[66] The Lord Mayor, who was at the arraignment of Queen Anne Boleyn, afterwards said that he “could not observe anything in the proceedings against her, but that they were resolved to make an occasion to get rid of her”—thus corroborating the opinions of Sir Thomas Wyatt and other witnesses.
[67] When quite a lad, the Duke married the Princess Anne Plantagenet, youngest daughter of Edward IV and sister to Queen Elizabeth of York. By this royal alliance he became uncle-by-marriage to Henry VIII. Anne, Duchess of Norfolk, died of consumption in 1512, and shortly afterwards her widower married again.
[68] This lady was the second daughter of the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham, who was executed on a public charge of combined sorcery and treason, in the first years of Henry VIII’s reign.
[69] Elizabeth Holland was the daughter of John Holland of Redenhall, Norfolk, chief steward and afterwards secretary to the Duke of Norfolk. Her mother was a Hussey, niece of Lord Hussey of Sleaford, beheaded for the part he took in the Pilgrimage of Grace.
[70] Sir John Seymour, father of Queen Jane, was a man of note in his day. He was born in 1474, and was a doughty soldier, fighting well at the sieges of Terouenne and Tournay, and at the Battle of the Spurs. On his return to England he was appointed Sheriff of Wells, Dorset, and Somersetshire. In 1515 he obtained the Constableship of Bristol Castle. His wife, Margery Wentworth, was the daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlestead, Suffolk, whose grandfather married a granddaughter of Hotspur (Henry Percy), and was thus descended from Edward III. Sir John Seymour died in 1517.
[71] Realising the suddenness of their rise to power, Hayward says of the Seymour brothers (Life of Edward VI, p. 82) that “their new lustre did dim the light of men honoured with ancient nobility.”
[72] Little is known of William Pickering except that he was a boon companion of Lord Surrey. See Courtships of Queen Elizabeth by Martin Hume.
[73] Holbein’s fine sketch of Lady Surrey shows her to have been distinctly “homely” but extremely intelligent-looking.
[74] An examination of the Privy Papers shows that Surrey was originally brought before the Council on a charge of eating flesh on days of abstinence—a grave offence, and one against the law, but at that period of frequent occurrence, since no less than nine joiners had been a few days previously arrested and severely reprimanded, and even heavily fined, for the offence of eating meat in public on Friday. Surrey pleaded guilty, but in extenuation declared he had received an ecclesiastical dispensation. With regard to the second charge, of riotous conduct, he declared himself deserving of punishment, but threw himself on the mercy of the Court, alleging, in extenuation of his misdemeanour, his youth and hot-blooded disposition. He is said to have written an abject apology; but, though the letter is extant, it is not in his handwriting, and may therefore be a forgery. The occurrence took place on the night of 21st January 1544.
[75] M. Edmond Bapst, Vie de Deux Gentilhommes Poètes du Temps de Henri VIII.