_ thought it perfidy
to confess such a case against a woman. Meantime, Constantyne, a known
friend of Sir H. Norris and of Sir W. Brereton, two of the four
gentlemen accused, declares that, for himself, being a Protestant, and
knowing the queen's secret leaning to that party, he and all other
'friends of the gospel' could not bring themselves 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, in a manner _all_ confessed, unless
Norris; and as to _him_, what he said amounted to nothing.' The truth
is, there occurred in the cases of these gentlemen a dreadful
struggle. The dilemma for _them_ was perhaps the most trying upon
record. Gallantry and manly tenderness forbade any man's confessing,
for a certain result of ruin to a woman, any treasonable instances of
love which she had shown to him. Yet, on the other hand, to deny was
to rush into the presence of God with a lie upon their lips. Hence the
unintelligible character of their final declarations. Smeton, as no
gentleman, was hanged. All the other four--Norris, Brereton, Weston,
and Rochford--were beheaded. The four gentlemen and Smeton suffered
all on the same day--namely, Wednesday, the 17th of May. Of all the
five, Sir W. Brereton was the only one whose guilt was doubted. Yet he
was the most emphatic in declaring his own guilt. If he could die a
thousand deaths, he said, all would be deserved.

But the crime of all the rest seemed pale by the side of Rochford's.
He had been raised to the peerage by Henry, as an expression of his
kindness to the Boleyn family. He was the brother of Anne; and whilst
the others had offended by simple adultery with Anne, _his_ crime was
incestuous adultery; and his dying words appeared (to the _auditors_),
'if not,' says Mr. Froude, 'a confession, yet something too nearly
resembling it.'

From such dreadful offences, all readers are glad to hurry away; yet
in one respect this awful impeachment has a reconciling effect. No
reader after this wishes for further life to Anne. For her own sake it
is plain that through death must lie the one sole peaceful solution of
her unhappy and erring life. Some people have most falsely supposed
that the case against the brother and sister, whatever might be
pronounced upon the four other cases, laboured under antecedent
improbabilities so great as to vitiate, or to load wit