[34] Pole, at his own solicitation, was appointed legate to the Low Countries in 1537, with the sole object of keeping alive the flame of the northern rebellion, and exciting foreign powers as well as the English nation to restore religion by force, if not to dethrone Henry. It is difficult not to suspect that he was influenced by ambitious views in a proceeding so treasonable, and so little in conformity with his polished manners and temperate life. Philips, his able and artful biographer, both proves and glories in the treason. Life of Pole, sect. 3.
[35] Coke's 4th Institute, 37. It is, however, said by Lord Herbert and others, that the Countess of Salisbury and the Marchioness of Exeter were not heard in their defence. The acts of attainder against them were certainly hurried through parliament; but whether without hearing the parties, does not appear.
[36] Burnet observes, that Cranmer was absent the first day the bill was read, 17th June 1540; and by his silence leaves the reader to infer that he was so likewise on 19th June, when it was read a second and third time. But this, I fear, cannot be asserted. He is marked in the journal as present on the latter day; and there is the following entry; "Hodie lecta est pro secundo et tertio, billa attincturæ Thomæ Comitis Essex, et communi omnium procerum tunc præsentium concessu nemine discrepante, expedita est." And at the close of the session, we find a still more remarkable testimony to the unanimity of parliament, in the following words: "Hoc animadvertendum est, quod in haac sessione cum proceres darent suffragia, et dicerent sententias super actibus prædictis, ea erat concordia et sententiarum conformitas, ut singuli iis et eorum singulis assenserint, nemine discrepante. Thomas de Soulemont, Cleric. Parliamentorum." As far therefore as entries on the journals are evidence, Cranmer was placed in the painful and humiliating predicament of voting for the death of his innocent friend. He had gone as far as he dared in writing a letter to Henry, which might be construed into an apology for Cromwell, though it was full as much so for himself.
[37] Burnet has taken much pains with the subject, and set her innocence in a very clear light (i. 197 and iii. 114). See also Strype, i. 280, and Ellis's Letters, ii. 52. But Anne had all the failings of a vain, weak woman, raised suddenly to greatness. She behaved with unamiable vindictiveness towards Wolsey, and perhaps (but this worst charge is not fully authenticated) exasperated the king against More. A remarkable passage in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 103, edit. 1667, strongly displays her indiscretion.
A late writer, whose acuteness and industry would raise him to a very respectable place among our historians, if he could have repressed the inveterate partiality of his profession, has used every oblique artifice to lead his readers into a belief of Anne Boleyn's guilt, while he affects to hold the balance, and state both sides of the question without determining it. Thus he repeats what he must have known to be the strange and extravagant lies of Sanders about her birth; without vouching for them indeed, but without any reprobation of their absurd malignity. Lingard's Hist. of England, vi. 153 (8vo. edit). Thus he intimates that "the records of her trial and conviction have perished, perhaps by the hands of those who respected her memory" (p. 316); though, had he read Burnet with any care, he would have found that they were seen by that historian, and surely have not perished since by any unfair means; not to mention that the record of a trial contains nothing from which a party's guilt or innocence can be inferred. Thus he says that those who were executed on the same charge with the queen, neither admitted nor denied the offence, for which they suffered; though the best informed writers assert that Norris constantly declared the queen's innocence and his own.
Dr. Lingard can hardly be thought serious, when he takes credit to himself, in the commencement of a note at the end of the same volume, for not "rendering his book more interesting, by representing her as an innocent and injured woman, falling a victim to the intrigues of a religious faction." He well knows that he could not have done so, without contradicting the tenor of his entire work, without ceasing, as it were, to be himself. All the rest of this note is a pretended balancing of evidence, in the style of a judge who can hardly bear to put for a moment the possibility of a prisoner's innocence.
I regret very much to be compelled, in this edition, to add the name of Mr. Sharon Turner to those who have countenanced the supposition of Anne Boleyn's guilt. But Mr. Turner, a most worthy and painstaking man, to whose earlier writings our literature is much indebted, has, in his history of Henry VIII., gone upon the strange principle of exalting that tyrant's reputation at the expense of every one of his victims, to whatever party they may have belonged. Odit damnatos. Perhaps he is the first, and will be the last, who has defended the attainder of Sir Thomas More. A verdict of a jury, an assertion of a statesman, a recital of an act of parliament, are, with him, satisfactory proofs of the most improbable accusations against the most blameless character.
[38] The lords pronounced a singular sentence, that she should be burned or beheaded at the king's pleasure. Burnet says the judges complained of this as unprecedented. Perhaps in strictness the king's right to alter a sentence is questionable, or rather would be so, if a few precedents were out of the way. In high treason committed by a man, the beheading was part of the sentence, and the king only remitted the more cruel preliminaries. Women, till 1791, were condemned to be burned. But the two queens of Henry, the Countess of Salisbury, Lady Rochford, Lady Jane Grey, and, in later times, Mrs. Lisle, were beheaded. Poor Mrs. Gaunt was not thought noble enough to be rescued from the fire. In felony, where beheading is no part of the sentence, it has been substituted by the king's warrant in the cases of the Duke of Somerset and Lord Audley. I know not why the latter obtained this favour; for it had been refused to Lord Stourton, hanged for murder under Mary, as it was afterwards to Earl Ferrers.
[39] It is often difficult to understand the grounds of a parliamentary attainder, for which any kind of evidence was thought sufficient; and the strongest proofs against Catherine Howard undoubtedly related to her behaviour before marriage, which could be no legal crime. But some of the depositions extend further.
Dr. Lingard has made a curious observation on this case. "A plot was woven by the industry of the reformers, which brought the young queen to the scaffold, and weakened the ascendency of the reigning party."—P. 407. This is a very strange assertion; for he proceeds to admit her ante-nuptial guilt, which indeed she is well known to have confessed, and does not give the slightest proof of any plot. Yet he adds, speaking of the queen and Lady Rochford: "I fear [i.e. wish to insinuate] both were sacrificed to the manes of Anne Boleyn.