The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn (17 page)

Henry’s suspicious nature probably led him to jump to conclusions about his wife,
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but the things he had been told may retrospectively have struck a chord. He would have been aware of the shifting factions within his court, and that Cromwell had good reason to fear Anne. But he also knew he had married a woman who many believed had a sullied reputation; he himself evidently became disillusioned about her for various reasons; and her last miscarriage had been a warning that God did not smile on their union. Now he was being confronted by evidence from members of his wife’s household that she had played him false. It is hardly surprising that he wanted this investigated further.

We will never know Henry’s true role in Anne’s fall.
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Traditionally, it has often been assumed that, enamored of Jane Seymour, he was desperate to get rid of Anne and seized the opportunity of doing so. This is the facile explanation that has been accepted by so many over the years, and the answer may be as simple as that. The assertion that the King, shocked at the birth of a malformed fetus and unable to accept that it could be his, “had his Master Secretary search for men, especially those with lecherous reputations, who could be charged with having committed sexual crimes with his consort,”
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falls on the simple fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that the child Anne miscarried was deformed, and can therefore be dismissed.

There is, of course, the possibility, which cannot lightly be dismissed,
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that Anne was guilty as charged, and that Cromwell had no trouble in finding evidence against her, and had indeed acted on genuine information laid before him. Had she been driven by her desperation for a son, and her fear that Henry would abandon her, to seek solace and the quickening of her womb in the arms of other men? How foolhardy that would have been, for there was every chance that either Henry, who was inordinately suspicious by nature, or one of her enemies, might have guessed what was going on. And logistically it would have been difficult for Anne to have illicit affairs. A queen was rarely alone and enjoyed little privacy. Had she indulged in a succession of amorous intrigues, there would surely have been witnesses. The lives of royalty were played out in public; kings and queens nearly always had attendants about them, even when they were in bed or on the closestool; their doors were guarded, and
servants slept on pallets inside and outside their bedchambers. The only time they were alone was when they were making love, and even conjugal visits were conducted with due ceremony, with the King going in a torchlit procession to his wife’s bedchamber, the getting of royal heirs being a matter of state business. So it is hard to see how the Queen of England could have managed to keep any extramarital affairs a secret.

It is also barely credible that Anne would have taken such risks. She was keenly aware that she was being watched—in February 1535, at a court banquet, looking strained and nervous, she had begged a French envoy to persuade the reluctant French King to consent to the marriage of his son to her daughter Elizabeth, “so that she may not be ruined and lost, for she sees herself very near to that, and in more grief and trouble than before her marriage.” Looking anxiously at the King, she whispered that “she could not speak so amply to me as she would, for fear of where she was and of the eyes that were watching her countenance, not only of her husband, but of the lords with him. She told me she did not dare express her fears in writing, that she could not see me, and could no longer talk with me. I assure you that the lady is not at her ease.” This was made manifest when she abruptly ceased speaking and walked away.
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Furthermore, Anne knew she was unpopular and that all that stood between her and her enemies was the powerful presence of the King. It is hard to believe that she would have undermined her own security by cuckolding Henry, or risked her crown and even her life for the sake of casual sex with a string of lovers. One false step and she would be ruined.

But desperate people do desperate things. The charges against Anne were so grossly overstated and in parts so manifestly invented, as to suggest that she was framed, but who is to say that they were not based on a modicum of truth? Or that Henry VIII, an intelligent and shrewd man, was not duped by the lies of Cromwell and others into abandoning and destroying his wife, but was devastated by what appeared to be highly compelling evidence against her?

