[570] Ibid. p. 453.
[571] The disorder of which the king ultimately died—ulceration in the legs—had already begun to show itself.
[572] The lady, perhaps, to whom Norris was to have been married. Sir Edward Baynton makes an allusion to a Mistress Margery. The passage is so injured as to be almost unintelligible:—"I have mused much et ... of Mistress Margery, which hath used her ... strangely towards me of late, being her friend as I have been. But no doubt it cannot be but she must be of councell therewith. There hath been great friendship between the queen and her of late."—Sir E. Baynton to the Lord Treasurer: Singer, p. 458.
[573] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, pp. 452, 453. Of Smeton she said, "He was never in my chamber but at Winchester;" she had sent for him "to play on the virginals," for there her lodging was above the king's.... "I never spoke with him since," she added, "but upon Saturday before May day, 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 she said, 'You may not look to have me speak to you as I should to a nobleman, because you be an inferior person.'—'No, no, madam; a look sufficeth me [he said], and thus fare you well.'"—Singer, p. 455.
[574] Printed in Burnet, Vol. I. p. 322, et seq.
[575] "Mark is the worst cherished of any man in the house, for he wears irons."—Kingston to Cromwell. Later writers have assured themselves that Smeton's confession was extorted from him by promises of pardon. Why, then, was the government so impolitic as to treat him with especial harshness so early in the transaction? When he found himself "ironed," he must have been assured that faith would not be kept with him; and he had abundant time to withdraw what he had said.
[576] The sentence is mutilated, but the meaning seems intelligible: "The queen standeth stiffly in her opinion that she wo ... which I think is in the trust that she [hath in the] other two,"—i.e. Norris and Weston.—Baynton to the Lord Treasurer. The government seems to have been aware of some secret communication between her and Norris.—Ibid Singer, p. 458.
[577] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 457.
[578] My first impression of this letter was strongly in favour of its authenticity. I still allow it to stand in the text because it exists, and because there is no evidence, external or internal, to prove it to be a forgery. The more carefully I have examined the MS., however, the greater uncertainty I have felt about it. It is not an original. It is not an official copy. It does not appear, though here I cannot speak conclusively, to be even a contemporary copy. The only guide to the date is the watermark on the paper, and in this instance the evidence is indecisive.—Note to the 2d edition.
[579] Burnet's Collectanea, p. 87; Cotton. MS.