t proves
that a foreigner then in England believed the queen innocent, and that
she defended herself with an eloquence which deeply touched her hearers.
His further assertion, that "Smeton's confession was all which was
alleged" against her, is certainly inaccurate; and his complaint, which
has been so often echoed, of the absence of witnesses, implies only a
want of knowledge of the forms which were observed in trials for high
treason. The witnesses were not brought into court and confronted with
the prisoner: their depositions were taken on oath before the grand
juries and the privy council, and on the trial were read out for the
accused to answer as they could.

[595] Two grand juries, the petty jury, and the twenty-seven peers.

[596] Constantyne's _Memor., Archaeol._, Vol. XXIII. pp. 63-66.
Constantyne was an attendant of Sir Henry Norris at this time, and a
friend and school-fellow of Sir W. Brereton. He was a resolute
Protestant, and he says that at first he and all other friends of the
gospel were unable to believe that the queen had behaved so abominably.
"As I may be saved before God," he says, "I could not believe it, afore
I heard them speak at their death." ... But on the scaffold, he adds,
"In a manner all confessed but Mr. Norris, who said almost nothing at
all."

[597] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 459.

[598] _The Pilgrim_: Appendix, p. 116.

[599] Kingston to Cromwell; and see Constantyne's _Memorial_.

[600] "Now of late, God, of his infinite goodness, from whom no secret
things can be hid, hath caused to be brought to light, evident and open
knowledge of certain just, true, and lawful impediments, unknown at the
making of the said acts [by which the marriage had been declared
legitimate], and since that time confessed by the Lady Anne, by the
which it plainly appeareth that the said marriage was never good nor
consonant to the laws."--28 Henry VIII. cap. 7. See also the appendix to
the fourth volume of this work.

[601] Vol. I. pp. 175, 176.

[602] On the day on which she first saw the archbishop, she said, at
dinner, that she expected to be spared, and that she would retire to
Antwerp.--to Cromwell: Singer, p. 460.

[603] Burnet raises a dilemma here. If, he says, the queen was not
married to the king, there was no adultery; and the sentence of death
and the sentence of divorce mutually neutralize each other. It is
possible that in the general horror at so complicated a delinquency, th