The King “dissembled his wrath,” wrote Aless, but there were warning signs. On April 23, the day of Cromwell’s return to court and his interview with Henry, there took place at Greenwich the annual chapter meeting of the Order of the Garter, which was attended by the King and many lords, including the Duke of Norfolk; the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne’s father;
Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, whom she had once hoped to marry; and Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond, Henry VIII’s bastard son. A vacancy had arisen for a new Garter knight, and Anne had asked that her brother Rochford be preferred, but to the latter’s “great disappointment,” Henry chose instead Sir Nicholas Carew, Anne’s known enemy and the man who had been mentoring Jane Seymour. According to Chapuys, “the Concubine has not had sufficient influence to get it for her brother.” The ambassador interpreted this as a sign that the Boleyns were falling from favor, even though the King’s bastard son, the Duke of Richmond, had voted for Rochford,
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and it was only five days later that Henry, Lord Stafford, was thanking the Earl of Westmorland “for furthering my suit with the Queen,”
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which suggests that Anne’s influence was still perceived to be considerable. Furthermore, Henry had earlier promised Francis I that he would “remember” Carew when a Garter vacancy arose, so he perhaps felt bound to honor that.
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Nevertheless, Carew’s appointment amounted to—and was seen as—a public snub to Anne.

The very next day, April 24, at Westminster, the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley, a man who was very much under the influence of Cromwell,
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appointed two special commissions of oyer and terminer, a legal procedure for hearing and judging pleas of the Crown, in use since the thirteenth century. Each set of commissioners and jurors constituted a grand jury, and in this case were required to set up courts to make diligent inquiry into all “betrayals, concealment of betrayals, rebellions, felonies, murders, homicides, riots, unlawful assemblies, insurrections, extortions, oppressions, offenses, misprisions (of treason), falsehoods, deceptions, confederacies, conspiracies, and misdemeanors” committed in the counties of Middlesex and Kent, and to hear and determine the same according to law.
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In other words, their function was to determine if there was a case and whether it should proceed. Such commissions were rare and only instituted in serious cases, of which there were only seventeen in Henry VIII’s reign.
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That in itself, together with the specifying of the counties in which the Queen’s alleged offenses were said to have been committed, shows that this commission was specifically appointed to examine the evidence against her.

In most cases of oyer and terminer, a commission was only issued after the accused had been arrested. In this case, however, it was issued beforehand, probably to avoid the usual delay of about eleven days, which
suggests that Cromwell, fearing (with good reason, given Henry and Anne’s past history) that the King might succumb again to his “great folly” over Anne and dispute the evidence, was aware of the need to secure a speedy conviction.
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It was the duty of the sheriff of the county to select the jurors, but the list of those chosen on this occasion suggests that Cromwell had brought some pressure to bear on officialdom.
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These commissions were “virtually a death warrant for Anne.”
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The names of the worthies who served on these grand juries are preserved in the National Archives in the
Baga de Secretis
(Bag of Secrets, the collection of records of the King’s Bench and of state trial). These jurors were men of standing, sworn to uphold justice, who were no doubt resolved to do what was expected of them. To avoid bias, instructions were issued that no juror should be related to the defendants.
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The inquiry was not made public, nor were the persons most nearly concerned—the suspected traitors—made aware of it. All was to be kept secret until sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution had been gathered.
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The Middlesex commission was addressed to Lord Chancellor Audley and others, the Kent one to the Duke of Norfolk and others. Audley’s name appears only on the former, but both commissions consisted of Cromwell himself; Anne’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk; the Duke of Suffolk; Anne’s own father, Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire; John de Vere, Earl of Oxford; Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland; Robert Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex; William, Lord Sandys; Sir William FitzWilliam; Sir William Paulet; Sir John FitzJames; Sir John Baldwin; Sir Richard Lister; Sir John Port; Sir John Spelman; Sir Walter Luke; Sir Anthony FitzHerbert; Sir Thomas Englefield; and Sir William Shelley, who may have been associated with Nan Cobham. The jurors of Middlesex comprised eight esquires entitled to bear arms, and forty gentlemen, while those of Kent were three soldiers, six esquires, and sixteen gentlemen. All were described as “discreet and sufficient persons.”
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Several had been with the King at the Garter chapter the previous day.
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Given the choice of jurors, how likely was it that this investigation would be impartial? The Lord Chancellor was a staunch King’s man from first to last. Anne had long since alienated Norfolk by her arrogance, and Norfolk may have had ambitions of his own; his daughter, Mary Howard, was married to the King’s bastard son, the Duke of Richmond, and there
had been serious moves in the past to have Richmond legitimated and declared Henry’s heir. If Anne were to be put away and Elizabeth bastardized, then Norfolk’s daughter might yet be made a queen.
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Suffolk was the King’s brother-in-law and close friend, and Anne’s enemy. Oxford was also a friend of the King, as was FitzWilliam, who was much of an age with Henry, had been brought up with him, and had served him faithfully ever since; as we have seen, FitzWilliam would be instrumental in orchestrating Anne’s fall, and was related to several people who were most nearly concerned. In 1537 he would be created Earl of Southampton and made Lord High Admiral in recognition of his services to the King.

