intrigue on the sixth day of October! Yet the first of Audley's charges paled in infamy before his second. Anne was delivered of a dead son in January 1536; yet Audley's indictment was made to charge her with adultery and incest in the previous November!

2. Audley's theory being that 'conspiracy to compass and imagine the King's death' had taken place in Kent and Middlesex, grand juries were summoned at Deptford and Westminster. These juries found true bills: grand juries always found true bills. On such occasions no investigation of the facts took place. No counsel was employed; no witnesses were heard. Laying a statement before his panel, Hales, the Attorney-general, asked the jurors to declare that if such and such facts were true the case was one for trial. That was all the finding of a grand jury ever meant. Whether the facts were true or false was matter for the courts and petty juries to decide. No one appeared for the accused, nor was any one allowed to speak in their behalf. Audley's juries met, and found his bills on the tenth and eleventh days of May. Norfolk and Suffolk, Exeter and Montagu, were now ready for that open trial' which the Queen demanded in the name of justice; ready to answer by their presence on the bench, her prayer that her accusers might not also be her 'judges!'

3. Next morning, Friday, May the twelfth, Audley took his seat in a court erected in Westminster Hall. Norfolk and Suffolk sat beside him, and the

other peers were on his right and left. Wiltshire received a royal order to attend, which he obeyed in silence. Those who had meant to crush him were deceived. Anne's father was a masculine version of herself. For many years he had been thinking of his end, and length of days seemed less to him than to almost any other man on earth. Erasmus had not written for him in vain his noble treatise on the Preparation for Death. If death were now to come, by either sudden stroke or lingering pain, Wiltshire and his children were prepared to die.

4. The three knights and the musician were brought into the dock. Hales read the charge. Each of the four prisoners was aware that he had but one hope of life, which was to turn King's evidence, and vilify the Queen. Yet no one save the varlet stooped to shame. Norreys, Brereton, Weston, each denied the charge according to their pleas. Neither the King's favourite, nor the bronzed warrior, nor the petulant youth, had done any wrong. They had not conspired amongst themselves. They had never compassed and imagined the King's death. Smeaton, while he stuck to the confession made at Greenwich in his spasm of wounded vanity, and in his fear of a gibbet, denied that he had ever conspired with his fellow-prisoners, or that he had ever sought to compass and imagine the King's death. No evidence was given, except the chatter of a woman who was dead! Hales pressed for judgment, and the court being wholly on his side, the usual

sentences in case of treason were pronounced. The prisoners were to be drawn to Tyburn, to be there hung by the neck, to be then cut down alive, to have their bowels torn out and burnt, to have their bodies quartered, and their heads chopped off. Yet neither before nor after sentence would any of the three brave gentlemen say one word against their innocent Queen.

5. Chapuys was deeply mortified. He had been led to think that either something could be proved, or some one would be got to strengthen the indictment by confession of a fault. His hopes were dashed to pieces. Standing by itself, the evidence of Smeaton had no weight. A queen could not have had a love-affair with such a man without the women in her chamber and the gentlemen in her ante-room being well aware of it. Yet no one from her chamber was produced against these gentlemen, who stood so firmly on their innocence. The varlet, sire, is the only one that has confessed,' wrote Chapuys to his master, in a tone of deep vexation; 'the others are condemned on mere presumptions and suggestions, without a word of proof.'

On

6. So the matter stood on Friday night. Monday, Anne was to be tried; and not a word of evidence beyond the varlet's lies was yet in Audley's hands. Hales' industry had only scraped some proof that Anne had once been seen to kiss her brother, that she and her ladies had danced with the gentlemen of her chamber, and that she had told some

members of her family that she hoped to bear a

Such stuff could hardly be presented in a court of justice, in a case of life and death, against a reigning Queen. Another effort, therefore, must be made with Norreys. If the King's favourite would turn against the Queen, men's minds might be perplexed by doubts, and what was otherwise a case of murder might become a topic for dispute. A messenger was therefore sent to Norreys, with an offer of the King's forgiveness if he would accuse the Queen. In my conscience,' said the prisoner, nobly just, even in the pain of his preparation for the scaffold, 'I believe her innocent of the things laid to her charge; but whether she is or not, I can accuse her of nothing wrong, and rather than ruin an innocent woman, I would die a thousand deaths.'

CHAPTER VI.

SENTENCE.

1536.

1. In such a situation, two extraordinary measures had to be adopted by the council. Strong as the pretenders were at court, they dared not bring the Queen to Westminster, and try her in the open day, before the English peers. Chapuys was afraid of failure. Henry gave orders that his consort should be tried in the Tower, instead of in Westminster Hall and by a picked committee of peers, instead of by the house. Thus, her prayer that she might have a lawful trial, and that her accusers might not be her judges, was refused.

2. Norfolk was allowed to choose her judges from the foremost ranks of her accusers. Next to himself, he named Suffolk and Exeter, Montagu, Rutland and Huntingdon. All these peers were, either in their own persons or in those of their children, claimants for the crown. Dorset was under age; but he was represented on the bench of judges by his father-inlaw, Suffolk, by his brother-in-law, Audeley, by his uncle, Arundel, and by his cousins, Powis and Mal