The History of England, Volume III Henry VIII Disgrace of Queen Anne
by David Hume
But while the retainers to the new religion were exulting in their prosperity, they met with a mortification, which seemed to blast all their hopes: Their patroness, Anne Boleyn, possessed no longer the king’s favour; and soon after lost her life, by the rage of that furious monarch. Henry had persevered in his love to this lady, during six years that his prosecution of the divorce lasted; and the more obstacles he met with to the gratification of his passion, the more determined zeal did he exert in pursuing his purpose. But the affection, which had subsisted, and still encreased, under difficulties, had not long attained secure possession of its object, when it languished from satiety; and the king’s heart was apparently estranged from his consort. Anne’s enemies soon perceived the fatal change; and they were forward to widen the breach, when they found that they incurred no danger by interposing in those delicate concerns. She had been delivered of a dead son; and Henry’s extreme fondness for male issue being thus, for the present, disappointed, his temper, equally violent and superstitious, was disposed to make the innocent mother answerable for the misfortune.m But the chief means which Anne’s enemies employed to inflame the king against her, was his jealousy.
Anne, though she appears to have been entirely innocent, and even virtuous, in her conduct, had a certain gaiety, if not levity, of character, which threw her off her guard, and made her less circumspect than her situation required. Her education in France rendered her the more prone to those freedoms; and it was with difficulty she conformed herself to that strict ceremonial, practised in the court of England. More vain than haughty, she was pleased to see the influence of her beauty on all around her, and she indulged herself in an easy familiarity with persons, who were formerly her equals, and who might then have pretended to her friendship and good graces. Henry’s dignity was offended with these popular manners; and though the lover had been entirely blind, the husband possessed but too quick discernment and penetration. Ill instruments interposed, and put a malignant interpretation on the harmless liberties of the queen: The viscountess of Rocheford, in particular, who was married to the queen’s brother, but who lived on bad terms with her sister-in-law, insinuated the most cruel suspicions into the king’s mind; and as she was a woman of a profligate character, she paid no regard either to truth or humanity in those calumnies which she suggested. She pretended, that her own husband was engaged in a criminal correspondence with his sister; and not content with this imputation, she poisoned every action of the queen’s, and represented each instance of favour, which she conferred on any one, as a token of affection. Henry Norris, groom of the stole, Weston and Brereton, gentlemen of the king’s chamber, together with Mark Smeton, groom of the chamber, were observed to possess much of the queen’s friendship; and they served her with a zeal and attachment, which, though chiefly derived from gratitude, might not improbably be seasoned with some mixture of tenderness for so amiable a princess. The king’s jealousy laid hold of the slightest circumstance; and finding no particular object on which it could fasten, it vented itself equally on every one that came within the verge of its fury.
Had Henry’s jealousy been derived from love, though it might on a sudden have proceeded to the most violent extremities, it would have been subject to many remorses and contrarieties; and might at last have served only to augment that affection, on which it was founded. But it was more a stern jealousy, fostered entirely by pride: His love was transferred to another object. Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour, and maid of honour to the queen, a young lady of singular beauty and merit, had obtained an entire ascendant over him; and he was determined to sacrifice every thing to the gratification of this new appetite. Unlike to most monarchs, who judge lightly of the crime of gallantry, and who deem the young damsels of their court rather honoured than disgraced by their passion, he seldom thought of any other attachment than that of marriage; and in order to attain this end, he underwent more difficulties, and committed greater crimes, than those which he sought to avoid, by forming that legal connexion. And having thus entertained the design of raising his new mistress to his bed and throne, he more willingly hearkened to every suggestion, which threw any imputation of guilt on the unfortunate Anne Boleyn.
