The History of England, Volume III Henry VIII Anne's trial: and execution
by David Hume
The queen and her brother were tried by a jury of peers, consisting of the duke of Suffolk, the marquis of Exeter, the earl of Arundel, and twenty-three more: Their uncle, the duke of Norfolk, presided as high steward. Upon what proof or pretence the crime of incest was imputed to them is unknown: The chief evidence, it is said, amounted to no more than that Rocheford had been seen to lean on her bed before some company. Part of the charge against her was, that she had affirmed to her minions, that the king never had her heart; and had said to each of them apart, that she loved him better than any person whatsoever: Which was to the slander of the issue begotten between the king and her. By this strained interpretation, her guilt was brought under the statute of the 25th of this reign; in which it was declared criminal to throw any slander upon the king, queen, or their issue. Such palpable absurdities were, at that time, admitted; and they were regarded by the peers of England as a sufficient reason for sacrificing an innocent queen to the cruelty of their tyrant. Though unassisted by counsel, she defended herself with presence of mind; and the spectators could not forbear pronouncing her entirely innocent. Judgment, however, was given by the court, both against the queen and lord Rocheford; and her verdict contained, that she should be burned or beheaded at the king’s pleasure. When this dreadful sentence was pronounced, she was not terrified, but lifting up her hands to heaven, said, “O, Father! O, Creator! thou who art the way, the truth, and the life, thou knowest that I have not deserved this fate.” And then turning to the judges, made the most pathetic declarations of her innocence.
Henry, not satisfied with this cruel vengeance, was resolved entirely to annul his marriage with Anne Boleyn, and to declare her issue illegitimate: He recalled to his memory, that, a little after her appearance in the English court, some attachment had been acknowledged between her and the earl of Northumberland, then lord Piercy; and he now questioned the nobleman with regard to these engagements. Northumberland took an oath before the two archbishops, that no contract or promise of marriage had ever passed between them: He received the sacrament upon it, before the duke of Norfolk and others of the privy council; and this solemn act he accompanied with the most solemn protestations of veracity.r The queen, however, was shaken by menaces of executing the sentence against her in its greatest rigour, and was prevailed on to confess in court, some lawful impediments to her marriage with the king.s The afflicted primate, who sat as judge, thought himself obliged by this confession, to pronounce the marriage null and invalid. Henry, in the transports of his fury, did not perceive that his proceedings were totally inconsistent, and that, if her marriage were, from the beginning, invalid, she could not possibly be guilty of adultery.
The queen now prepared for suffering the death to which she was sentenced. She sent her last message to the king, and acknowledged the obligations which she owed him, in thus uniformly continuing his endeavours for her advancement: From a private gentlewoman, she said, he had first made her a marchioness, then a queen, and now, since he could raise her no higher in this world, he was sending her to be a saint in heaven. She then renewed the protestations of her innocence, and recommended her daughter to his care. Before the lieutenant of the Tower, and all who approached her, she made the like declarations; and continued to behave herself with her usual serenity, and even with chearfulness. “The executioner,” she said to the lieutenant, “is, I hear, very expert; and my neck is very slender.” Upon which she grasped it in her hand, and smiled. When brought, however, to the scaffold, [19th May.] she softened her tone a little with regard to her protestations of innocence. She probably reflected, that the obstinacy of queen Catherine, and her opposition to the king’s will, had much alienated him from the lady Mary: Her own maternal concern, therefore, for Elizabeth, prevailed in these last moments over that indignation, which the unjust sentence, by which she suffered, naturally excited in her. She said, that she was come to die, as she was sentenced, by the law: She would accuse none, nor say any thing of the ground upon which she was judged. She prayed heartily for the king; called him a most merciful and gentle prince; and acknowledged, that he had always been to her a good and gracious sovereign; and if any one should think proper to canvass her cause, she desired him to judge the best.t She was beheaded by the executioner of Calais, who was sent for as more expert than any in England. Her body was negligently thrown into a common chest of elm-tree, made to hold arrows; and was buried in the Tower.
The innocence of this unfortunate queen cannot reasonably be called in question. Henry himself, in the violence of his rage, knew not whom to accuse as her lover; and though he imputed guilt to her brother, and four persons more, he was able to bring proof against none of them. The whole tenour of her conduct forbids us to ascribe to her an abandoned character, such as is implied in the king’s accusation: Had she been so lost to all prudence and sense of shame, she must have exposed herself to detection, and afforded her enemies some evidence against her. But the king made the most effectual apology for her, by marrying Jane Seymour the very day after her execution.u His impatience to gratify this new passion caused him to forget all regard to decency; and his cruel heart was not softened a moment by the bloody catastrophe of a person, who had so long been the object of his most tender affections.
The lady Mary thought the death of her step-mother a proper opportunity for reconciling herself to the king, who, besides other causes of disgust, had been offended with her, on account of the part which she had taken in her mother’s quarrel. Her advances were not at first received; and Henry exacted from her some farther proofs of submission and obedience: He required this young princess, then about twenty years of age, to adopt his theological tenets; to acknowledge his supremacy; to renounce the pope; and to own her mother’s marriage to be unlawful and incestuous. These points were of hard digestion with the princess; but after some delays, and even refusals, she was at last prevailed on to write a letter to her father,w containing her assent to the articles required of her: Upon which she was received into favour. But notwithstanding the return of the king’s affection to the issue of his first marriage, he divested not himself of kindness towards the lady Elizabeth; and the new queen, who was blest with a singular sweetness of disposition, discovered strong proofs of attachment towards her.
[r] Herbert, p. 384.
[s] Heylin, p. 94.
[t] Burnet, vol. i. p. 205.
[u] Ibidem, p. 297.
[w] Burnet, vol. i. p. 207. Strype, vol. i. p. 285.
