Anne being taken through the ‘Traitors Gate’ to the tower
On the 2nd of May in 1536, it seemed as if Anne Boleyn was keeping herself busy whilst watching a tennis game the moment a messenger had informed her that the King had ordered her to present herself to his privy council.
The queen then left the match and presented herself in the council chamber in front of the royal commission that consisted of her uncle, The Duke of Norfolk, Sir William Fitzwilliam and Sir William Paulet. It was there that she was informed of being accused of committing adultery with three different men: Mark Smeaton, Sir Henry Norris, and a third who was unnamed at that point. She had been told that Smeaton and Norris confessed to the accusations, Anne had remonstrated with her accusers, though her words did not necessarily have an effect and the royal commission then ordered her arrest. She was later taken to her apartments, and at 2’o clock in the afternoon, Anne was escorted by barge to the Tower of London.
Upon arrival at the Tower, Anne likely would have entered through the Court Gate (Tower Gate) of the Byward Tower, instead of the Traitors’ Gate. She was met by Sir Edmund Walsingham, the Lieutenant of the Tower, and afterwards taken to the Royal Palace where she encountered the Constable of the Tower, Sir William Kingston. Kingston had written letters to Thomas Cromwell to keep him informed in regards to Anne’s behaviour and the things she had spoken about during her imprisonment. In a letter dated 3rd of May, he wrote of Anne’s arrival at the Tower:
“On my lord of Norfolk and the King’s Council departing from the Tower, I went before the Queen into her lodging. She said unto me, “Mr. Kingston, shall I go into a dungeon?” I said, “No, Madam. You shall go into the lodging you lay in at your coronation.” “It is too good for me, she said; Jesu have mercy on me;” and kneeled down, weeping a good pace, and in the same sorrow fell into a great laughing, as she has done many times since.
She desired me to move the King’s highness that she might have the sacrament in the closet by her chamber, that she might pray for mercy, for I am as clear from the company of man as for sin as I am clear from you, and am the King’s true wedded wife. And then she said, Mr. Kingston, do you know where for I am here? and I said, Nay. And then she asked me, When saw you the King? and I said I saw him not since I saw [him in] the Tiltyard. And then, Mr. K., I pray you to tell me where my Lord my father is? And I told her I saw him afore dinner in the Court. O where is my sweet brother? I said I left him at York Place; and so I did.
“I hear say, said she, that I should be accused with three men; and I can say no more but nay, without I should open my body. And there with opened her gown. O, Norris, hast thou accused me? Thou are in the Tower with me, and thou and I shall die together; and, Mark, thou art here to. O, my mother, thou wilt die with sorrow; and much lamented my lady of Worcester, for by cause that her child did not stir in her body. And my wife said, what should be the cause? And she said, for the sorrow she took for me. And then she said, Mr. Kyngston, shall I die without justice? And I said, the poorest subject the Kyng hath, hath justice. And there with she laughed.”
Sir Henry Norris was taken to the Tower of London at dawn that same day and Mark Smeaton had also been imprisoned there, being one of the only men to be kept in chains. George Boleyn eventually would soon join them there.
This would mark the beginning of the end for Queen Anne Boleyn.
References:
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 – January-June 1536, 793.
Ridgway, Claire. The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown (2015).
Wriothesley, Charles. A Chronicle of England During the Reigns of the Tudors, from A.D. 1485 to 1559, 36. Also Stow, John. Annals of England to 1603, 964.
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