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Updated: May 27, 2025
Mr. Hallam must pardon me for saying that this is not a matter in which doubt is unpermitted. A brief interval only was allowed between the judgment and the final close. On Wednesday, the 17th, the five gentlemen were taken to execution. Smeton was hanged; the others were beheaded. