pain. She replied, "I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck;" after which she laughed heartily. Sir William so much misunderstood this laughter, which was doubtless of the same morbid and idiotic character as all the previous cases, that he supposes her to have had "much joy and pleasure in death," which is a mere misconstruction of the case. Even in the very act of dying she could not check her smiling, which assuredly was as morbid in its quality and origin, as what of old was known as “risus sardonicus."

public career. Apparently she lost the William assured her "it should be no king's favor almost in the very opening pain, it was so subtle;" meaning that the of her married life. But in what way? stroke of a sword by a powerful arm, apNot, we are persuaded, through the king's plied to a slender neck, could not meet caprice. There was hardly time for cap-resistance enough to cause any serious rice to have operated; and her declension in favor from that cause would have been gradual. Time there was none for her beauty to decay-neither had it decayed. We are disposed to think that in a very early stage of her intercourse with the king, she had irritated the king by one indication of mental imbecility rarely understood even amongst medical men -namely, the offensive habit of laughing profusely without the least sense of any thing ludicrous or comic. Oxford, or at least one of those who shot at the Queen, was signally distinguished by this habit. Without reason or pretext, he would break Carrying along with us, therefore, a reout into causeless laughter, not connected membrance of this repulsive habit, which with any impulse that he could explain. argues a silliness so constitutional, and With this infirmity Anne Boleyn was noting also the obstinate (almost it might plagued in excess. On the 2d of May, be called the brutal) folly with which du1536, the very first day on which she was ring the last, seventeen days of her life, made aware of the dreadful accusations she persisted in criminating herself, volunhanging over her good name and her life, teering a continued rehearsal of conversaon being committed to the Tower, and tions the most profligate, under a mere taken by Sir William Kingston, the go- instinct of gossiping, we shall begin to vernor, to the very same chambers in comprehend the levity which no doubt which she had lain at the period of her must have presided in her conversations coronation, she said, "It" (meaning the with the king. Too evidently in a court suite of rooms) "is too good for me; but recently emerging from barbarism, Jesu, have mercy on me;" next she there was a shocking defect of rules or kneeled down, “weeping a great space." fixed ceremonial for protecting the dignity Such are Sir William's words; immediate- of the queen and of her female attendants. ly after which he adds, "and in the same The settlement of any such rules devolved sorrow fell into a great laughing." A day upon the queen herself, in default of any or two later than this, she said, "Master traditional system; and unhappily here Kingston, shall I die without justice?" was a queen without sense, without pru-meaning, it seems, would she be put to dence, without native and sexual dignity death without any judicial examination of for suggesting or upholding such restraints, her case; upon which Sir William replied, and whose own breeding and experience "The poorest subject the king hath, had had been purely French. Strange it was justice" - meaning, that previously to that the king's good sense, or even his such an examination of his case, he could jealousy, had not peremptorily enjoined, not by regular course of justice be put to as a caution of mere decency, the constant death. Such was the question of the presence of some elderly matrons, uniting prisoner-such was the answer of the rank and station with experience and king's representative. What occasion good sense. But not the simplest guaranwas here suggested for rational laughter? tees for ordinary decorum were apparentAnd yet laughter was her sole comment. ly established in the royal household. "Therewith," says Sir William, "she laughed." On May 18, being the day next before that of her execution, she said, "Master Kingston, I hear say I shall not die afore noon; and I am very sorry therefor, for I thought to be dead by this time, and past my pain." Upon this Sir

Änd the shocking spectacle was daily to be seen, of a young woman, singularly beautiful, atrociously silly, and without common self-respect, styling herself Queen of England, yet exacting no more respect or homage than a housemaid, suffering young men, the most licentious in all

England, openly to speculate on the con- | upon the vile society of young libertines. tingency of her husband's death, to talk Two of these-Sir Henry Norris and Sir of it in language the coarsest, as "waiting Francis Weston-had been privileged for dead men's shoes," and bandying to friends of the king. But no restraints, of and fro the chances that this man or that friendship or of duty had checked their man, according to the whim of the morn- designs upon the queen. Either special ing, should have her," or should not words, or special acts, had been noticed "have her"-that is, have the reversion and reported to the king. Thenceforward of the queen's person as a derelict of the a systematic watch had been maintained king. All this, though most injurious to upon all parties. Discoveries more shockher prospects, was made known by Anne ing than any body looked for had been Boleyn herself to her female companions made. The guilty parties had been carewho were appointed to watch her revela- less; blind themselves, they thought all tions in prison. And certainly no cham- others blind; but, during the April of bermaid ever rehearsed her own collo- 1536, the Privy Council had been activequies with these vile profligates in a style ly engaged in digesting and arranging the of thinking more abject than did at this information received. period the female majesty of England. Listening to no accuser, but simply to the unsolicited revelations of the queen herself, as she lay in bed amongst her female attendants in the Tower, every man of sense becomes aware, that if these presumptuous young libertines abstained from daily proposals to the queen of the most criminal nature, that could arise only from the reserve and suspicion incident to a state of rivalship, and not from any deference paid to the queen's personal pretensions, or to her public cha

racter.

