The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of Your Grace’s displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen, whom, as I understand, are likewise in strait imprisonment for my sake.

  If ever I have found favour in your sight—if ever the name of Anne Boleyn have been pleasing in your ears—then let me obtain this request; and so I will leave to trouble Your Grace no further; with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have Your Grace in His good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions.

  From my doleful prison in the Tower, the 6th of May.

  Anne Boleyn.

  If ever the name of Anne Boleyn have been pleasing in your ears. Yes, once it had been. Once I had been so bewitched. But no more, no more!

  I walked my corridors. I kept sleepless nights. I prayed for guidance. But it was all a waking nightmare. Day and night blended together in a way that has never occurred since, even in the grip of illness. Outside it was clear and pure, and lily-of-the-valley was in bloom, green and white. Along the south bank of the Thames the grass was thick and wildflowers were open. Inside the palace it was seasonless, detached from all other concerns. The palace made its own seasons.

  WILL:

  The “crimes”—that is, the bodily crimes—were allegedly committed in the counties of Middlesex and Kent, and indictments must be returned from there. Grand juries sat, deliberated, and returned recommendations during those ugly May days. The evidence was so overwhelming that the five men must stand trial.

  The commoners—Smeaton, Brereton, Weston, and Norris—were to be tried on May twelfth, at Westminster Hall, that all-purpose condemnation and celebration chamber. They were dragged out of the Tower and marched through the streets of London to the salivating curiosity of the local citizens. The jury was made up of “the King’s commissioners,” including Thomas Boleyn himself.

  At the Hall, they were faced with an axe with its edge turned temporarily away, and charges were entered against them of having conspired the death of the King, having had carnal knowledge of the Queen, having committed treason against the heirs of the King and Queen and against the King’s peace.

  Smeaton admitted the second charge, of having “known and violated” the Queen. All the other charges were denied by all of them. But they were all found guilty, and the cutting edge of the axe was turned toward them. They were marched back toward the Tower in silence.

  Their date of execution was fixed for May seventeenth—five days after their trial. They were to be shut away and ignored until that day.

  The King was troubled that only Smeaton had confessed. He would have preferred that they all had broken under the questioning and admitted their guilt. Not that there was any question in his own mind of their guilt. “I am convinced that these are but a token, that over one hundred men have had intercourse with her,” he said.

  Three days after the courtiers’ trial, the Boleyns were tried—separately—in the King’s Hall, within the precincts of the Tower. Twenty-six peers of the realm were to sit in judgment. The Duke of Norfolk served as the King’s representative, High Steward, under a canopy of estate. On one side was the Duke of Suffolk, and on the other Audley, the Lord Chancellor. Amongst the peers was Henry Percy, now Earl of Northumberland.

  More than two thousand observers were crowded into the Hall—the Mayor and aldermen of London, members of the principal craft guilds; the courtiers, ambassadors, merchants, and commoners; and myself. I could not help thinking how very public Anne’s end was to be, compared to her secret wedding. The King did not care if every commoner heard the nasty details of his cuckolding; indeed, in some strange way, he invited them to come and drink at the well of his shame.

  Anne swept into the Hall with arrogance and grace, as if she were presiding over these people, not being called to answer to them. She was, once again, the person who had bewitched the King. Clearly she meant to perform her magic as she had done before.

  The Duke read out the indictments found by the juries of Kent and Middlesex:

  Whereas Lady Anne has been Queen of England, wife of our Lord Henry VIII . . . for more than three years . . . she not only despising the most excellent and noble marriage solemnised between the said Lord our King and the lady Queen herself, but also bearing malice in her heart toward the said Lord our King, led astray by devilish instigation, not having God before her eyes and following daily her fickle and carnal appetite and wishing that several familiar and daily servants of our Lord the King should become her adulterers and concubines . . . contrary to the duty of their allegiance . . . she most falsely and treacherously procured them by foul talk and kisses, touchings, gifts and various other unspeakable instigations and incitements . . . in accordance as her most damnable propensity to crime drove her on: that, moreover, for the perpetration of that most wicked and treacherous crime of adultery by the Queen certain servants of the said lord King, through the most vile provocation and incitement day after day by the said Queen, were given over and attached to the said Queen in treacherous fashion, and that from here and from other sources this is the account, as here follows of the treacherous deeds and words.

  The list of actual acts and adulteries began:

  On 6 October 1533 at the palace of Westminster . . . and on various other days, before and after, by sweet words, kissings, touchings and other illicit means, she did procure and incite Henry Norris, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber of Our Lord the King, to violate and carnally know her, by reason whereof the same Henry Norris on October 12 violated, stained, and carnally knew her.

  As for her own brother George, Lord Rochford, on November 2:

  . . . with the Queen’s tongue in the mouth of the said George and George’s tongue in the mouth of the Queen, with kisses with open mouth, with gifts and jewels, by reason whereof Lord George Rochford, despising all the Almighty God’s precepts, and by every law of human nature, on November 5 violated and carnally knew his own natural sister.

