Victorian historian Agnes Strickland records another speech by Anne Boleyn at court that day, recorded by Crispin, Lord of Milherve:-
"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 mine extremity, when I have maintained it all my life long, 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."
Similarities can be seen between this speech and the words recorded by Lancelot de Carles and this is because, as historian John Guy has pointed out, Crispin de Milherve is actually a 'phantom' and his poem was written by Lancelot de Carles.16
Anne Boleyn was then escorted out of the court by her gaoler, Sir William Kingston, with the axe turned against her to show that she had been sentenced to death. It was now her brother's turn to face the hostile panel.
The Trial of George Boleyn
While Anne Boleyn was taken back to her lodgings in the Tower of London, her brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, was taken to the King's Hall to stand before the same jury. George's trial is mentioned briefly in Letters and Papers:
"The same day, lord Rocheford is brought before the High Steward in the custody of Sir Will. Kingston, and pleads not guilty. The peers are charged, with the exception of the earl of Northumberland, who was suddenly taken ill, and each of them severally saith that he is guilty.
Judgment: - To be taken to prison in the Tower, and then drawn through the city of London, to the gallows at Tyburn, &c., as usual in high treason."17
All witnesses agree that George put up a good fight in the court room that day. In his Chronicle, Charles Wriothesley recorded that after George pleaded not guilty, "he made answer so prudently and wisely to all articles laid against him, that marvel it was to hear, but never would confess anything, but made himself as clear as though he had never offended"18 and Lancelot de Carles commented on George's good defence and his eloquence, which de Carles likened to that of Sir Thomas More.19
But George wasn't just prudent, he was also rather spirited, as my friend Clare Cherry says in her research into George Boleyn's life:
"Ironically, during life it was Anne who was the more tempestuous and reckless of the two siblings. Yet she faced her accusers with the quiet and restrained dignity of a true Queen. It was her brother who approached the trial with all guns blazing."20
When the only evidence for George committing incest with Anne was that "he had been once found a long time with her", George "replied so well that several of those present wagered 10 to 1 that he would be acquitted, especially as no witnesses were produced against either him or her".21 And when he was handed a note regarding the King's impotence, George recklessly read it aloud even though he had been commanded not to. Chapuys recorded this incident in a letter to Charles V:
"I must not omit, that among other things charged against him as a crime was, that his sister had told his wife that the King "nestoit habile en cas de soy copuler avec femme, et quil navoit ne vertu ne puissance." This he was not openly charged with, but it was shown him in writing, with a warning not to repeat it. But he immediately declared the matter, in great contempt of Cromwell and some others, saying he would not in this point arouse any suspicion which might prejudice the King's issue. He was also charged with having spread reports which called in question whether his sister's daughter was the King's child."22
Not only had George joked or gossiped about the King's sexual problems, his lack of sexual prowess, he had also joked about Elizabeth not being the King's daughter. This meant that he had unwittingly committed treason because this kind of talk impugned the King's issue. What was worse was that George had disobeyed instructions and read out this note in court, embarrassing the King and not endearing himself to the jury.
George Wyatt, Thomas Wyatt's grandson, wrote a few years later that "the young nobleman the Lord Rochford, by the common opinion of men of best understanding in those days, was counted and then openly spoken, condemned only upon some point of a statute of words then in force".23 Even "the judges at first were of different opinions".24 However, they were able to give an unanimous decision in the end. No witnesses and an eloquent defence, but George was still found guilty by a jury of his peers. His uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, then sentenced George to a traitor's death:
"that he should goe agayne to prison in the Tower from whence he came, and to be drawne from the saide Tower of London thorowe the Cittie of London to the place of execution called Tyburne, and there to be hanged, beinge alyve cutt downe, and then his members cutt of and his bowells taken owt of his bodie and brent[burnt] before him, and then his head cutt of and his bodie to be divided into quarter peeces, and his head and bodie to be sett at suche places as the King should assigne."25
Chapuys records George's reaction to his sentence:
"Her brother, after his condemnation, said that since he must die, he would no longer maintain his innocence, but confessed that he had deserved death. He only begged the King that his debts, which he recounted, might be paid out of his goods."26
Some might read Chapuys' words and conclude that George Boleyn thought it was not worth maintaining the pretence any more and so confessed to committing incest with his sister, but I do not agree. I think that George was simply admitting to being a sinner, a sinner who deserved judgement from God. People who were convicted of a crime, even if they were innocent, "did not doubt that they deserved to die"27 and that it was a punishment from God for their sinful life. There was a strong belief in original sin.
George Boleyn was then taken back to his prison in the Tower to prepare himself for death.
16th May 1536 – Archbishop Cranmer Visits Anne Boleyn
In a letter to Thomas Cromwell, on 16th May, Sir William Kingston wrote of how he had seen the King that day regarding "the petitions of my Lord of Rochford", which must have been about the debts that George Boleyn was worrying about during his imprisonment, things that were "touching his conscience." Kingston wrote that the King had told him that the men were going to be executed the next day but that Kingston needed to know from Cromwell "the preparation for the scaffolds and other necessaries concerning".1
Kingston also reported that the King had finally agreed to Anne Boleyn's request to have a confessor. In addition, he states that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the man who had once Anne Boleyn's family chaplain and a man she had helped rise to prominence at the English court, had visited her that day. Cranmer may have been chosen as the Queen's confessor, but that was not the real reason for his visit.
Archbishop Cranmer was actually visiting Anne Boleyn to get her to confess to an impediment to her marriage. He wanted obtain her consent to dissolve the marriage and to disinherit and bastardise her daughter Elizabeth. In the same letter to Cromwell, Kingston reported that "Yet this day at dinner the Queen said she would go to "anonre" [a nunnery], and is in hope of life",2 which suggests that Anne was offered a deal by Cranmer – say yes to an annulment and you can go to a nunnery. Of
course, even though she did comply she was not sent to a nunnery. Perhaps the more merciful death by a sword, rather than by axe, was her reward. What we don't know is whether Cranmer was, himself, being misled by Cromwell and the King, or whether he was lying to Anne.
While Cranmer was visiting Anne in the Tower, Henry VIII's new flame, Jane Seymour, was receiving guests at her lodgings in Chelsea – courtiers who were there to curry favour with the woman who was sure to be their new queen. As for the King, he was signing death warrants, one of them his wife's.
George Boleyn, Sir Francis Weston, Sir Henry Norris, Sir William Brereton and Mark Smeaton prepared for their deaths by confessing their sins to Dr Allryge (or Alridge), the chaplain sent to them.3 Sir Francis Weston wrote out a list of his debts, which can be found in Letters and Papers,4 and then wrote a farewell letter to his parents, which was to be included with the list of creditors:
"Father and mother and wife, I shall humbly desire you, for the salvation of my soul, to discharge me of this bill, and for to forgive me of all the offences that I have done to you, and in especial to my wife, which I desire for the love of God to forgive me, and to pray for me: for I believe prayer will do me good. God's blessing have my children and mine.
By me, a great offender to God."
As Alison Weir points out,5 Weston is not confessing to his alleged crimes; he is simply asking his family's forgiveness for the sins he had committed during his lifetime. As I said earlier, Tudor people believed very strongly in the concept of original sin and their sinful natures.
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"1 and then reiterating it in a second letter:"You must help my lord of Rochford's conscience".2 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."3
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."4
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."5
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",6 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".7 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 Chronicle8 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.9
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."10
The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown Page 15