1536.]
EXECUTION OF ANNE BOLEYN.
393
dict of more than seventy noblemen and gentlemen,[1] no one of whom had any interest in the deaths of the accused, and some of whom had interests the most tender in their acquittal; we have the assent of the judges who sat on the commission, and who passed sentence, after full opportunities of examination, with all the evidence before their eyes; the partial confession of one of the prisoners, though afterwards withdrawn; and the complete confession of another, maintained till the end, and not withdrawn upon the scaffold. Mr Hallam must pardon me for saying that this is not a matter in which doubt is unpermitted.
A brief interval only was allowed between the judgment and the final close. Wednesday, May 17.On Wednesday, the 17th, the five gentlemen were taken to execution. Smeton was hanged; the others were beheaded. Smeton and Brereton acknowledged the justice of their sentence. Brereton said that if he had to die a thousand deaths, he deserved them all; and Brereton was the only one of the five whose guilt at the time was doubted.[2] Morris died silent; Weston, with a few general lamentations on the wickedness of his past life. None denied the- ↑ Two grand juries, the petty jury, and the twenty-seven peers.
- ↑ Constantyne's Memor., Archæol., vol. xxiii. pp. 63–66. Constantyne was an attendant of Sir Henry Norris at this time, and a friend and schoolfellow 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.'
