Posted by Lale on 16/6/2012, 12:25:25, in reply to "2012 Schedule"
99.240.131.249
Thank you Sterling for the list, in the good old days i used to put it up on the side for easy access, maybe those days will come back one day.
Back to the book: Events around Tyndale are not easy to understand for me. On the one hand King is reading his translation but on the other hand wants him burned. I understood better after reading more on the internet but it is still very confusing since nobody is on one side completely or permanently.
Executions: it is amazing how they do not find a simple beheading not sufficient and they insist on making the convicted suffer by slow burning.
In the next book it will be interesting to read about Mark Smeaton, the choir boy who will be accused of being one of Anne Boleyn's lovers.
About Cromwell's role, there are many opposing views quoted in wikipedia:
According to author and Tudor historian Alison Weir, Thomas Cromwell plotted Anne's downfall while feigning illness and detailing the plot 20–21 April 1536. Anne's biographer Eric Ives, among others, believes that her fall and execution were engineered by Thomas Cromwell.[101] The conversations between Chapuys and Cromwell thereafter indicate Cromwell as the instigator of the plot to remove Anne; evidence of this is seen in the Spanish Chronicle and through letters written from Chapuys to Charles V. Anne differed with Cromwell over the redistribution of Church revenues and over foreign policy. She advocated that revenues be distributed to charitable and educational institutions; and she favoured a French alliance. Cromwell insisted on filling the King's depleted coffers, while taking a cut for himself, and preferred an imperial alliance.[102] For these reasons, suggests Ives, "Anne Boleyn had become a major threat to Thomas Cromwell."[103] Cromwell's biographer John Schofield, on the other hand, contends that no power struggle existed between Anne and Cromwell and that "not a trace can be found of a Cromwellian conspiracy against Anne... Cromwell became involved in the royal marital drama only when Henry ordered him onto the case."[104] Cromwell did not manufacture the accusations of adultery, though he and other officials used them to bolster Henry's case against Anne.[105] Historian Retha Warnicke questions whether Cromwell could have manipulated the king in such a matter.[106] Henry himself issued the crucial instructions: his officials, including Cromwell, carried them out.[107] The result, historians agree, was a legal travesty.[108] In order to do so the Master Secretary Cromwell would need sufficient evidence that would be convincing enough for her conviction or risk his own offices and perhaps life.
Towards the end of April a Flemish musician in Anne's service named Mark Smeaton was arrested, perhaps tortured or promised freedom. He initially denied being the Queen's lover but later confessed. Another courtier, Sir Henry Norris, was arrested on May Day, but since he was an aristocrat, he could not be tortured. Prior to his arrest, Norris was treated kindly by the King, who offered him his own horse to use on the May Day festivities. It seems likely that during the festivities the King was notified of Smeaton's confession and it was shortly thereafter the alleged conspirators were arrested upon order of the King. Norris was arrested at the festival. Norris denied his guilt and swore that Queen Anne was innocent. One of the most damaging pieces of evidence against Norris was an overheard conversation with Anne at the end of April, where she accused him of coming often to her chambers not to pay court to her lady-in-waiting Madge Shelton but to herself. Sir Francis Weston was arrested two days later on the same charge. Sir William Brereton, a Groom of the King's Privy Chamber, was also apprehended on grounds of adultery. Sir Thomas Wyatt, a poet and friend of the Boleyns who was allegedly infatuated with her before her marriage to the king, was also imprisoned for the same charge but was later released, most likely due to his friendship or his family's friendship with Cromwell. Sir Richard Page was also accused of having a sexual relationship with the Queen, but he was acquitted of all charges after further investigation could not implicate him with Anne.[citation needed] The final accused was Queen Anne's own brother, arrested on charges of incest and treason, accused of having a sexual relationship with his sister.[109] George Boleyn was accused of two incidents of incest: November, 1535 at Whitehall and the following month at Eltham.[110]
On 2 May 1536 Anne was arrested and taken to the Tower of London by barge. It is likely that Anne may have entered through The Court Gate in The Byward Tower rather than The Traitor's Gate. In the Tower, she collapsed, demanding to know the location of her father and "swete broder", as well as the charges against her.
In what is reputed to be her last letter to King Henry, dated May 6, she wrote:
"Sir,
Your Grace's displeasure, and my imprisonment are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing me to confess a truth, and so obtain your favour) by such an one, whom you know to be my ancient professed enemy. I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your demand.
But let not your Grace ever imagine, that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not so much as a thought thereof preceded. And to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn: with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your Grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received Queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your Grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. You have chosen me, from a low estate, to be your Queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If then you found me worthy of such honour, good your Grace let not any light fancy, or bad council of mine enemies, withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal heart toward your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant-princess your daughter. Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges; yea let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open flame; then shall you see either my innocence cleared, your suspicion and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that whatsoever God or you may determine of me, your grace may be freed of an open censure, and mine offense being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection, already settled on that party, for whose sake I am now as I am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto, your Grace being not ignorant of my suspicion therein. But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness; then I desire of God, that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof, and that he will not call you to a strict account of your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment-seat, 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. 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 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 sixth of May;
Your most loyal and ever faithful wife,
Anne Boleyn"
Who might be Anne's "ancient professed enemy" that she is referring to in the first sentence of her letter to the king, Cromwell?
Lale
--Previous Message--
:
:
: Here's a really quick draft of a schedule for 2012,
: assuming everyone is in agreement with my previous
: message:
:
: Jan - The Savage Detectives
: Feb - The Mystery of Edwin Drood & The Sense of an
: Ending
: Mar - Room
: Apr - Nothing Like the Sun & A Dead Man in
: Deptford
: May - C
: Jun - Wolf Hall
: Jul - Red Harvest & Farewell My Lovely
: Aug - A Mind at Peace
: Sep - The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker
: Oct - The Prague Cemetery
: Nov - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
: Dec - The Tunnel & Recollections of Things to Come
:
:
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