Oh, God, surely there must be a way of escape for her. The King is a man. Surely he is not so completely devoid of pity. Only in January, she was carrying his child in her body. Surely the King must now realise that the miscarriage and deformed babe was no fault of hers, rather something which was utterly tragic to them both. The Duke of Norfolk had said she had miscarried of her saviour. Alright then, perhaps if the boy had been born alive and whole, he would have been the saviour of their disintegrating marriage, but a woman who is beset by such a dreadful tragedy does not deserve to lose her life because of it. There must be a way of escape. There must be! And with that thought in my mind, I tried my best to sleep.
I soon realised that there was to be no escape. The first trials took place at Westminster Hall on the twelfth of May. These were the trials of Smeaton, Weston, Norris and Brereton. Of all these men, only Smeaton admitted to having had intercourse with the Queen. I could not help to feel but great pity for Mark. He was a young man of twenty-three, greatly gifted, whose gifts had led him high, and now so low. I knew, again from my guards, that since the day he was first imprisoned in the Tower, he had been denied the simple solaces naturally given to us who were better born. Indeed, I had been told that he was kept in irons. I suppose to ensure that his spirits remained broken.
My good friends Weston, Norris and Brereton were also found guilty of having had carnal knowledge of Anne. All of them would be executed on the seventeenth of May, five days from their trials.
(I find it so hard to keep going on with the recounting of all these memories. But if I did not write this narrative in remembrance and love of them who were murdered from this world, I think I could speak no more.)
Weston’s family’s offer of a ransom of 100,000 marks for his life was ignored. He, too, would be executed. The frantic efforts made by Weston’s family to save his life made many people look askew at the head of the Boleyn family.
Many of the court, who knew him not, expressed their shock and disgust regarding how Thomas Boleyn, now Earl of Wiltshire, could act as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Here was his only son and youngest daughter facing certain death and still he went out hunting with the King. They said Anne’s mother, who had grown closer to her daughter and son in recent years, would no longer speak to him or be in the same room as her husband. I was not surprised when I heard all this. I who knew him, just remembered back to my childhood; when I first began to grow aware that Uncle Boleyn cared for nothing in life but his own advancement.
Anne and George were to be tried on the fifteenth of May, separately, in the confines of the Tower. Their father had offered to take his place as one of their judges, but common decency prevailed and he was told his presence on the bench would not be required. Amongst the seventy-six judges was Anne’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Duke of Suffolk; both men who, for their own personal reasons, intensely disliked Anne, and, thus, wanted to get rid of her. Also amongst the judges was a man who, so many years ago, had loved Anne: Hal Percy, the present Earl of Northumberland.
My father was one of the many spectators at Anne’s and George’s trials. So, through his observant eyes, I have a clear picture of the events as they happened.
Anne, I was told, had taken great care with her appearance on the day of her trial. Indeed, she entered the chambers with her attendants as a Queen, and this was the presence she maintained throughout this most dreadful day. At that moment and during every moment of her trial, there was no trace of the hysteria that had afflicted her much of her adult life, such as when she arrived at the Tower.
The charges that Anna faced were abominable. Saying that out of malice to the King, her husband, she had seduced five men, including her own brother, to her bed.
My father told me the dates would have had old wives counting on their fingers, discovering that five dates given were during the early stages of Anne’s last, doomed pregnancy—a time when most wise wives abstain from intercourse for fear of causing an end to a new pregnancy. Considering how much of Anne’s future had depended on the life and health of that unborn child, I thought to myself that the charges grew more and more absurd with every passing moment. One date given was within two weeks of her having given birth to Elizabeth. No woman in her right mind deliberately sets out to seek lovers at a time when her body is still unhealed from the birth of a child. Anne may have been, through the circumstances of her life and grief and despair, unstable at times, but never was she one who could be described as foolish.
And if this was not a trial for her life, it could easily have been a stage for comedy. Amongst the many absurd accusations that came out during her trial was one claiming that Marc Smeaton hid in a closet, and was brought out by one of Anne’s ladies when the Queen asked for her nightly marmalade. I could not help but laugh when my father told me this. The men who put this case together must have been grabbing at straws when they thought that one up.
Anne maintained her calm composure during the whole of her trial. Yea, she had given Weston and Smeaton gifts of money, and so forth, but never had she given them the gift of her body. And it was the same with the other men accused; they were never, ever, her lovers. George, she said, of course was often in her chamber. But as he was also her brother, Anna went on to say, surely they could converse together without having evil being thought of them. Anne strongly refuted the accusation that she had plotted with her alleged lovers the King’s death, or that she had promised herself in marriage to any of them.
Even though all her arguments were clear, and struck most of the people watching as being said by a woman who was completely innocent of the charges laid against her, they held no weight against the sworn evidence presented to the court. Therefore, Anne was found guilty and sentenced by her uncle to be either burnt or beheaded—to be decided at the discretion of our merciful King.
Still Anna remained calm, though she was heard to say quietly to herself: “Oh, God, you know if I have merited this death
.
”
I feel that Anne had known what to expect ever since the morning of her arrest, perchance even months before, thus the verdict came as no shock to her. But it came as a great shock to one other. Hal Percy, Earl and a grown man for many years—a judge upon this day at this great mockery and sham of a trial. The man who had once gazed at Anna with such complete adoration as her voice blended with his. Aye—Hal, the young man who had loved Anne in a time when all our lives were lived in innocence. The Earl of Northumberland could no longer take one moment more. He collapsed, and was carried out in a dead faint from the room. When my father told me this, I could not help but wonder how Anne felt, as she watched them carry out this utterly broken man, the shattered shell of a man who hid within him a boy whom she had never stopped remembering with tender love. Taken from her life for the last and final time. I can but guess.
As to the feelings of Hal Percy? To condemn to death the woman who once had been the young girl racing her horse with his, across the green meadows of long ago. Laughing with him, singing with him, and just being with him because they were so much in love. Giving him, for such a brief but unforgettable season, joy and happiness… I have a better idea of how he felt. I too have never stopped loving Anna.
Oh, Anna. My lovely girl! If only our lives could have been so different! Ah—how my heart tears…
Thus, the verdict had come down, and Anne was asked if she had anything more to say. This is what Anna said to the men who had sentenced her to die:
“I am ready for death.”
Anna took a deep breath, and looked at those people around her.
“I regret that of innocent persons. I have always been a faithful wife to the King. My only sin against the King has been my jealousy and lack of humility. I think you know well the reason why you have condemned me to be other than that which led you to this judgement. What I regret most deeply is that men who were innocent and loyal to the King must lose their lives because of me.”
Anne paused, and was seen to swallow hard—as if all the emotions within her were attempting to choke her. She then quickly regained hold of her composure, lifted her head high, and concluded her speech.
“I willingly give up my titles to the King who gave them.”
Anne, now finished, curtsied with great dignity, and left the courtroom, accompanied by the Tower’s Constable and her ladies. The royal executioner also followed her, the axe in his hands symbolically turned towards her. My father told me that even though she had verbally given up her titles, no one present at the court could see her as anything other than a Queen of great nobility.
Even the King was heard to say, after he was told of her behaviour and words this day, “Yea. She has always had a stout heart
.”
Aye, indeed, all those who had listened to her final speech could not fail to be moved in some way. In sooth, even the Duke of Norfolk, Anne’s uncle, was moved unto tears. When my father told me this, I could barely bring myself to believe that the Duke had broken down. For a long time now, it had appeared to all that the Duke of Norfolk had deeply resented—some even went so far as to say hated—his niece, the Queen. The Duke had seen Anna’s support of the Protestant faith a betrayal not only to God but also to her family.
I have never stopped wondering if he had meant for her to miscarry of her babe; how else can you explain his strange actions on that tragic day in January?
Anne. My dearest Anna. Now condemned to die so savagely. My brave, lovely white falcon, soon to be freed forever from the mews entangling her in the climbing, Tudor rose. Aye—my wild, white falcon had found that the climbing Tudor rose was thorned to rip and tear. To rip and tear to death.
But, to lose Anna so! Ah, how does my heart bleed! And it will never stop bleeding. Not while I still breathe and live!
There is still one trial to recount, one more trial to finish this day’s work. When the Duke of Norfolk regained his composure, his nephew George was brought in. It was now George’s turn to answer the charge of incest with his sister.
My cousin George also impressed all who saw him that day by his calmness, and his ability to refute all the charges that were laid against him. The feeling in court ran high that he should be acquitted. But then Cromwell handed him a paper, telling him not to read it aloud. George took the paper from Cromwell, glanced down at it, and then looked hard at Cromwell.
My father said that he saw George smile slightly, as if he was amused at something that only he himself knew. Then he caused the whole room to raise itself in an uproar by disobeying Cromwell, and reading out the document he had in his hand. A document stating that Anne had spoken of the King’s frequent attacks of impotence and his lack of “vigour” in the bedchamber. No wonder George smiled as he read out that document! To be given, by Cromwell no less, a weapon for revenge against the King for his slanders against his beloved sister.
My father made me laugh through my tears when he told me that Cromwell was jumping up and down, going completely red with anger, as George read out these words. But George just kept on speaking, and gently smiling. It was as if he said:
“I am no longer the puppet of any man, be he King or knave.”
However, when he handed back the document to Cromwell, George faced his judges and said: “I deny utterly that the Queen and myself ever spoke of such matters…” George then gently smiled again and said, “I will not create suspicion in a manner likely to prejudice the issue the King might have from a second marriage.”
Cromwell then jumped back to face George yet again.
“And what of the issue that the King got from this marriage? Could not the Princess Elizabeth be not the daughter of the King, but rather a child born out of an incestuous union between brother and sister?” Cromwell asked of George.
George, now looking white with anger, answered clearly, in a voice vibrating with rage: “I refuse to consider, even for one moment, such a vile and untrue accusation.”
George so impressed the court this day that the opinion was still running strong that he should be acquitted. But then Cromwell pulled out from his pocket a letter written by George’s wife; a letter stating that she had witnessed Anne and George in acts of incest. Jane and Bess! What a pair we were married to. Thus, George’s fate was now assured.
The Duke of Norfolk, an uncle who had grown to love him even if he had very little regard for his sister, now read out the sentence condemning George to the most dreadful death imaginable: George was to be hanged, drawn and quartered. George was silent, after his most horrible sentence was read out, with his head tilted to one side as if lost in thought. Now that the fates had been accomplished on this day, he could only hope to be given the mercy of having his sentence commuted to a simple beheading.
My God! My dear God! Why have you abandoned them! What have Anne and George ever done to deserve such savage, bloody deaths?
Oh, why do I blame God? This evil does not rest with God. Once upon a time, a long time ago when we were children, I remember Father Stephen telling us a story of a Demogorgon, a most hateful god who indulged himself in vindictive acts of destruction. Never had I realised until now that this demon went by yet another name: Henry the Eighth of England.