoan:
A rotten twig upon so high a tree
Hath slipped thy hold, and thou art dead and gone.
And thus farewell each one in hearty wise!"

Thomas Wyatt

Burials

Because they were commoners, Sir Henry Norris, Mark Smeaton, Sir William Brereton and Sir Francis Weston were buried in the churchyard of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. George Boleyn's head and body were taken inside the Chapel, however, and interred in the chancel area before the high altar. Just two days later, his sister's head and body would be joining him.

"And thus farewell each one in hearty wise!
The axe is home, your heads be in the street;
The trickling tears doth fall so from my eyes
I scarce may write, my paper is so wet.
But what can hope when death hath played his part,
Though nature's course will thus lament and moan?
Leave sobs therefore, and every Christian heart
Pray for the souls of those be dead and gone."