n advice as for the Emperor to determine his affairs without our
counsel. About the Turks, we can come to no certain resolution; but if a
reconciliation of the affairs of Christendom ensue, we will not fail to do
our duty. Before we can treat of aid against the French King the amity
with the Emperor must first be renewed."[391]

CHAPTER XXII.

Easter at Greenwich--French and Imperial factions at the English court--
Influence of Anne Boleyn--Reports of Anne's conduct submitted to the
King--Flying rumours--Secret Commission of Inquiry--Arrests of various
persons--Sir Henry Norris and the King--Anne before the Privy Council--
Sent to the Tower--Her behaviour and admissions--Evidence taken before the
Commission--Trials of Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeton--Letter of
Weston--Trial of Anne and her brother--Executions--Speech of Rochford on
the scaffold--Anne sentenced to die--Makes a confession to Cranmer--
Declared to have not been the King's lawful wife--Nature of the confession
not known--Execution.

At the moment when the King was bearing himself so proudly at the most
important crisis of his reign, orthodox historians require us to believe
that he was secretly contriving to rid himself of Anne Boleyn by a foul
and false accusation, that he might proceed immediately to a new marriage
with another lady. Men who are meditating enormous crimes have usually
neither leisure nor attention for public business. It is as certain as
anything in history can be certain that to startle Europe with a domestic
scandal while mighty issues were at stake on which the fate of England
depended was the last subject with which England's King was likely to have
been occupied. He was assuming an attitude of haughty independence, where
he would need all his strength and all the confidence of his subjects. To
conspire at such a moment against the honour and life of a miserable and
innocent woman would have occurred to no one who was not a maniac. Rumour
had been busy spreading stories that he was weary of Anne and meant to
part with her; but a few days previously he had dissolved the Parliament
which for seven years had been described as the complacent instrument of
his will. He could not be equally assured of the temper of another,
hastily elected, in the uneasy condition of the public mind; and, without
a Parliament, he could take no action which would affect the succession.
However discontented he might be with his present Queen, th