eat, where both you and myself
must shortly appear; and in whose judgment, I doubt not, whatsoever the
world may think of me, mine innocence shall be openly known and
sufficiently cleared.

[Sidenote: And also that her own death may suffice, and the poor
gentlemen be spared.]

"My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden
of your Grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent
souls of those poor gentlemen who, as I understand, are likewise in
strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your
sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears,
then let me obtain this request; and I will so leave to trouble your
Grace any further; with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity, to have
your Grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions.
From my doleful prison in the Tower, this 6th of May. Your most loyal
and ever faithful wife,

ANNE BOLEYN."[579]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A second requisition to confess from the king, and a second
refusal.]

[Sidenote: The tone of the queen's answers not what it ought to have
been, even on her own showing.]

This letter is most affecting; and although it is better calculated to
plead the queen's cause with posterity than with the king, whom it could
only exasperate, yet if it is genuine it tells (so far as such a
composition can tell at all) powerfully in her favour. On the same page
of the manuscript, carrying the same authority, and subject to the same
doubt, is a fragment of another letter, supposed to have been written
subsequently, and therefore in answer to a second invitation to confess.
In this she replied again, that she could confess no more than she had
already spoken; that she might conceal nothing from the king, to whom
she did acknowledge herself so much bound for so many favours; for
raising her first from a mean woman to be a marchioness; next to be his
queen; and now, seeing he could bestow no further honours upon her on
earth, for purposing by martyrdom to make her a saint in heaven.[580]
This answer also was unwise in point of worldly prudence; and I am
obliged showing to add, that the tone which was assumed, both in this
and in her first letter, was unbecoming (even if she was innocent of
actual sin) in a wife who, on her own showing, was so gravely to blame.
It is to be remembered that she had betrayed from the first the king's
confiden