“In your case it is sufficient,” Cromwell said. “Besides, we have the witness depositions. Let them be read.”
They added nothing new to the Crown’s case, but Anne was deeply hurt to hear that Lady Worcester had testified to her alleged relations with George and Smeaton, and Lady Wingfield had confided to a friend that the Queen was a loose woman.
“But Lady Wingfield is dead,” Anne objected, “so her testimony can only be hearsay, which I believe is inadmissible as evidence. I repeat, everything you have alleged against me is untrue. I have committed no offense.”
The Attorney General looked at her as if she were speaking in a foreign tongue. “That concludes the case for the Crown,” he intoned. “My lords, will you consider your verdict?”
The lords nodded their assent, and began conferring with each other. Hardly able to bear the tension, Anne watched as several walked over to commune with their fellows on the other side of the hall. She searched their faces for some sign of what they were thinking, but it was impossible to tell. They were giving nothing away. Her mouth felt dry and her hands clammy. All she wanted now was for this ordeal to be over.
Eventually Suffolk signaled to Sir Christopher Hales.
“My lord of Surrey, I call upon you first to give your verdict,” the Attorney General said.
“Guilty!” Surrey declared.
“My lord of Suffolk?”
“Guilty!”
“My lord of Worcester?”
“Guilty!”
“My lord of Northumberland?”
Harry Percy stood up. His face was deathly pale, but his voice was strong. “Guilty!”
And then—what else had she expected?—every other earl and baron among them stood up, each in his turn, and said the same, until Sir Christopher came to her father, who looked like a broken man.
“My lord of Wiltshire?”
Father rose slowly to his feet. He was struggling to speak.
“My lord?”
“Guilty,” he muttered.
They had forced him to this, Anne knew, even as she was horrified that he had condemned her. He had bought his safety by betraying his children. That was more terrible to her than her own peril. And yet he had Mother to think of. He was salvaging what he could of his life—but he would have to live with what he had done.
Sir Christopher Hales was regarding Anne sternly. “Prisoner at the bar, you will stand to receive judgment.”
She stood up. Everything seemed unreal. She was barely aware of the speculative murmurs rippling along the benches.
Suffolk came to the bar and addressed her. “Madam, you must resign your crown into our hands.”
By that she knew the worst. She lifted the crown and gave it to him, aware that in this symbolic act she was ceremonially divesting herself of the trappings of her rank. All her power had come to this.
“I am innocent of having offended against His Grace,” she declared, but Suffolk remained impassive.
“In the name of the King, I degrade you from your title of lady marquess,” he proclaimed.
“I give it up willingly to my lord my husband who conferred it,” she replied, aware that the title of queen had not been mentioned. They could not take that away—at least, not now. It was hers under the Act of Succession, which had named her Queen by statutory right, not just by right of marriage to the King.
A hush descended as Norfolk sat up straight in his chair. She was astonished to see tears streaming down his cheeks. No doubt they were for his family’s lost honor and status, and the jeopardizing of his own career by this scandal, rather than for her.
He fixed his martinet gaze on her. “Because you have offended against our sovereign lord the King’s Grace in committing treason against his person, the law of the realm is this, that you have deserved death; and your judgment is this: that you shall be burned at the stake here within the Tower of London on the Green, or you will have your head smitten off, according to the King’s pleasure.”
There was a shriek from the back of the stands, and Anne glimpsed Mrs. Orchard in a state of unspeakable distress. The justices were muttering indignantly, clearly unhappy about the sentence. “It should be one thing or the other,” she heard one say. “It is unfair on the prisoner.” Norfolk glared at him. Suddenly Harry Percy slumped in his chair, apparently unconscious. The lords nearby moved to help, and ushers came hastening to carry him out. Had it been too much for him, knowing that the girl he had once loved was the woman he had just condemned to a terrible death?
They were waiting for her to speak now. She still felt calm. She could not connect these dread events to herself. It was as if the whole trial had taken place in a dream. She looked down at her skirts, wondering if they would expect her to go royally garbed to her burning. What a waste of good clothes that would be.
And then the awful realization of what lay in store for her sank in.
“O Father, O Creator, Thou who art the way, the life, and the truth knoweth whether I have deserved this death,” she cried out, raising her eyes to Heaven. She looked desperately at her judges. “My lords, I will not say your sentence is unjust, nor presume that my defense can prevail against your convictions. I am willing to believe that you have sufficient reasons for what you have done; but they must be other than those which have been produced in court, for I am clear of all the offenses laid to my charge. I have ever been a faithful wife to the King, though I do not say I have always shown him that humility which his goodness to me merited. I confess I have had jealous fancies and suspicions of him, which I had not discretion and wisdom enough to conceal at all times.”