[Footnote 957: _The Complaynt of Roderick Mors_
(Early Eng. Text Soc.), pp. 47-52. The author,
Henry Brinkelow (see _D.N.B._, vi., 346), also
suggested that both Houses of Parliament should sit
together as one assembly "for it is not rytches or
autoryte that bringeth wisdome" (_Complaynt_, p.
8). Some of the political literature of the later
part of Henry's reign is curiously modern in its
ideas.]
* * * * *
Intimately associated as they were in their lives, Catherine of Aragon
and Anne Boleyn were not long divided by death; and, piteous as is the
story of the last years of Catherine, it pales before the hideous
tragedy of the ruin of Anne Boleyn. "If I have a son, as I hope shortly,
I know what will become of her," wrote Anne of the Princess Mary.[959]
On 29th January, 1536, the day of her rival's funeral, Anne Boleyn was
prematurely delivered of a dead child, and the result was fatal to
Anne herself. This was not her first miscarriage,[960] and Henry's (p. 343)
old conscience began to work again. In Catherine's case the path of
his conscience was that of a slow and laborious pioneer; now it moved
easily on its royal road to divorce. On 29th January, Chapuys, ignorant
of Anne's miscarriage, was retailing to his master a court rumour that
Henry intended to marry again. The King was reported to have said that
he had been seduced by witchcraft when he married his second queen,
and that the marriage was null for this reason, and because God would
not permit them to have male issue.[961] There was no peace for her
who supplanted her mistress. Within six months of her marriage Henry's
roving fancy had given her cause for jealousy, and, when she complained,
he is said to have brutally told her she must put up with it as her
betters had done before.[962] These disagreements, however, were
described by Chapuys as mere lovers' quarrels, and they were generally
followed by reconciliations, after which Anne's influence seemed (p. 344)
as secure as ever. But by January, 1536, the imperial ambassador and
others were counting on a fresh divorce. The rumour grew as spring
advanced, when suddenly, on 2nd May, Anne was arrested and sent to the
Tower. She was accused of incest with her brother, Lord Rochford, and
of less criminal intercourse with Sir Francis Weston, Henry Norris,
William Brereton, and Mark Smeaton. All were condemned by juries to
death for high treason on 12th May. Three days later Anne herself was
put on her trial by a panel of twenty-six peers, over which her uncle,
the Duke of Norfolk, presided.[963] They returned a unanimous verdict
of guilty, and, on the 19th, the Queen's head was struck off with the
sword of an executioner brought for the purpose from St. Omer.[964]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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