Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

  Anne suspected that something was going on, and on 26 April she charged her chaplain, Matthew Parker, with the care of her daughter Elizabeth if anything happened to her. What she feared she did not say, but her plea made a profound impression upon Parker, and years later, when Elizabeth was queen, he would say he owed her allegiance, not only as her Archbishop of Canterbury, but also because 'he cannot forget what words her Grace's mother said to him not six days before her apprehension'.

  Ostensibly, life went on as normal. The King was planning to go with Anne to Calais on 4 May. But before 29 April, the Privy Council had already been informed of the proceedings against the Queen, and there were rumours at court of her imminent disgrace. The Bishop of London, when asked outright if Henry meant to abandon Anne, would say nothing, but his silence was eloquent.

  Cromwell's net now closed in around his victims. For some time he had been busy collating the gossip brought to him by his agents, and secretly interviewing the women in the Queen's household. One spy had heard one of the Queen's maids say that Anne 'admitted some of her court to come into her chamber at undue hours', and named Lord Rochford, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton and Anne's musician Mark Smeaton in this connection. One young woman, reprimanded by the Countess of Worcester for flirting, retorted that she was 'no worse than the Queen'. On the basis of such evidence as this Mr Secretary constructed a case. Anne was to be charged with adultery with the five men named, and also with conspiracy to murder the King. The charge of incest with her brother, which was the result of evidence maliciously laid by Lady Rochford, who was jealous of the close bond between Anne and George Boleyn, had been included to make the Queen's crimes seem all the more abominable.

  We should pause here to consider Anne's so-called accomplices and ask the question: what were these men to her? Sir Henry Norris was a prominent courtier who had long enjoyed the King's favour, holding the office of Groom of the Stole, which required his attendance when Henry performed his natural functions; Norris was also Chamberlain of North Wales, a position he would not have held had he not enjoyed the King's confidence and trust. William Brereton is more obscure, but he too was a gentleman of the King's privy chamber, and may have been a witness at Anne Boleyn's wedding. Sir Francis Weston was twenty-five, and came from an honourable family whose seat was at Sutton Place in Surrey. Like Brereton, he was a gentleman of the privy chamber, and in 1533 had been one of those admitted to the Order of the Bath at Anne Boleyn's coronation. He was friendly with Henry, Anne and Rochford, played tennis with the King, and cards with Anne and Henry. He was married with a baby son.

  The most remarkable inclusion in the list of Anne's supposed lovers was the musician, Mark Smeaton, whose name excited the most comment when the charges were made public. Anne's contemporaries wondered how she could ever have stooped so low. Hence we may conclude that Smeaton was not of gentle birth and had risen so far only on account of his musical talent. Of all the men accused, he would be the only one to admit his guilt, almost certainly under duress: it is possible, but not provable, that he suffered torture. Catholic writers would later make much of Anne's supposed intrigue with Smeaton, and Mary Tudor herself believed that the musician was Elizabeth's real father.

  Anne certainly knew all these men except Smeaton well. Yet before April 1536, there is nothing in the records to suggest that her relations with them were anything other than circumspect. She knew her movements were watched, and she was no fool: it is inconceivable that she would have risked her crown and her life for the sake of casual sex with any man who took her fancy. The argument that she was so desperate to conceive a male heir, that she would go to any lengths to become pregnant - the implication being that the King was incapable of siring healthy children - fails when set against the fact that Anne conceived by him four times during their marriage without any difficulty, and that he expressed no doubt at any time that these children were his. As for plotting his death, Anne was well aware that, with Henry dead, her enemies would be out for her blood, and that at the very least she would suffer imprisonment or exile with her child disinherited.

  Cromwell, however, felt that he had prepared a watertight case, and on 29 April he laid all the charges, with the accumulated evidence, before the King. As Henry read, he grew livid with fury as if in fact he believed that Anne's betrayal was genuine. The evidence was enough to arouse jealous anger in any man, but Henry was also King of England and Supreme Head of the Church. He was about to be publicly proclaimed a cuckold - and it was all Anne's fault. He had suspected something of this nature, he said, and now here was proof of it, enough to convince him that he had been right all along to order an investigation. When he calmed down, he gave orders for the arrest of all those named in the charges, including Queen Anne.

