t the evidence which convinced that jury, we have the
evidence that they were, or professed to be, convinced.

[Sidenote: The Duke of Norfolk is named Lord High Steward.]

The queen and her brother were to be tried on the following Monday.
Their crime was not adultery only, but was coloured with the deeper
stain of incest. On the Friday, while the other prisoners were at the
bar, "Letters patent were addressed to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk,
Treasurer and Earl Marshal of England, setting forth that the Lady Anne,
Queen of England, and Sir George Boleyn, knight, Lord Rochfort, had been
indicted of certain capital crimes; and that the king, considering that
justice was a most excellent virtue, and pleasing to the Most Highest;
and inasmuch as the office of High Steward of England, whose presence
for the administration of the law in this case is required, was vacant,
the king therefore appointed the said duke Lord High Steward of England,
with full powers to receive the indictments found against Queen Anne and
the Lord Rochfort, and calling them before him, for the purpose of
hearing and examining them, and compelling them to answer thereto." The
duke was to collect also "such and so many lords, peers, and magnates of
the kingdom of England, peers of the said Queen Anne and Lord Rochfort,
by whom the truth could be better known; and the truth being known, to
give judgment according to the laws and customs of England, and to give
sentence and judgment, and to direct execution, with the other usual
powers."[589] As a certain number only of the peers were summoned, it
may be imagined that some fraud was practised in the selection, and that
those only were admitted whose subserviency could be relied upon. I will
therefore give the names as before.

[Sidenote: List of peers summoned to try the queen and her brother.]

The two English Dukes, of Norfolk and Suffolk.[590] The one English
Marquis, of Exeter. The Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland (the
queen's early lover), Westmoreland, Derby, Worcester, Rutland, Sussex,
and Huntingdon all the earls in the peerage except four--those of
Shrewsbury, Essex, Cumberland, and Wiltshire. Why the first three were
omitted I do not know. Lord Wiltshire had already fulfilled his share of
the miserable duty; he was not compelled to play the part of Brutus, and
condemn, in person, his two children. The remaining peers were the Lords
Audeley, De la Ware, Montague, Morley, Dacre, Cobham, Malt