Wiltshire, Anne’s father, is not known to have attempted to defend either of his children, and was probably living in fear for his own neck at this time. Westmorland, a privy councillor who attended to matters of law, had a long record of loyal service to Henry VIII, as did Sussex, who had received his earldom for supporting the King in the divorce, and long enjoyed his master’s confidence. Lord Sandys was a great favorite of Henry. Paulet, a man much trusted by the King, was to serve the Crown faithfully through four reigns.

Of the judges on the commission, FitzJames, a former Attorney General, had been Chief Justice of the King’s Bench and Chief Baron of the Exchequer, offices now held by his fellow commissioner, Sir Richard Lister. FitzJames had conducted the prosecution of the Duke of Buckingham in 1521, and was one of the judges who condemned More and Fisher in 1535, as had Baldwin, who was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and enjoyed a similarly distinguished legal career. Port was a justice of the King’s Bench, who had served on the commission of oyer and terminer that brought More and Fisher to trial. Sir John Spelman, whose Commonplace Book offers unique insights into the legal process against Anne Boleyn, was another judge of the King’s Bench, and had also been one of the commissioners who tried More and Fisher. A discreet courtier, he was held in esteem by Cromwell, and in April 1537, in return for his service on the grand juries, he was granted the manor of Gracys in Norfolk.
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Sir Walter Luke was also a justice of the King’s Bench. FitzHerbert, Englefield, and Shelley were justices of the Court of Common Pleas, and the former had also been a member of the tribunal that condemned More. Shelley, no reformist, was not one of Cromwell’s favorites, but nevertheless
took part, on the Crown’s behalf, in all the important state trials of the period.

Of the Kent jurors, Edmund Page, the MP for Rochester, had opposed the Act of Restraint of Appeals, one of the crucial landmarks of Reformation legislation, which had been aimed at preventing Katherine of Aragon from appealing her case to Rome, so he was not likely to be sympathetic to Anne Boleyn. Nor, surely, were two Middlesex jurors, Giles Heron, Sir Thomas More’s son-in-law, and Sir Giles Alington, who had married More’s stepdaughter.
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Alington was under government suspicion because of his link to More, and his presence on the grand jury suggests that his loyalty was being tested.

No one could say that these men were not competent to examine the evidence against the Queen, for they included among their number the premier lords and chief judges of the land. Yet all had prospered under Henry VIII and enjoyed his favor, or needed to prove their loyalty, and therefore not one was likely to risk his prosperity and status by incurring his displeasure. Moreover, the jurors were no doubt in some awe of the nobles and law lords on the commission, and anxious to take their cue from them. Nearly every petty juror was a servant of the Crown, a creature of Cromwell, and no friend to Anne.
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Yet for all that, the outcome of the inquiry was by no means a foregone conclusion; had it been, and were there any truly damning evidence at this stage, it is highly unlikely that the King would have appeared in public with Anne at the Greenwich jousts on May 1. And there is no evidence that the jurors had any knowledge of the King’s will in this matter, or that they were suborned into submission.