  Nothing is known of Jane Seymour's involvement in the plot against the Queen. She had been active for months in nurturing Henry's antagonism towards Anne, and she must have known that Henry intended to get rid of his wife before she retired from the political arena. Henry had made it clear he wanted to marry her, and she must have accepted as a necessary preliminary the removal of her rival. Yet even when it became clear that this would not be by divorce or annulment, she did not flinch. All too often Jane Seymour has been seen merely as a willing tool, yet it is clear that she was in fact quite as ambitious and ruthless as her predecessor. She was perceptive, and knew when to speak her mind, a mature woman who knew what she wanted and pursued it with steely singlemindedness. For her former mistress she had no pity whatsoever, and the most charitable thing that can be said about Jane Seymour in this context is that, given that she was ignorant of what the charges for the proceedings against Anne would be, she accepted them as justified when they were laid. Whether it occurred to her that such charges were a little too conveniently timed is another matter.

  On Sunday, 30 April, the King - still smarting with anger and humiliation - spent several hours closeted with Cromwell and the Council. The Queen walked her dogs in Greenwich Park, and when she returned to the Palace in the afternoon, she saw crowds gathered outside: word had spread that the Council was meeting that evening to discuss a matter of the utmost urgency, and people had flocked to Greenwich to await news. This alarmed Anne and, sure that the matter about to be debated concerned herself and that it boded ill for her, she gathered up her daughter in her arms for maximum emotional impact and went to find her husband. Alexander Aless, a Protestant divine from Scotland, witnessed their confrontation through a window of the palace, and in 1559 recorded his memories of it in a letter to Elizabeth I:

  Alas, I shall never forget the sorrow I felt when I saw the sainted Queen, your most religious mother, carrying you, still a little baby, in her arms, and entreating the most serene King your father in Greenwich Palace, from the open window of which he was looking into the courtyard when she brought you to him. The faces and gestures of the speakers plainly showed the King was angry, though he concealed his anger wonderfully well.

  Aless, unfortunately, was out of earshot of the conversation, so we do not know what was said between Henry and Anne; what is certain is that it resolved nothing. And when the Council meeting broke up that evening at eleven o'clock, it was announced that the King would not be going to Calais. No reason was given.

  Cromwell was still gathering evidence against his victims. He found out that Smeaton, who only earned 100 per annum, had just spent a great deal of money on horses and liveries for his servants, and that people were wondering where he got the money, the implication being that the Queen had given it to him in return for services rendered. But Smeaton never had the opportunity to flaunt his horses and liveries, for on 30 April he was arrested and taken to Cromwell's house at Stepney for questioning.

  One of the best sources for this crucial period is the account of George Constantine, the personal servant of Sir Henry Norris who would share his imprisonment in the Tower. Constantine tells us that Smeaton confessed his guilt, but only, it was thought, after he had
been 'grievously racked'. There was no rack at Cromwell's house, but there was one at the Tower, even though torture was illegal. It is likely that Smeaton was racked on arrival at the Tower later that day or the next, and that this provoked his confession. The tale that he was tortured with a knotted cord round his eyes comes from the Spanish Chronicle, which is notoriously inaccurate, written as it was by a Spanish merchant living in London who relied heavily on gossip. His account probably reflects the kind of rumours that would shortly be circulating in the capital rather than what actually happened.

  Anne had not noticed Smeaton's absence, and on May Day she took her seat with the King in the stands to watch a great tournament at Greenwich. Two of the contestants were Rochford and Norris, both named in the charges as the Queen's lovers. According to one late and hostile Catholic source, the account of the Jesuit Nicholas Sanders in his book on the origins of the English Reformation, Anne dropped a handkerchief to Norris to wear as a favour, which seemed to confirm the King's suspicions, but this incident is nowhere related in contemporary sources. Henry was in a thunderous mood, and hardly acknowledged Anne's presence; suddenly, without saying anything, he got up and left, leaving her to preside alone over the event, doubtless bewildered and afraid. She could not know it, but she would never see Henry again.

