The king, before putting his wife to death, desired to perform an act not less cruel: he was determined to annul his marriage with Anne, notwithstanding Northumberland's denials. Did he wish to avoid the reproach of causing his wife to perish by the hands of the executioner? or, in a fit of anger, did he desire to strike the queen on all sides at once? We cannot tell. Be that as it may, the king in his wrath did not see that he was contradicting himself; that if there was no marriage between him and Anne, there could be no adultery, and that the sentence, based on this crime, was ex facto null. Cranmer, the most unfortunate, but perhaps not the least guilty of all the lords who lent themselves servilely to the despotic wishes of the prince—Cranmer believed (as it appears) that the position of the queen would thus become better; that her life would be saved, if she could no longer be regarded as having been Henry's wife. This excuses, although slightly, his great weakness. He told the unhappy lady that he was commissioned to find the means of declaring null and void the ties which united her to the king. Anne, stunned by the sentence pronounced upon her, was also of opinion that it was an expedient invented by some relics of Henry's regard, to rescue her from the bitterness of death. Her heart opened to hope, and imagining that she would only be sent into banishment, she formed a plan of returning to the continent. 'I will go to Antwerp,' she said at dinner, with an almost happy look.[336] She knew that she would meet with protestants in that city, who would receive her with joy. But vain hope! In the very letter wherein the governor of the Tower reports this ingenuous remark of the queen, he asks for the king's orders as to the construction of the scaffold.[337] Henry desired personally to order the arrangement of those planks which he was about to stain with innocent blood.
About nine o'clock in the forenoon of the 17th of May the lord-chancellor, the duke of Suffolk, the earl of Essex (Cromwell), the earl of Sussex, with several doctors and archdeacons entered the chapel at Lambeth.[338] The archbishop having taken his seat, and the objections made against the marriage of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn having been read, the proctors of the king and of the queen admitted them, and the primate declared the marriage to be null and void. The queen was not present, as some historians have thought.
=DELIGHT OF THE POPE.=
On the very day of Anne Boleyn's divorce, Da Casale, the English envoy at Rome, having heard of the queen's imprisonment, hurried to the pontifical palace to inform Paul III. of the good news.[339] 'I have never ceased praying to heaven for this favor,' said the pope with delight, 'and I have always hoped for it. Now his majesty may accomplish an admirable work for the good of Christendom. Let the king become reconciled with Rome, and he will obtain from the king of France all that he can wish for. Let us be friends. I will send him a nuncio for that purpose. When the news of cardinal Fisher's death reached Rome,' he continued, recollecting that terrible bull, 'it is true I found myself driven to a measure somewhat severe ... but I never intended to follow up my words by deeds.' Thus, according to the pope and his adherents, the imprisonment of Anne Boleyn was to reconcile England and Rome. This fact points to one of the causes which made Norfolk and other catholics enter into the conspiracy against her.
On the same day also (17th of May), towards evening, the queen learnt that the sentence would assuredly be carried out. Although it was declared that she had never been the king's wife, the doom pronounced upon her for adultery must nevertheless be accomplished. This is what Henry VIII. called administering justice.
=ANNE ASKS MARY'S PARDON.=
Anne desired to take the Lord's Supper, and asked to be left alone. About two hours after midnight the chaplain arrived; but, before partaking of the holy rite, there was one thing she wished to do. One fault weighed heavily on her heart. She felt that she had sinned against queen Catherine by consenting to marry the king. Her conscience reproached her with having injured the princess Mary. It filled her with the deepest sorrow, and she was eager, before she died, to make reparation to the daughter of the woman whose place she had taken. Anne would have liked to see Mary, to fall a queen at her feet, and implore her pardon; but alas! she could not: she was only to leave the prison for the scaffold. Resolved, however, to confess her fault, she did so in a striking manner, which showed all the sincerity of her repentance and her firm determination to humble herself before Catherine's daughter. She begged Lady Kingston, the wife of the constable of the Tower, who had little regard for her, to take her seat in the chair of state. When the latter objected, Anne compelled her, and kneeling before her, she said, all the while crying bitterly: 'I charge you—as you would answer before God—to go in my name to the princess Mary, to fall down before her as I do now before you, and ask her forgiveness for all the wrongs I have done her. Until that is done,' she added, 'my conscience will have no rest.'[340] At the moment when she was about to appear before the throne of God, she wished to make reparation for a fault that weighed heavily upon her heart. 'In that,' she said, 'I wish to do what a Christian ought.' This touching incident leads us to hope that if, during life, Anne was simply an honest protestant, trusting too much to her own works, the trial had borne fruit and had made her a true Christian. But of this she was to give a still more striking proof.
As she rose from her knees, Anne felt more calm and prepared to receive the sacrament. Before taking it, she once more declared her innocence of the crime imputed to her. The governor was present, and he did not fail to inform Cromwell of this declaration, made as it were in the presence of God. Anne had found in Christ's death new strength to endure her own: she sighed after the moment that would put an end to her sorrows. Contrary to her expectation, she was told that the execution was put off until the afternoon. 'Mr. Kingston,' she said, 'I hear that I am not to die this afternoon, and I am very sorry for it; for I thought by this time to be dead and past my pain.'—'Madam,' replied the governor, 'you will feel no pain, the blow will be so sharp and swift.'—'Yes,' resumed Anne, 'I have heard say that the headsman is very clever,' and then she added: 'and I have but a little neck,' putting her hand about it and smiling.[341] Kingston left the room.
Meanwhile the devout adherents of the Roman primacy were full of exultation, and allowed the hopes to appear which Anne's death raised in their bosoms. 'Sire,' they told the king, 'the tapers placed round the tomb of queen Catherine suddenly burst into flame of their own accord.'[342] They concluded, from this prodigy, that Roman-catholicism was once more about to shed its light on England. The priests were eager to chant their Deo gratias, and a report was circulated that this new victory over the Reformation was going to be inaugurated by hanging a group of heretics along with Anne.[343] Neither friends nor enemies drew any real distinction between the cause of Anne and the cause of protestantism; and many evangelical Christians, imagining that when Anne was dead there would be no one to protect them any longer, prepared to quit the kingdom.
Henry, however, keenly desiring to have if it were but one word from Anne that would exculpate him, sent some one to her with a commission to sound her, and to discover whether the hope of escaping death would not induce her to satisfy him. Anne replied, and they were the last words she addressed to the king: 'Commend me to his majesty, and tell him that he has ever been constant in his career of advancing me. From a private gentlewoman he made me a marchioness, from a marchioness a queen; and now that he has no higher degree of honor left, he gives my innocence the crown of martyrdom.'[344] The gentleman went and reported this noble farewell to his master. Even the jailer bore testimony to the peace and joy which filled Anne Boleyn's heart at this solemn moment. 'I have seen men and also women executed,' wrote Kingston to Cromwell, 'and they have been in great sorrow; but to my knowledge this lady has much joy and pleasure in death.'[345]