sister the Princess, ought to thank God for having
escaped the hands of that woman, who had planned to poison them."[399]

Chapuys made haste to inform the Emperor of the welcome catastrophe. The
Emperor, he said, would recollect the expressions which he had reported as
used by Cromwell regarding the possible separation of the King and the
Concubine. Both he and the Princess had been ever since anxious that such
a separation should be brought about. What they had desired had come to
pass better than any one could have hoped, to the great disgrace of the
Concubine, who, by the judgment of God, had been brought in full daylight
from Greenwich to the Tower, in charge of the Duke of Norfolk and two
chamberlains. Report said it was for continued adultery with a
spinet-player belonging to her household. The player had been committed to
the Tower also, and, after him, Sir H. Norris, the most familiar and
private companion of the King, for not having revealed the matter.[400]

Fresh news poured in as Chapuys was writing. Before closing his despatch
he was able to add that Sir Francis Weston and Lord Rochford were arrested
also. The startling story flew from lip to lip, gathering volume as it
went. Swift couriers carried it to Paris. Viscount Hannaert, the Imperial
Ambassador there,[401] wrote to Granvelle that Anne had been surprised in
bed with the King's organist.[402] In the course of the investigation,
witnesses had come forward to say that nine years previously a marriage
had been made and consummated between Anne and Percy, Earl of
Northumberland. Percy, however, swore, and received the sacrament upon it,
before the Duke of Norfolk and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York,
that no contract or promise of marriage of any kind had passed between
them.[403] Anne's attendants in the Tower had been ordered to note what
she might say. She denied that she was guilty, sometimes with hysterical
passion, sometimes with a flighty levity; but not, so far as her words are
recorded, with the clearness of conscious innocence. She admitted that
with Norris, Weston, and Smeton she had spoken foolishly of their love for
herself, and of what might happen were the King to die. Smeton, on his
second examination, confessed that he had on three several occasions
committed adultery with the Queen. Norris repudiated his admissions to Sir
William Fitzwilliam--what they were is unknown--and offered to maintain
his own innocence and the Queen's with