  When the jousting ended, the King gave orders for Henry Norris to be arrested; he then departed for Whitehall, with Norris riding beside him so that Henry could question him. Norris was promised a full pardon if he would tell the truth. He had been horrified to learn he was accused of criminal intercourse with the Queen, and vowed to Henry that he would rather die a thousand deaths than be guilty of confessing to a crime he had not committed. Henry was not impressed, and Norris was sent to the Tower the following morning. The King, hearing that he had again protested his innocence to his chaplain, cried, 'Hang him up then!' On that same day, 2 May, Lord Rochford was arrested and also taken to the Tower. This took place so discreetly that few people were aware of it, and certainly not the Queen. When the blow fell, therefore, it took her almost completely by surprise.

  On the morning of the 2nd she was watching a game of tennis, vexed with herself for not having laid a bet since her champion was winning, when a messenger arrived with a summons to present herself before the Privy Council. When she arrived in the council chamber, she was confronted by her uncle, Norfolk, Sir William FitzWilliam and Sir William Paulet, all grim-faced. They formally charged her, without preamble, with having committed adultery with Norris, Smeaton and one other, who was not named, and told her that both the men cited had already confessed their guilt, which was not true in the case of Norris. A stunned Anne failed to reply to the charges, and was escorted back to her apartments, there to remain under guard while the Council decided what was to be done with her. Anne did not panic at this stage: queens in the past had been found guilty of adultery, and none had suffered worse than honourable confinement. Besides, she was innocent of the charges. What did concern her was that blameless men were suffering on her account: for herself, she feared nothing worse than divorce, imprisonment or exile, but these men might face death.

  Anne was still at dinner when, at two o'clock that afternoon, the door opened to admit Norfolk, Cromwell and Lord Chancellor Audley, accompanied by several lords of the Council. They all bowed. Norfolk held a scroll of parchment in his hand, the warrant for the Queen's arrest. Anne rose and asked why they had come. Her uncle replied that they came by the King's command to conduct her to the Tower, 'there to abide during his Highness's pleasure'. She answered steadily: 'If it be his Majesty's pleasure, I am ready to obey.' There was no time to change her clothes or pack anything money would be provided for her needs while in the Tower, she was told. She committed herself to the custody of the Privy Council, and was conducted to her barge.

  The conveyance of state prisoners to the Tower of London usually took place under cover of darkness, but Anne was taken in broad daylight. It was a nightmare journey. Norfolk took great pleasure in telling her with a good deal of virtuous tut-tutting that her paramours had confessed their guilt. Anne did not respond, but when, at five o'clock, the barge was rowed through the Court Gate not the Traitors' Gate, as has traditionally been asserted - she was almost at breaking-point, and as she entered the grim fortress, her self-control gave way. At the top of the steps waited the Constable of the Tower, Sir William Kingston, and its Lieutenant, Sir Edmund Walsingham. Kingston would have charge of Anne during her sojourn; he was in his sixties, and knew her well, having often been at the court. He was not an unkind man, but he was somewhat hardened by the duties of his office, and made a pointofdistancing himself from the prisoners in his care. Towards Anne, he would behave with unfailing courtesy and humanity, becoming, despite his belief in her guilt, secretly impressed by her courage. He had received instructions from Cromwell that everything she said was to be recorded, in the hope that she would incriminate herself, and his reports are preserved in the Cotton MSS. in the Cottonian Library in the British Library, and are a valuable source of information about Anne's stay in the Tower.

