bitterly and self-reproachfully the Queen must now have thought of
her own rise to the throne! The new fancy was a LADY JANE SEYMOUR;
and the King no sooner set his mind on her, than he resolved to
have Anne Boleyn’s head. So, he brought a number of charges
against Anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which she had never
committed, and implicating in them her own brother and certain
gentlemen in her service: among whom one Norris, and Mark Smeaton
a musician, are best remembered. As the lords and councillors were
as afraid of the King and as subservient to him as the meanest
peasant in England was, they brought in Anne Boleyn guilty, and the
other unfortunate persons accused with her, guilty too. Those
gentlemen died like men, with the exception of Smeaton, who had
been tempted by the King into telling lies, which he called
confessions, and who had expected to be pardoned; but who, I am
very glad to say, was not. There was then only the Queen to
dispose of. She had been surrounded in the Tower with women spies;
had been monstrously persecuted and foully slandered; and had
received no justice. But her spirit rose with her afflictions;
and, after having in vain tried to soften the King by writing an
affecting letter to him which still exists, ‘from her doleful
prison in the Tower,’ she resigned herself to death. She said to
those about her, very cheerfully, that she had heard say the
executioner was a good one, and that she had a little neck (she
laughed and clasped it with her hands as she said that), and would
soon be out of her pain. And she WAS soon out of her pain, poor
creature, on the Green inside the Tower, and her body was flung
into an old box and put away in the ground under the chapel.
There is a story that the King sat in his palace listening very
anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to announce this
Page 159
Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
new murder; and that, when he heard it come booming on the air, he
rose up in great spirits and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting.
He was bad enough to do it; but whether he did it or not, it is
certain that he married Jane Seymour the very next day.
I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long
enough to give birth to a son who was christened EDWARD, and then
to die of a fever: for, I cannot but think that any woman who
married such a ruffian, and knew what innocent blood was on his
hands, deserved the axe that would assuredly have fallen on the
neck of Jane Seymour, if she had lived much longer.
Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church property
for purposes of religion and education; but, the great families had
been so hungry to get hold of it, that very little could be rescued
for such objects. Even MILES COVERDALE, who did the people the
inestimable service of translating the Bible into English (which
the unreformed religion never permitted to be done), was left in
poverty while the great families clutched the Church lands and
money. The people had been told that when the Crown came into
possession of these funds, it would not be necessary to tax them;
but they were taxed afresh directly afterwards. It was fortunate
for them, indeed, that so many nobles were so greedy for this
wealth; since, if it had remained with the Crown, there might have
been no end to tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the most
active writers on the Church’s side against the King was a member
of his own family – a sort of distant cousin, REGINALD POLE by name
– who attacked him in the most violent manner (though he received a
pension from him all the time), and fought for the Church with his
pen, day and night. As he was beyond the King’s reach – being in
Italy – the King politely invited him over to discuss the subject;