ected her when she should be a widow: she had reproved
Weston, she said, for his affection to a kinswoman of hers, and his
indifference towards his wife; but he told her that she had mistaken
the object of his affection, for it was herself; upon which she defied
him.[*] She affirmed that Smeton had never been in her chamber but
twice, when he played on the harpsichord; but she acknowledged that
he had once had the boldness to tell her that a look sufficed him. The
king, instead of being satisfied with the candor and sincerity of her
confession, regarded these indiscretions only as preludes to greater and
more criminal intimacies.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 198.

** Strype, vol. i. p. 281.

Of all those multitudes whom the beneficence of the queen's tamper had
obliged during her prosperous fortune, no one durst interpose between
her and the king's fury; and the person whose advancement every breath
had favored, and every countenance had smiled upon, was now left
neglected and abandoned. Even her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, preferring
the connections of party to the ties of blood, was become her most
dangerous enemy; and all the retainers to the Catholic religion hoped
that her death would terminate the king's quarrel with Rome, and leave
him again to his natural and early bent, which had inclined him to
maintain the most intimate union with the apostolic see. Cranmer alone,
of all the queen's adherents, still retained his friendship for her;
and, as far as the king's impetuosity permitted him, he endeavored to
moderate the violent prejudices entertained against her.

The queen herself wrote Henry a letter from the Tower, full of the most
tender expostulations and of the warmest protestations of innocence.[*]
[10] This letter had no influence on the unrelenting mind of Henry, who
was determined to pave the way for his new marriage by the death of Anne
Boleyn. Morris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeton, were tried; but no legal
evidence was produced against them. The chief proof of their guilt
consisted in a hearsay from one Lady Wingfield, who was dead. Smeton was
prevailed on, by the vain hopes of life, to confess a criminal
correspondence with the queen;[**] but even her enemies expected little
advantage from this confession; for they never dared to confront him
with her; and he was immediately executed; as were also Brereton and
Weston. Norris had been much in the king's favor, and an offer of life
was made him, if