depart this life, affirming that she would never love the King in her heart.
Of all these details evidence of some kind must have been produced before the Commission, and it was to this that Cromwell referred in his letter to Gardiner. The accused gentlemen were all of them in situations of trust and confidence at the court, with easy access to the Queen's person, and, if their guilt was real, the familiarity to which they were admitted through their offices was a special aggravation of their offences.
In a court so jealous, and so divided, many eyes were on the watch and many tongues were busy. None knew who might be implicated, or how far the Queen's guilt had extended. Suspicion fell on her cousin, Sir Francis Bryan, who was sharply examined by Cromwell. Suspicion fell also on Anne's old lover, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Surrey's friend, to whom a letter survives, written on the occasion by his father, Sir Henry. The old man told his son he was sorry that he was too ill to do his duty to his King in that dangerous time when the King had suffered by false traitors. He prayed God long to give him grace, to be with him and about him that had found out the matter, and the false traitors to be punished to the example of others.[1]
Cranmer had been much attached to Anne. The Catholic party being so bitter against her, she had made herself the patroness of the Protestant preachers, and had protected them against persecution. The Archbishop had regarded her as an instrument of Providence, and when the news reached him of the arrest and the occasion of it he was thunderstruck. He wrote an anxious and beautiful letter to the King,
- ↑ Sir Henry Wyatt to Thomas Wyatt, May 7, 1536.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. x. p. 345. "Him" refers to Cromwell.
