expressing a warm belief and hope that the Queen would be able to clear herself. Before he could send it he was invited to meet the Council in the Star Chamber. On his return he added a postscript that he was very sorry such faults could be proved by the Queen as he heard of their relation.[1]
On Friday, the 12th of May, the four commoners were brought up for trial. The Court sat in Westminster Hall, Lord Wiltshire being on the bench with the rest. Their guilt, if proved, of course involved the guilt of his daughter. The prisoners were brought to the bar and the indictment was read. Smeton pleaded guilty of adultery, but not guilty of the inferential charge of compassing the death of the King. The other three held to their denial. Weston was married. His mother and his young wife appeared in court, "oppressed with grief," to petition for him, offering "rents and goods" for his deliverance;[2] but it could not avail. The jury found against them all, and they were sentenced to die. Two letters to Lord and Lady Lisle from a friend in London convey something of the popular feeling.
"John Husee to Lady Lisle.
"Madam, I think verily if all the books and chronicles were totally revolved and to the uttermost persecuted and tried, which against women hath been penned, contrived, and written since Adam and Eve, those same were, I think, verily nothing in comparison of that which hath been done and committed by Anne the Queen, which though I presume be not all things as it is now rumoured, yet that which hath been by
- ↑ History of England, vol. ii. pp. 459–462.
- ↑ Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. x. p. 430.