  The rest of the list (filled in with lascivious details) was:

  —On Nov. 19, 1533, at Westminster, with Henry Norris.

  —On Nov. 27, 1533, at Westminster, with William Brereton.

  —On Dec. 8, 1533, at Hampton Court, with William Brereton.

  —On May 19, 1534, at Greenwich, with Mark Smeaton.

  —On May 20, 1534, at Greenwich, with Francis Weston.

  —On June 20, 1534, at Greenwich, with Francis Weston.

  —On April 26, 1535, at Westminster, with Mark Smeaton.

  —On Dec. 29, 1535, at Eltham, with George Boleyn.

  In addition to her “foul and insatiable lust,” she had conspired with her paramours against Henry’s life. She had told them “she had never wished to choose the King in her heart” and had “promised to marry one of them when the King died.” To keep them her love-slaves, she had played one off against the other, giving them outrageous gifts.

  Cromwell and his Attorney-General, Sir Christopher Hales, introduced two other charges: that she had poisoned the Princess Dowager and attempted to do the same to the Lady Mary; and had injured the King’s health maliciously—for when the King became aware of her evil, he “had conceived in his heart such inward displeasure and sadness . . . that certain grave injuries and perils had befallen his royal body.” This certainly was true, as I knew, regardless of how others snickered at it.

  She had mocked the King behind his back, her accusers said, made fun of his poetry, his music, his clothes, and his person. She had also written her brother George concerning her pregnancy, indicating that the child was in fact his.

  Anne rose to defend herself. Standing as proudly as ever I had seen her, she tossed her head and spoke in a loud, ringing voice that carried to the farthest reaches of the stone chamber.

  Significantly, she did not answer the latter charges. She addressed only the adultery ones, claiming that she was innocent, although she had given Francis Weston money, and had asked Mark Smeaton to her chambers to play the vi
rginal. She spoke with eloquence and wit, and with unearthly charm.

  But it did her no good. When the verdict was called, the majority of peers pronounced her guilty. Then her dread uncle Norfolk rose to pronounce sentence:

  “Guilty of high treason, adultery, and incest. Thou hast deserved death, and thy judgement is this: That thou shalt be burnt here within the Tower of London on the green, else to have thy head smitten off as the King’s pleasure shall be further known.”

  A great silence, then a movement from the peers. Henry Percy has collapsed. He must be carried, lying limply on his attendant’s shoulder, from the Hall. Anne watches him, and something in her face changes, withers.

  She speaks now, but without fire.

  “O God, Thou knowest if I have merited this death.” She pauses. “My Lords, I will not say your sentence is unjust, nor presume that my reasons can prevail against your convictions. I am willing to believe that you have sufficient reasons for what you have done, but then they must be other than those which have been produced in court, for I am clear of all the offences which you then laid to my charge. I have ever been a faithful wife to the King, though I do not say I have always shown him that humility which his goodness to me and the honour to which he raised me merited.

  “I confess I have had jealous fancies and suspicions of him which I had not discretion and wisdom enough to conceal at all times. But God knows, and is my witness, that I never sinned against him in any other way.

  “Think not I say this in the hope to prolong my life. God hath taught me how to die and He will strengthen my faith.

  “Think not that I am so bewildered in my mind as not to lay the honour of my chastity to heart now in my extremity, when I have maintained it all my life long, as much as ever Queen did. I know these my last words will avail me nothing, but for the justification of my chastity and honour.

  “As for my brother and those others who are unjustly condemned, I would willingly suffer many deaths to deliver them; but since I see it so pleases the King, I shall willingly accompany them in death, with this assurance, that I shall lead an endless life with them in peace.

  “I beg you, good people, pray for me.”

  She rises wearily, and Kingston leads her out of the Hall and back to her imprisonment.

  Her uncle is crying openly. Moments pass until he has himself under control and can confront the last accused prisoner, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford.

  The charges are read. They consist of the incest and adultery with his sister, the Queen. He denies it. Of plotting the King’s death. He denies it. Of implying that he is the father of the Princess Elizabeth.

  At this he smirks and keeps silent, raising one eyebrow mockingly.

  A last charge, written on paper, is presented to the peers, then shown to Lord Rochford; it is forbidden to speak the charges aloud before the people. The information has been supplied by Rochford’s own wife, Jane.

  “Ah, yes,” George Boleyn says loudly, and reads the paper word for word. ‘My sister Queen Anne has told me that the King is impotent. He no longer has either vigour or virtue in his private parts.’ ” He laughs, jarringly. Cromwell protests, scolding like an angry jaybird. Boleyn smiles, saying, “But I will not create suspicion in a manner likely to prejudice the issue the King might have from a second marriage.”

  In one sentence, the King is now the accused. The next marriage has been mentioned, the unspoken thing the people are wondering about. Is it true the King has already chosen a successor? Could it be that all this is arranged merely to facilitate a new marriage?

  But Cromwell has a higher trump: yet another statement by Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford. She swears that there is an incestuous relationship between her husband and his sister the Queen. The “accursed secret,” known heretofore only to herself, she must in conscience reveal.