  When the Queen, in a state of near collapse, had been assisted from her barge and up the steps, she sank to her knees on the cobblestones, praying God to help her as she 'was not guilty of her accusement'. She begged the Privy Councillors, before they departed, to 'beseech the King's Grace to be good unto her'. Then she cried, 'Mr Kingston, do I go into a dungeon?' 'No, Madam,' he replied, 'you shall go into the lodging you lay in at your coronation.' 'It is too good for me!' sobbed Anne. 'Jesu, have mercy on me!' And she sank to her knees again, 'weeping a great pace, and in the same sorrow fell into a great laughing', behaviour she would exhibit many times during the early days of her imprisonment. Kingston helped her up once more, but she was distraught, repeating again and again, 'I am the King's true wedded wife! Oh, my mother, my mother!' Then, calming down, she declared: 'My God, bear witness there is no truth in these charges. I am as clear from the company of man as from sin.' She asked Kingston if she might have the Holy Sacrament placed in her bedchamber, 'that I may pray for mercy'. Already, she was beginning to suspect the worst.

  Kingston now led her away. 'I was received with greater ceremony the last time I entered here,' she remarked. The royal apartments were on the east side of the inner ward between the Lanthorn Tower, the White Tower, and the Wardrobe Tower. Very little is known about them. The Tower had been a royal palace since Norman times, but by the reign of Henry VIII it was considered old- fashioned and uncomfortable. Cromwell put in hand renovations in the early 1530s for Anne Boleyn's coronation, and the works carried out then are shown on a plan of the Tower dated 1597, by which time the old great hall would be crumbling. The royal apartments did not long survive it, which suggests that Cromwell's improvements were mainly cosmetic. The Queen's lodging comprised a presence chamber, a dining chamber, a bedchamber, and a garden. It was to these rooms that Anne was conducted on 2 May 1536.

  There, she found waiting for her three ladies-in-waiting, one of whom was Margaret Wyatt, Lady Lee, the poet's sister, who had probably known Anne since childhood; her old nurse, Mrs Orchard, and a Mrs Stonor; two male servants and a boy. There were also four ladies whose duty was to inform on her: her aunt Elizabeth, wife of Sir James Boleyn; Lady Shelton, another aunt, who had formerly had charge of the Lady Mary; Mary, Lady Kingston, wife of the Constable; and Mrs Cosyn, wife of Anne's master-of-horse, William Cosyn. There was no love lost between Anne and these ladies, and she realised at once why they were there, telling Kingston she thought it 'a great unkindness in the King to set such about me as I never loved. I would fain have had mine own Privy Chamber, whom I favour most.' Kingston replied that 'the King took them to be honest and good women.' Privately, he agreed with Henry's choice, for these ladies could tell Anne nothing of her father or brother, or anything else; the King wanted her kept in ignorance of the evidence against her in the hope that she would reveal information that could be used to incriminate her.

  Left
alone with her attendants, Anne could not stop talking. She ate 'a great dinner', and soon afterwards called for supper. Lady Boleyn taunted her that her love of intrigue had brought her where she was, and at the end of the evening Lady Kingston and Mrs Cosyn made their report to the Constable. Anne, meanwhile, was working herself into another frenzy, saying she was 'cruelly handled at Greenwich'. She summoned Kingston, and asked him outright if he knew why she was there. He reminded her of the charges against her, saying that another name had been added to the list of her accomplices, but she answered, with spirit, 'I hear I shall be accused with four men, and I can say no more but Nay, without I should open my body!' And, with a dramatic gesture, she opened wide the overskirt of her gown: 'They can bring no witnesses.' Kingston lied that Norris had confessed his guilt. 'Oh, Norris, hast thou accused me?' she wailed. 'Thou art in the Tower with me, and thou and I shall die together! And Mark, thou art here too.' And she wept, 'Oh, my mother, thou wilt die with sorrow.' Then she turned to Kingston, and her next question showed that she understood very well how grave her situation was: 'Master Kingston, shall I die without justice?' He replied: 'The poorest subject of the King hath justice.' Anne laughed hysterically at this, knowing well that those charged with capital offences were rarely acquitted.