Page:The Queens of England.djvu/346

306 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. for the first time exhibited in England, to behold a queen openly charged with crimes, among which was one from which even the vilest of her sex would shrink with horror. While she listened to the disgusting accusations, often did the blush of wounded modesty stain her brow. The witnesses brought forward against her could prove nothing to criminate her. Their evidence, undefined and contradictory, could easily have geen rebutted, had Anne been allowed counsel, or had she not been prejudged. Smeaton, the vile and perjured craven, was not brought to confront her, for her foes dreaded the effect of her presence on him, on which she also counted, for she believed he must quail before her indignant glance. The prosecution ended, Anne commenced her own defense, and such was the effect produced by her simple but eloquent address, appealing no less to the common sense of all present than to their justice, that many believed she must be acquitted. Of all present, one only was impartial ; and how did his appearance, on that awful occasion, recall the past to the queen. This person was no other than Percy, the first, the sole lover of Anne, when, in her girlish days, she aspired to no greater ambition than to become his wife. Percy, now Earl of Northumberland, betrayed great agitation during the- trial, and before its termination quitted the court, alleging a sudden illness as the cause. When the sentence that she should be burnt or beheaded was pronounced, Anne uttered no cry, but, raising up her hands, exclaimed, — "O' Father! O Creator ! Thou are the way, and the truth, and the life ; Thou knowest that I have not deserved this death." Then turning to her judges, and fixing her eyes on her cruel uncle, the Duke oi Norfolk, she said : "My lord, I will not say that your sentence is unjust, nor presume that my appeal ought to be preferred to the judgment of you all. I believe you have reason and occasion of suspicion and jealousy, upon which you have con- demned me ; but they must be other than those produced here in court, for I am entirely innocent of all these accusations, so that I cannot ask pardon of God for them. I have been always a faithful and loyal wife to the king. I have not, perhaps, at all times, shown him that humility and reverence that his goodness to me, and the honor to which he has raised me, did deserve. I confess I have had fancies and suspicions of him, which I had not strength nor discretion to resist ; but God knows, and is my witness, that I tieyer iailed