A direct confession on their part would have been a confession for her as well as themselves, and they did not make it; but, if they were really innocent, that they should have suffered as they did without an effort to clear themselves or her is one more inexplicable mystery in this extraordinary story.
Something even more strange was to follow.
At her trial Anne had been "unmoved as a stone, and had carried herself as if she was receiving some great honour." She had been allowed a chair, and had bowed to the Peers as she took her seat. She said little, "but her face spoke more than words, and no one to look on her would have thought her guilty." "She protested that she had not misconducted herself." When Norfolk delivered sentence her face did not change. She said merely that she would not dispute the judgment, but appealed to God.[1] Smeton had repeated his own confession on the scaffold. She turned pale when she was told of it. "Did he not acquit me of the infamy he has laid on me?" she said. "Alas, I fear his soul will suffer for it!"[2]
But she had asked for time to prepare her conscience and for spiritual help; she called herself a Lutheran, and on the Tuesday, the day after her trial, Cranmer went to the Tower to hear her confession. She then told the Archbishop something which, if true, invalidated her marriage with the King; if she had not been his wife, her intrigues were not technically treason, and Cranmer perhaps gave her hope that this confession might save her, for she said afterwards to Sir William Kingston that she expected to be spared and would retire into a nunnery.[3] The con-
