360
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 11.
terious silence on the cause of so unexpected a measure, the writs were issued for a general election, and Parliament was required to assemble as soon as possible.[1] Thursday, April 27.On Thursday, the 27th, the first arrest was made. Sir William Brereton,[2] a gentleman of the King's household, was sent suddenly to the Tower; Sunday, April 30.and on the Sunday after, Mark Smeton, of whom we know only that he was a musician high in favour at the Court, apparently a spoilt favourite of royal bounty.[3] May 1.The day following was the 1st of May. It was the day on which the annual festival was held at Greenwich, and the Queen appeared as usual, with her husband and the Court at the tournament. Lord Rochford, the Queen's brother, and Sir Henry Norris, both of them implicated in the fatal charge, were defender and challenger. The tilting had commenced when the King rose suddenly with signs of disturbance in his manner, left the Court, and rode off with a small company to London. Rumour, which delights in dramatic explanations of great occurrences, has discovered that a handkerchief dropped by the
- ↑ I must draw particular attention to this. Parliament had been just dissolved, and a fresh body of untried men were called together for no other purpose than to take cognizance of the supposed discovery.—See the Speech of the Lord Chancellor: Lords' Journals, p. 84. If the accusations were intentionally forged by the King, to go out of the way to court so needless publicity was an act most strange and most incomprehensible.
- ↑ Constantyne says, Smeton was arrested first on Saturday evening, at Stepney; but he seems inconsistent with himself. See his Memorial, Archæologia, vol. xxiii. p. 63.
- ↑ His name repeatedly occurs in 'the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII.'
