Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

for execution early on the following day. Rochford made no complaint. "I will do my best to be ready," said the young poet.

5. A dangerous spirit was abroad, of which the Savoyard took note. "There are very few who do not question and condemn the forms which have been used in trying and condemning these gentlemen," wrote Chapuys. "Strange words," he said, "are spoken of the King, and people will be more excited still when they hear of what has passed, and what is passing between the King and Mistress Jane." This dangerous spirit in the people led to one more effort to seduce the King's servant. Norreys was young in years; his family was rising in the world; and two sweet orphans clung about his heart. One word, and he was saved for them. In that dark moment, when to do the right thing seemed so costly, and the wrong thing seemed so profitable, might he not argue with himself, that since the Queen, however innocent, was lost to life, and since his honesty could now avail her nothing, he was bound to think of those poor children whom his death would leave to poverty, disgrace, and shame? But no such weakness of the flesh was found in Norreys. To the King's messenger he said, "The Queen is innocent; I am ready to die for what I say." Henry was enraged by this reply. "Ha, ha!" he cried, "hang him up then, hang him up!"

6. Efforts were made to snatch young Weston from his doom. The French ambassador begged for mercy in the name of his royal master. The young man's mother, dressed in the deepest mourning, flung

herself at the King's feet, and prayed for a reprieve. His young wife offered to give up every thing they had in the world-lands, houses and manorial rights, the appanage of a baron- if the King would spare his life. But Henry wanted a confession, not a sum of money, and he answered the broken-hearted women, "Let him hang, let him hang!"

7. Early on the morrow they were roused and told that they were all to die. The King had so far commuted the sentence, that the four gentlemen were to suffer by the axe and not the rope. A scaffold and a gallows were erected on Tower Hill, and these four gentlemen were conducted by a band of archers to what Father Carles, the French priest, calls "the Place of Sacrifice." Rochford was the first to die. They kissed the cross, embraced each other, and spake their last adieux. Rochford exhorted his friends to die nobly in their innocence. "Endure to the end," he said to the other three; "be of good cheer; the pain is brief; and by this passage you will come to God." They gathered closer round him. Each asked pardon of the other for any fault he might have committed. When Rochford turned aside to speak the last few words he had to say on earth, Norreys requested him to speak not only for himself, but for them all.

8. Unhappily, no report of Rochford's speech exists, beyond a version written by an imperialist, and sent to Italy, where it was printed by the Papal press. It is the version of an open enemy, and must be read between the lines. According to this enemy, Rochford, turning towards the people, said: "Masters all,

I am come hither, not to preach and make a sermon. The law hath found me guilty; to the law I submit me, and I shall die for the law. I desire you all, and specially you, my masters of the court, that you will trust on God specially, and not on the vanities of the world. Had I so done I think I had been alive as ye be now. Also, I desire you to help to the setting forth of the true word of God. And whereas I am slandered by it, I have been diligent to read it and set it forth truly; but if I had been as diligent to observe it, and done and lived thereafter, as I was to read it and set it forth, I had not come hereto. Wherefore I beseech you all to be workers, and to live thereafter; not to read it and live not thereafter. As for mine offences, it cannot prevail with you to hear what I die for; but I beseech God that I may be an example to you all, and that all you may beware by me. And heartily I require you all to pray for me, and to forgive me if I have offended you, and I forgive you all. And God save the King!" He merely added that he was innocent of all the charges brought against him and his sister; and with this avowal on his lips he laid down his head and died.

9. The three gentlemen stood by in silence, seeing him perish in his youth. Few words were spoken now. Brereton merely said that he had done many things for which he deserved to die; using that penitential language of his church which is the fitting utterance for a dying man. Weston said little; Norreys less. The hour for speech was past; the hour for deeds was come. They had already said

the Queen was innocent; and there they stood, two brave young gentlemen, to seal her innocence with their lives. One word against the Queen, and they were safe. They scorned to lie and live. Smeaton was kept apart, and fed with hope to the last moment. If another had succumbed, he might have been reprieved; but when the rest were gone, and not a word had been obtained to back his lie, they seized his neck and hung him like a dog.

CHAPTER VIII.

Divorce.

1536.

1. FROM her apartments, Anne could see the scaffold and the crowd of people, though she could not hear the speeches made; but messengers from about the headsman brought news to her from time to time. That one and all would die rather than accuse her, and betray their honour, was no more than she expected, and her passion rose to violence when she heard that Mark had passed away without having purged his soul. "Has he not cleared me of that public infamy?" The thing appeared to her incredible. To die and leave his lie behind him, was to cast his soul into the burning pit. In bitterness of heart she sighed, "I fear his soul is suffering for his false accusation." Turning to Wyat's sister, Margaret Lee, she said, "For my brother and those others who are gone, I doubt not but they are in the presence of that great King before whom I shall appear to-morrow."

2. Cranmer and Latimer had been with Anne in the Tower, and both were satisfied of her innocence; but Cranmer was an officer of state, a privy councillor, a primate, with official duties. The pretenders were not yet appeased; for nothing had been done to touch Elizabeth's title; and if Jane should have no son, Elizabeth was the legal heir. To kill the

« ZurückWeiter »