Three years, probably one half of that term, had seen the beginning, the decay, and the utter extinction of the king's affection for Anne. It is known now, and at the time it had furnished a theme for conjecture, that very soon after his marriage the king manifested uneasiness, and not long after angry suspicions, upon matters connected with the queen. We have no doubt, that she herself, whilst seeking to amuse the king with fragments of her French experiences, had, through mere oversight and want of tact, unintentionally betrayed the risks to which her honor had been at times exposed. Without presence of mind, without inventive talent or rapidity of artifice, she would often compromise herself, and overshoot her momentary purposes of furnishing amusement to the king. He had heard too much. He believed no longer in her purity. And very soon, as a natural consequence, she ceased to interest him. The vague wish to get rid of her would for some time suggest no hopeful devices towards such a purpose. For some months, apparently, he simply neglected her. This neglect unhappily it was that threw her unprotected

On May-day, the most gladsome day in the whole year, according to the usages of that generation, the dreadful news transpired of the awful accusations and the impending trials. Smeton, a musician, was the only person not of gentlemanly rank among the accused. He was accused of adultery with the queen; and he confessed the offense, never retracting that part of his confession. In discussing the probabilities of the case, it is necessary to use special and extraordinary caution. The confession, for instance, of Anne herself has been treated as hollow and unmeaning; because, it is alleged, the king's promise of indulgence and favor to her infant daughter was purchased under the condition of confession. It is clear that such a traffic would not have been available except in special and exceptional cases. As to Smeton, he did not at all meet the king's expectations, except as to the one point of confessing the adultery. Consequently, as he was quite disinterested, had nothing at all to gain, and did gain nothing by his confession, him we are obliged to believe. On the other hand, the non-confession of some amongst the gentlemen, if any there were that steadfastly adhered to this non-confession, proves nothing at all; since they thought it perfidy to confess such a case against a woman. Meantime, Constantyne, a known friend of Sir H. Norris and Sir W. Brereton, two of the four gentlemen accused, declares that, for himself, being a Protestant, and knowing the queen's secret leaning to that party, he and all other "friends of the gospel" could not bring themselves to believe that the queen had behaved so abominably. "As I may be saved before God,” he says, "I could not believe it, afore I

be too atrocious an outrage upon truth and natural justice for human nature to tolerate. The very stones would mutiny against such a calumny coming as a crown or crest to other injuries separately unendurable, if they could once be regarded as injuries at all. Under these circumstances, what should we think of a call upon Lord Berkshire, the very father of Anne Boleyn, to sit as one of the judges upon the cases? Not, indeed, upon the cases of his son and his daughter; from such Roman trials of fortitude he was excused; but on the other cases he was required to officiate as one of the judges. And, in fact, the array of rank and splendor, as exhibited in the

heard them speak at their death. But on the scaffold, in a manner all confessed, unless Norris; and as to him, what he said amounted to nothing." The truth is, there occurred in the cases of these gentlemen a dreadful struggle. The dilemma for them was perhaps the most trying upon record. Gallantry and manly tenderness forbade any man's confessing, for a certain result of ruin to a woman, any treasonable instances of love which she had shown to him. Yet, on the other hand, to deny was to rush into the presence of God with a lie upon their lips. Hence the unintelligible character of their final declarations. Smeton, as no gentleman, was hanged. All the other four-persons of those who composed the court, Norris, Brereton, Weston, and Rochford were beheaded. The four gentlemen and Smeton suffered all on the same daynamely, Wednesday, the 17th of May. Of all the five, Sir W. Brereton was the only one whose guilt was doubted. Yet he was the most emphatic in declaring his own guilt. If he could die a thousand deaths, he said, all would be deserved.

surpassed any thing previously known in Englrnd. On the part of the crown, it was too keenly felt that the deep personal interest of the king, in obtaining liberty to form a new marriage connection with Jane Seymour, would triumphantly outweigh all the justice that ever could be arrayed against the two Boleyns. Nothing could win a moment's audience for the royal cause, except an unparalleled and matchless splendor in the composition of the court. This, therefore, was secured. Pretty nearly the whole peerage of that period was embattled upon the bench of judges.

But the crime of all the rest seemed pale by the side of Rochford's. He had been raised to the peerage by Henry as an expression of his kindness to the Boleyn family. He was the brother of Anne; and whilst the others had offended by simple adultery with Anne, his crime was inces- Meantime, the tragedy, so far as the tuous adultery; and his dying words ap-queen is concerned, took a turn which conpeared (to the auditors)" if not," says Mr. Froude, "a confession, yet something too nearly resembling it."

