The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn (31 page)

The authenticity of this letter is dubious, because if Wyatt’s revelations were true, he is unlikely to have been spared the headsman’s axe: Henry was in no mood to make nice distinctions between what had gone on before he married Anne and what had gone on after; he certainly did not where Katherine Howard was concerned. The style of the letter is suspect in itself: in writing to the King, it would have been usual to refer to his wife as “Queen Anne,” not “Queen Anne Boleyn;” and it is unlikely that Wyatt would have adopted such a combative tone to the King, given his precarious situation. Also, there is no record of Henry banishing Wyatt from court for two years, as we have seen.

Then we have an odd allusion to the court being eight miles from Greenwich: York Place, then in the possession of Cardinal Wolsey, was about that distance. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s palace at Croydon and the Bishop of London’s palace at Fulham were also within the same radius, although these two episcopal residences were rarely visited by the court, so the chronicler was perhaps referring to York Place; but if so, Wyatt, if he were writing this letter, would certainly have mentioned such a great and famous palace by name, whereas a foreigner might not. And the words “as everybody knows” hardly needed to be uttered to a king who had invited Anne’s parents to take up residence at court. Thus we can safely conclude that this letter was no more than a figment of the chronicler’s fevered imagination.

Neither Page nor, strangely, Wyatt was to be formally charged with any crime; both their families petitioned successfully for their release,
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and it seems that Cromwell intended all along that they should be freed, thus emphasizing the guilt of the rest.

There were now seven men in the Tower on Anne’s account. As if that were not bad enough, from their point of view, they were deemed to have sufficient wealth and lands to meet the charges of their imprisonment, so that the Crown need not be responsible for their maintenance while they were its guests.
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The Most Mischievous and Abominable Treasons

K
ingston’s letters to Cromwell are mostly undated, and it is not obvious in every case when they were written. His second and third letters, which were clearly scribed on different days, and later than May 3 (the day after Master Secretary had been among the councillors escorting the Queen to the Tower), both refer to Cromwell departing “yesterday” from the Tower. We can only infer from this that Cromwell made at least two visits to the Tower to see Kingston, ensure that his instructions were being complied with, obtain information that might help his case, and personally monitor Anne’s imprisonment. There is no evidence that he saw Anne herself. Cromwell was to remain mainly in London after May 6, the day on which the King went to Hampton Court.

Kingston’s second report was probably written on the evening of May 5, for it refers to the arrests of Wyatt and Page. He wrote to Cromwell: “After your departing yesterday [which would explain why the constable made no report on May 4], Greenway, gentleman usher, came to me and [said that] Master Carew and Master Bryan [had] commanded him in the King’s name to my Lord of Rochford from my lady his wife, and the message was now more [to] see how he did; and also she would humbly [make] suit unto the King’s Highness for her husband.” There is no record
of her doing so; indeed, she had already laid information against him, and was the principal witness in the Crown’s case.

There is something very odd about this message. The King himself—or perhaps Cromwell, in his name—had commanded Carew and Bryan to send Master Greenway to Lord Rochford on Lady Rochford’s behalf, to find out how he was, and tell him that she would plead with the King for him. Why should either Henry or Cromwell show such consideration to a prisoner in the Tower suspected of treasonable—and shocking—dealings with the Queen? Especially if, as has been claimed, Lady Rochford had not laid evidence and her message showed genuine concern,
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in which case it is unlikely she would have been allowed to send it. None of the other prisoners were accorded such consideration, and Weston’s family in particular were active on his behalf. Was Lady Rochford being treated sympathetically at court because of the invaluable assistance she had afforded the Crown, to the detriment of her marriage vows, and taken advantage of this to salve her conscience by asking to send a solicitous message to the husband she had betrayed?

His having commanded and authorized that message implies, ludicrously, that the King knew in advance that Lady Rochford was going to plead with him for her husband’s life. Unless, of course, having received royal permission to write to George, she afterward, of her own accord, asked Carew and Bryan to assure her husband she would intercede for him with the King—an empty promise at best? Surely she must have known that her words would be reported to Henry by these men, his intimates. In either case, she was lying to Rochford. But he trustingly “gave her thanks” for her message.

Visibly distressed, Rochford asked Kingston “at what time he should come afore the King’s Council,” adding “for I think I shall not come forth till I come to my judgment.” The prospect was too much for him, and he broke down weeping.
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There is no evidence that he ever was interrogated by the council, although he may have been visited by some of its members after the indictments had been drawn up.
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Anne had now been given the dread news of Rochford’s arrest by her attendants. Immediately, she sent for Kingston.

“I hear say my lord my brother is here,” she told him.

“It is truth,” he confirmed. It must have been a bitter moment for her, given all that Rochford’s imprisonment implied.

“I am very glad that we both be so nigh together,” was all she said.

Kingston then revealed that Weston and Brereton were in the Tower too, at which “she made very good countenance. I also said Master Page and Wyatt was more, then she said, ‘He hath … won his fyst the other day and is here now but ma … ‘“Here, the letter is very badly damaged, and Anne’s comments on Wyatt and Page are indecipherable. “I shall desire you to bear a letter from me to Master Secretary,” she told the constable.

“Madam,” he replied, “tell it me by word of mouth, and I will do it.” She thanked him, saying, “I have much marvel that the King’s Council comes not to me.” She clearly was wondering why she had not been subject to further examination, and like her brother, was hoping for a chance to explain everything and clear her name. Kingston apparently did not comment. When she prophesied to him that “we should have no rain till she were delivered out of the Tower,” Kingston replied kindly, “I pray you it may be shortly because of the fair weather.” He added to Cromwell, “You know what I mean.” He is unlikely to have been referring to Anne’s release.