  Now the accuser is discredited by his own wife, shown for the foul thing he is.

  The twenty-six peers pronounce him guilty, and the Duke reads the sentence:

  “You shall now go again to the Tower from whence you came, and he drawn from the said Tower of London through the City of London, there to be hanged and then, being alive, cut down—and then your members cut off and your bowels taken out of your body and burnt before you, and then your head cut off and your body divided into four pieces, and your head and body to be set at such places as the King shall assign.”

  A cruel hush descended on London after the trials, a breath-holding until the executions. Those who passed by the Tower could hear hammering, and knew the scaffolds were being reassembled, dragged out of storage where they had lain since More’s execution last summer.

  It was said that the King passed these spring nights on his barge, courting Jane, and that the sound of music and the glow of lanterns carried across the water. They said he was rowed back and forth under the shadow of the Tower. They said a great deal of nonsense, but it made a striking story and painted a picture of the King as a satyr. The truth is that he went out on his barge only once, and not to “the shadow of the Tower,” but to visit Jane at Nicholas Carew’s house on the Thames.

  LXXIV

  HENRY VIII:

  It was over, then. The trial was over and the Witch had not escaped her just sentence. Crum reported it all to me—even, sadly, the personal attacks on me. I was not affected by that; my only fear was that somehow, even yet, Anne would manage to escape.

  To be burnt or beheaded at the King’s pleasure—I remembered her horror of fire. Would it not be revenge for my “pleasure” to inflict that on her? For her to meet her death, bound and screaming, for her flesh to be roasted, her blood boiled in her veins? I could smell the charred flesh, the stench of her hair aflame. . . .

  But I could not. I could not do that, knowing that she was bound for hell as soon as her soul quitted her body—where there would be fire aplenty, the everlasting fire that burns but does not consume. I would not imitate or mock the Devil in providing an earthly substitute. Let Anne quit this earth without bodily pain.

  But there was one thing I would have of her, one thing that only she could give: information, a confession that our marriage had been false all along. I would send Cranmer to her, to receive her confession, holding out the promise to spare her the flames if she only admitted it, admitted that she had brought this marriage about by witchcraft, and now abjured it. For I would be freed of her before her death. She would not breathe her last as my wife. I would not be linked to her!

  “Go to her,” I commissioned Cranmer, “to her suite in the Tower, and extract an oath from her regarding this matter.” I noted the questioning look on his face. “Yes, she still keeps state, under my express command. She has her royal quarters, her jewels and gowns.” I remembered More in his bookless cell. “They were what she sold her soul for, were they not? Let her enjoy them to the end.”

  She would keep everything to the end (except her title as my wife), and suddenly I envisioned the fitting way for her to depart this life. I would send for a French swordsman, and he would perform the execution deftly and with style. She had always loved the “French way”; doubtless a good English axe would be too crude for her sensibilities. I wrote out the order for the Lieutenant of Calais. What a surprise I was giving her, right up to the last. . . .

  I began to laugh—first a little, then hysterically.

  WILL:

  We heard the screams of laughter coming from the King’s private chamber, but dared not enter. It sounded as if a madman were within, and we feared that somehow an intruder had gained entrance. The laughter was not recognizable as the King’s; that was the reason why at length a guard opened the door and checked inside.

  There was no one there but King Henry, seated before his writing desk, and red in the face, looking apoplectic.

  I approached him—I was the only one who dared—and stood ready to summon the physician. He had suffered a seizure, I was sure.

  “Now, good my Lord, help is coming,” I said, in what I meant to be my most
reassuring tone.

  “Help?” he said, in a quiet voice. The red was draining from his face. “Nay, there’s no help for it. ’Tis done, ’tis done.” He indicated a letter, ready to be sent. “A pretty French death,” he said. “One’s death should be consistent with one’s life, should it not? Only we seldom can arrange it. Well, I shall oblige.”

  Had the strain, the grief, quite overwhelmed his mind? “Yes, Your Grace,” I said, gently. “Lord Privy Seal will see to these dispatches. Come now. You have overworked yourself.”

  He started to rise, then shook his head. “One thing more. I must give them an easy death as well. Commute the sentence to a simple beheading. There, that’ll do.” He began scribbling orders on parchment. “But they must content themselves with a local headsman and a regular axe.”

  On the morning of May seventeenth, with Anne watching from her window, her five lovers and co-conspirators were marched out to the hill beyond the Tower moat, there to mount the scaffold. It was a fine high one, so that all the onlookers (and the crowd was vast) could have a clear view.

  Sir William Brereton was the first to stand upon the platform. He whined like a coward and shook bodily.

  “I have deserved to die, if it were a thousand deaths,” he cried. Then, at the motioning of the headsman to lay his head upon the block, he protested, “But the cause whereof I judge not—but if you judge, judge the best.” Seeking further delay, he repeated himself three or four more times.

  But at length his voice failed, and he was forced to put his head down. The headsman raised his great axe and chopped clean through Brereton’s neck. The head rolled in the straw, and the headsman held it up, as was customary.