From such dreadful offenses, all readers are glad to hurry away; yet in one respect this awful impeachment has a reconciling effect. No reader after this wishes for further life to Anne. For her own sake it is plain that through death must lie the one sole peaceful solution of her unhappy and erring life. Some people have most falsely supposed that the case against the brother and sister, whatever might be pronounced upon the four other cases, labored under antecedent improbabilities so great as to vitiate, or to load with suspicion, the entire case of the Privy Council. But, on the contrary, the shocking monstrosity of the charge strengthens the anti-Boleyn impeachment. As a means for getting rid of Anne, the Rochford case was not at all needed. If it could even in dreams be represented as false, the injury offered to the Boleyns, whilst quite superfluous for any purpose of Henry's, would

victs all parties of a blunder; of a blunder the most needless and superfluous. This blunder was exposed by Bishop Burnet about a hundred and fifty years later, but most insufficiently exposed; and to this hour it has not been satisfactorily cleared up.

Let us pursue the arrears of the case. The four gentlemen, together with Mark Smeton, were executed (as we have seen) on Wednesday, the 17th of May, 1536. Two days later Queen Anne Boleyn was brought out at noonday upon the verdant lawn within the Tower, and with very slight ceremonies she suffered decapitation. A single cannon-shot proclaimed to London and Westminster the final catastrophe of this unhappy romance. Anne had offered not one word of selfvindication on this memorable occasion; and, if her motive to so signal a forbearance were really consideration for the interests of her infant daughter, it must be granted that she exhibited, in the farewell act of her life, a grandeur of self-conquest which no man could have anticipated. For

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this act she has never received the homage | of that blunder, and the legal relations of which she deserved; whilst, on the other those consequences, were not immediately What convinces us of this is, hand, praise most unmerited has been discerned. given for three centuries to the famous that the first impulse of the king and his letter of self-defense which she is reputed advisers, upon discovering through a secret to have addressed to the king at the open- communication made by Anne the exising of her trial. This letter, beyond all tence of a pre-contract, and the consequent doubt a forgery, was first brought into vitiation of her marriage with the king, effectual notice by the "Spectator" some- had been, to charge upon Anne a new and where about 1710; and, whether authen- scandalous offense. Not until they had tic or not, is most injudiciously composed. taken time to review the case, did they It consists of five paragraphs, each one of become aware of the injustice that had which is pulling distractedly in contradic- been perpetrated by their own precipitance and as this was past all reparation, tory directions. probably it was agreed amongst the few who were parties to the fatal oversight, that the safest course was to lock up the secret in darkness. But it is singular to watch the fatality of error which pursued this ill-starred marriage. Every successive critic, in exposing the errors of his predecessor, has himself committed some fresh blunder. Bishop Burnet, for instance, first of all in a Protestant age indicated the bloody mistakes of papal lawyers in 1536; not meaning at all to describe these mistakes as undetected by those who were answerable for them. Though hushed up, they were evidently known to their unhap py authors. Next upon Burnet, down comes "the queen was Mr. Froude. Burnet had shaped his criticism thus: "If," he says, not married to the king, there was no adultery." Certainly not. But, says Mr. Froude, Burnet forgets that she was condemned for conspiracy and incest, as well as for adultery. Then thirdly come we, and reverting to this charge of forgetfulness upon Burnet, we say, Forgets! but how was he bound to remember? The conspiracy, the incest, the adultery, all alike vanish from the record exactly as the character of wife vanishes from Anne. With any or all of these crimes Henry had no right to intermeddle. They were the crimes of one who never had borne any legal relation to him; crimes, therefore, against her own conscience, but not against the king in any character that he was himself willing permanently to assume.

Meantime, that or any other act of Anne Boleyn's was superseded by a fatal discovery, which changed utterly the relations of all parties, which in effect acquited Anne of treason, and which summarily rehabilitated as untainted subjects of the king those five men who had suffered death in the character of traitors. The marriage of Anne to the king, it was suddenly discovered, had from the beginning been void. It is true that we have long ceased to accredit those objections from pre-contracts, etc., which in the papal courts would be held to establish a nullity. But we are to proceed by the laws as then settled. Grounds of scruple, which would now raise at most a mere case of irregularity, at that time, unless met ab initio by a papal dispensation, did legally constitute a flaw such as even a friendly pope could not effectually cure; far less that angry priest, blazing up with wrath, and at intervals meditating an interdict, who at present occupied the chair of St. Peter. Here was a discovery to make, after so much irreparable injustice had been already perpetrated! If (which is too certain) under the marriage laws then valid, Anne Boleyn never had been the lawful wife of Henry, then, as Bishop Burnet suddenly objected when too late by one hundred and fifty years, what became of the adultery imputed to Anne, and the five young courtiers? Not being the king's wife, both she was incapable in law of committing adultery as against the king, and by an inevitable consequence they were incapable of participating in a crime which she was incapable of committing.

When was this fatal blunder detected? Evidently before any of the victims had And the become cold in their graves. probability is that, when the blunder was first perceived, the dreadful consequences

On this particular section of Henry's reign, the unhappy episode of his second wife, Mr. Froude has erred by insufficient rigor of justice. Inclined to do more justice than is usually done to the king, and not blind to the dissolute character of Anne, he has yet been carried, by the pity inalienable from the situation, to concede