During the evening of May 5, Anne made plain her antipathy toward her attendants, grumbling to Kingston that “the King wist what he did when he put such two about her as my Lady Boleyn and Mistress Coffin, for they could tell her nothing of my lord her father nor nothing else, but she defied them all.” Having digested the news of Rochford’s arrest, she evidently feared that her father’s would be next. “But then upon this, my Lady Boleyn said to her, ‘Such desire as you have had to such tales [intrigues] has brought you to this.’” Evidently she knew her niece-by-marriage well.

Mrs. Stonor then spoke of Smeaton, observing, “Mark is the worst cherished of any man in the house, for he wears irons.” She was referring to manacles or chains.

“That is because he is no gentleman,” Anne replied. She told her avidly listening attendants that Smeaton “was never in my [privy] chamber but at Winchester,” the previous autumn. “There I sent for him to play on the virginals; for there my lodging was above the King’s.” Interestingly, Smeaton was never specifically accused of committing adultery with Anne in the autumn of 1535; his offenses were alleged to have taken place in April and May 1534 and April 1535.

“I never spake with him since but upon Saturday before May Day [April 29, 1536],” Anne went on, “and then I found him standing in the round window in my chamber of presence; and I asked why he was so sad, and he answered and said it was no matter. And then I said, ‘You may not look to have me speak to you as I should do to a noble man because you be an inferior person.’ ‘No, no,’ said he, ‘a look sufficed me; and thus fare you well.’”
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This brief conversation may have been witnessed and seen as suspicious, for it was only the next day that Smeaton was apprehended and taken to Cromwell’s house for questioning.

These accounts of the Queen’s might suggest that Smeaton entertained romantic or lustful thoughts of Anne, but John Strype—who saw the undamaged letters of Kingston—inferred from the exchange that Smeaton was a haughty person—which is borne out by other evidence—who thought that Anne did not accord him enough respect, as their conversation perhaps bears out. Smeaton was excluded by virtue of his humble status from the play of courtly love indulged in by her circle.
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Strype thought that Smeaton perhaps pursued Anne in order to humble her and show her that he was as worthy as any other man of her notice—for, of course, sex is sometimes a manifestation of control as much as lust. If so, the poor fool little realized that his egotistical power games would cost him his life.

Anne’s thoughts were still with the men who had been imprisoned on her account. She asked Lady Kingston “whether anybody makes their beds.”

“Nay, I warrant you,” that lady answered.

“They might make ballads well now,” Anne suggested, attempting a pun on
pallet,
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“but there is none but Lord Rochford that can do it.”

“Yes!” disagreed Lady Kingston. “Master Wyatt.”

“By my faith, thou hast said true,” Anne concurred, but moments later her spirits had sunk again. “My lord my brother will die!” she wailed. She knew that he was in as great peril as she was.

Anne’s conversations in the Tower reveal her to have been indiscreet, both before and after her arrest, and show her entertaining a suspicious interest in the men accused with her. It was also becoming clear, through her own revelations, that she had not kept a proper regal distance between herself and her courtiers, and thus had made herself—and them—vulnerable to accusations of impropriety.
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Kingston’s letter is charred, so what follows—“ne I am sure this was as … tt down to dinner this day”—is hard to decipher. He begins by saying that at dinner that day he sent a plateful of food to Norris along with “a knave to his priest that waited upon him in the [Tower?],” but then there is a mutilated account of a conversation, probably with Norris, which may perhaps partly be construed as follows: either the knave or the priest referred to the confession he made to FitzWilliam, and “[put i]t unto him, and he answered him again … “[If any man wishes to make?] any thing of my confession he is worthy to have [his opinion?… But if he believes/accepts?] hyt [it] I defy him;” and also he desireth to have … favor if it may be the King’s pleasure.”
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The writer of the “Spanish Chronicle” claims that, on May 6, the day after Wyatt’s arrest, “they had the old woman, Margaret [the lady who allegedly brought Smeaton to the Queen’s bed] tortured, and she confessed how Mark and Master Norris and Brereton slept with the Queen, and that she contrived it so that none knew about the others. She was asked about Master Wyatt, and she said that she never saw him speak privately with the Queen, but only in public. And Secretary Cromwell was glad, because he loved Master Wyatt dearly.” That much alone is true, but there is no other evidence of a royal servant called Margaret being tortured at this time; had Margery Horsman been subject to such treatment, people would have known about it. The first recorded instance of a woman being tortured dates from 1546, when a heretic, Anne Askew, was racked in the Tower. And had Margaret been afterward burned at the stake in the Tower,
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people would have known about that too. The authorities could not stage a burning, even at night in the Tower, and escape people’s notice. The Tower, then as now, was a community in itself, well-populated, and people came and went at will.

In the Cotton manuscripts in the British Library, there exists a letter headed, “To the King from the Lady in the Tower.” First published by Lord Herbert in his
The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth
in 1649, then by Bishop Burnet in 1679, and called by one nineteenth-century editor, Henry Ellis, “one of the finest compositions in the English language,” it is said to be a copy, in Cromwell’s handwriting—although the similarities are purely superficial—of an original letter sent by Anne Boleyn to
Henry VIII on May 6 from the Tower. Burnet says he himself found it with Sir William Kingston’s letters, “lying among Cromwell’s other papers,” which were collected after his death in 1540. This letter was damaged in 1731 in the fire that ravaged the Cottonian Library, and its edges remain charred, with the writing worn away in places, but the text is quite legible, and reads: