The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn (73 page)

In the contemporary Imperialist eyewitness account of the executions in the Vienna Archives (printed in Thomas), there is a very similar version of this speech, which was described by the writer as “a very Catholic address to the people,” in which Rochford said “he had not come hither to preach but to serve as a mirror and example, acknowledging the crimes he had committed against God and against the King his sovereign; there was no occasion for him, he said, to repeat the cause for which he was condemned; they would have little pleasure in hearing him tell it. He prayed God, and he prayed the King, to pardon his offenses; and all others whom he might have injured, he also prayed them to forgive him as heartily as he forgave everyone. He bade his hearers avoid the vanities of the world and the flatteries of the court, which had brought him to the shameful end that had overtaken him. Had he obeyed the lessons of that Gospel which he had so often read, he said he should not have fallen so far; it was worth more to be a good doer than a good reader. Finally, he forgave those who had adjudged him to die, and he desired them [the people] to pray for his soul.”

The Portuguese account, written on June 10, has Rochford saying: “From my mishap, ye may learn not to set your thoughts upon the vanities of this world, and least of all upon the flatteries of the court and the favors and treacheries of Fortune, which only raiseth men aloft that, with so much the greater force, she may dash them again upon the ground.”
Excerpta Historica (LP
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In another version of his speech, Rochford declared: “I was a great reader and a mighty debater of the Word of God, and one of those who most favored the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Wherefore, lest the Word of God should be brought into reproach on my account, I now tell you all, sirs, that if I had in very deed kept His holy word, even as I read and reasoned about it with all the strength of my wit, certain am I that I should not be in the piteous condition wherein I now stand. Truly and diligently did I read the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but I turned not to profit that which I did read; the which, had I done, of a surety I had not fallen into so great errors. Wherefore I do beseech you all, for the love of our Lord God, that ye do at all seasons hold by the truth, and speak it and embrace it; for beyond all peradventure, better profiteth he who readeth not and yet doeth well, than he who readeth much and yet liveth in sin.”
(LP)

According to the author of the “Spanish Chronicle,” Rochford said, “I beg you 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 on my soul.” This version was almost certainly fabricated.

George Constantine, far more concise, wrote that Rochford, after exhorting his companions to “die courageously” and the crowd to “live
according to the Gospel, not in preaching, but in practice,” said “words to the effect that he had rather had a good liver according to the Gospel than ten babblers.” He added, “I desire you that no man will be discouraged from the Gospel by my fall. For if I had lived according to the Gospel, as I loved it and spake of it, I had never come to this. As for mine offenses, I cannot prevail you to hear them that I die here for, but I beseech God that I may be an example to you all.”

Chapuys, who, perhaps deliberately, misinterpreted Rochford’s statements about religion, reported that he “disclaimed all that he was charged with, confessing, however, that he had deserved death for having been so much contaminated, and having contaminated others, with these new sects, and he prayed everyone to abandon such heresies.”
(LP)
Chapuys later informed Dr. Ortiz that Rochford (whom Ortiz, in his report of June 11, confused with Norris, “the principal gentleman of the King’s Chamber”) “said a great deal about the justice of his death, and that a favored servant ought not to flatter his prince and consent to his desires, as he had done.”
(LP)
It cannot have been Norris who uttered these words because according to the eyewitness accounts, he did not have “a great deal” to say on the scaffold.