She was wondering what part George was supposed to have played in all this, and when Sir Christopher would get to the charges of conspiracy, when she heard his name.
“Also”—and here the Attorney General paused for effect—“that the Queen procured and incited her own natural brother, George Boleyn, knight, Lord Rochford, to violate her, alluring him with her tongue in the said George’s mouth, and the said George’s tongue in hers, and also with kisses, presents, and jewels, against the commands of Almighty God, and all laws human and divine. Whereby he, despising the commands of God, and all other human laws, violated and carnally knew the said Queen, his own sister.”
She could have died of shame. She was trembling so violently that she thought she would die. This was outrageous! It was bad enough that they had made her out to be the basest and most wanton monster, but they could not seriously be suggesting that she had bedded George? It was foul, abominable and sickening, and if her cheeks were flaming, it was because she was revolted by such filth.
“Not guilty!” Her voice rang out loudly.
But Sir Christopher had not finished. “Furthermore,” he continued, “the Queen and the other traitors compassed and imagined the King’s death; and the Queen frequently promised to marry one of the traitors whenever the King should depart this life, affirming she would never love the King in her heart.”
“Never!” she declared. “This is utter calumny.”
Sir Christopher, in full flight, was not to be deterred. “My lords, think of the effect of all this upon our sovereign lord the King. Having come only a short time ago to hear of these false and detestable crimes, vices, and treasons committed against himself, he has suffered such inward displeasure and heaviness that certain harms and perils have befallen his royal body, to the scandal, danger, and detriment of the heirs of the King and Queen.”
Henry was suffering? What about her, having all these vile, unjust accusations flung at her in public? It was hard to sit there patiently, listening to them, while trying to look like the innocent person she was. She felt dirty, sullied, almost as if she were guilty.
At last Sir Christopher stopped speaking. “You may answer the charges now, madam,” he told her.
It was important to stay calm and not protest too much, but this was the moment she had longed for. She looked around the hall at all the people staring at her expectantly. “I have never been false to the King,” she insisted. “I remember well that, on about half of the days on which I am charged with adultery, I was not even in the same house as the gentleman concerned, or I was with child, or had recently given birth. Ask your wives, my lords, what woman wants dalliance with a man at such a time?” There was a murmur of laughter. Good. She had some of them, at least, with her.
“But think: what does charging me with adultery on these dates imply?” she went on. “It is a foul slur on my issue with the King, a hint that he did not sire my children, and I find that shocking. Impugning the royal succession is treason—and in making these charges my accusers are guilty of it! And on at least one of the days I am supposed to have seduced my paramours, I knew myself to be under constant surveillance. My lords, I am not that much of a fool.” There was more laughter.
She waited until it had died down. “But now I must refute the serious charge of conspiring the death of the King. It is the most heinous of them all, and high treason of the first order. If I were guilty of it, then I should say that I deserved to die. But when I allegedly first plotted this treason, the Princess Dowager was yet alive, and what would it have availed me? For if the King had died then, there might well have been a rising in favor of the Lady Mary, or even civil war.” She paused to let that sink in. “What would it have profited me to kill my chief protector and ally myself in marriage with any of those men? None of them could have given me what the King gave me.”
She braced herself to go on. “As for the charge of incest, it is plain that my enemies have conjured it purely to arouse outrage and revulsion against me. And in regard to all the accusations of adultery, committing that crime would have been impossible without the connivance of the ladies waiting on me, who are witnesses to my private doings. And yet none have been charged with misprision of treason.” She looked defiantly around the court, gratified to hear some murmurs of assent. “Moreover,” she went on, emboldened, “I knew I stood in danger from my enemies. I could not have been more wary and wakeful, for I knew their eyes were everywhere upon me, and that their malicious hearts were bent on making some mischief where they found none. What half-wit would commit misconduct knowing they were so closely watched?”
The Attorney General and Cromwell stood up.
“Admit it, the charges are all justified,” Sir Christopher barked.
“I refute them utterly,” she insisted.
Cromwell spoke. “There was a promise, was there not, between you and Norris to marry after the King’s death, which you hoped for?”
“No, there was not.” She would not deign to look at him.
“You danced in your bedchamber with gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber?”
“I danced with them in my privy chamber, and my ladies were always present.”
“You were seen kissing your brother, Lord Rochford.”
“My lords, I do protest!” Anne cried. “Which of you have wives, sisters, and daughters who do not kiss their brothers from time to time?”
Cromwell ignored that. “You cannot deny that you wrote to your brother, informing him that you were with child?”
“Why should I not? I informed all my family. Since when has it been a crime?”
“Some might see it as proof that your brother had fathered your child.”
She responded to that with the contemptuous silence it merited, raising her eyebrows.
Sir Christopher returned to the attack. “You and your brother laughed at the King’s attire and made fun of his poetry.”
She would not deign to answer that either. They really were raking for muck.
“You showed in various ways that you did not love the King and were tired of him. My lords, is this not shocking conduct in a woman whom the King had honored by marrying her?” The lords nodded sagely.
“I love my lord the King, as I am by honor and inclination bound to do,” Anne protested in a loud voice. “I have maintained my honor and my chastity all my life long, as much as ever a queen did. This case you have constructed against me is nothing but calumny!”
That set many to murmuring, and she sensed that they were expressing doubts and suspicions in regard to the prosecution’s case. Some were looking at her and nodding approvingly.
“But your paramours have confessed.”
“Four of them pleaded not guilty,” she reminded them. “That leaves the wretch Smeaton. One witness is not enough to convict a person of high treason.”