[1st May.] The king’s jealousy first appeared openly in a tilting at Greenwich, where the queen happened to drop her handkerchief; an incident probably casual, but interpreted by him as an instance of gallantry to some of her paramours.n He immediately retired from the place; sent orders to confine her to her chamber; arrested Norris, Brereton, Weston, and Smeton, together with her brother, Rocheford; and threw them into prison. The queen, astonished at these instances of his fury, thought that he meant only to try her; but finding him in earnest, she reflected on his obstinate unrelenting spirit, and she prepared herself for that melancholy doom, which was awaiting her. Next day, she was sent to the Tower; and on her way thither, she was informed of her supposed offences, of which she had hitherto been ignorant: She made earnest protestations of her innocence; and when she entered the prison, she fell on her knees, and prayed God so to help her, as she was not guilty of the crime imputed to her. Her surprise and confusion threw her into hysterical disorders; and in that situation, she thought that the best proof of her innocence was to make an entire confession, and she revealed some indiscretions and levities, which her simplicity had equally betrayed her to commit and to avow. She owned, that she had once rallied Norris on his delaying his marriage, and had told him, that he probably expected her, when she should be a widow: She had reproved Weston, she said, for his affection to a kinswoman of hers, and his indifference towards his wife: But he told her, that she had mistaken the object of his affection, for it was herself: Upon which, she defied him.o She affirmed, that Smeton had never been in her chamber but twice, when he played on the harpsichord: But she acknowledged, that he had once had the boldness to tell her, that a look sufficed him. The king, instead of being satisfied with the candour and sincerity of her confession, regarded these indiscretions only as preludes to greater and more criminal intimacies.
Of all those multitudes, whom the beneficence of the queen’s temper had obliged, during her prosperous fortune, no one durst interpose between her and the king’s fury; and the person, whose advancement every breath had favoured, and every countenance had smiled upon, was now left neglected and abandoned. Even her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, preferring the connexions of party to the ties of blood, was become her most dangerous enemy; and all the retainers to the catholic religion hoped, that her death would terminate the king’s quarrel with Rome, and leave him again to his natural and early bent, which had inclined him to maintain the most intimate union with the apostolic see. Cranmer alone; of all the queen’s adherents, still retained his friendship for her; and, as far as the king’s impetuosity permitted him, he endeavoured to moderate the violent prejudices, entertained against her.
The queen herself wrote Henry a letter from the Tower, full of the most tender expostulations, and of the warmest protestations of innocence.NOTE [J] This letter had no influence on the unrelenting mind of Henry, who was determined to pave the way for his new marriage by the death of Anne Boleyn. Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeton, were tried; but no legal evidence was produced against them. The chief proof of their guilt consisted in a hear-say from one lady Wingfield, who was dead. Smeton was prevailed on, by the vain hopes of life, to confess a criminal correspondence with the queen;q but even her enemies expected little advantage from this confession: For they never dared to confront him with her; and he was immediately executed; as were also Brereton and Weston. Norris had been much in the king’s favour; and an offer of life was made him, if he would confess his crime, and accuse the queen: But he generously rejected the proposal; and said, that in his conscience he believed her entirely guiltless: But, for his part, he could accuse her of nothing, and he would rather die a thousand deaths than calumniate an innocent person.
[m] Burnet, vol. i. p. 196.
[n] Burnet, vol. i. p. 198.
[o] Strype, vol. i. p. 281.
[NOTE [J]] This letter contains so much nature and even elegance, as to deserve to be transmitted to posterity, without any alteration in the expression. It is as follows.
“Sir, your grace’s displeasure and my imprisonment are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing me to confess a truth, and so obtain your favour) by such an one, whom you know to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and, if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your command.
“But let not your grace ever imagine, that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not so much as a thought thereof preceded. And to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn: With which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace’s pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace’s fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If then you found me worthy of such honour, good your grace let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of mine enemies, withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal heart towards your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter. Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges; yea let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame; then shall you see either mine innocence cleared, your suspicion and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that whatsoever God or you may determine of me, your grace may be freed from an open censure, and mine offence being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection, already settled on that party, for whose sake I am now as I am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto, your grace not being ignorant of my suspicion therein.
“But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness; then I desire of God, that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof, and that he will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment-seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, and in whose judgment I doubt not (whatsoever the world may think of me) mine innocence shall be openly known, and sufficiently cleared.”
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, who (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 hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any 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, this sixth of May;
“Your most loyal and ever faithful wife, Anne Boleyn.”
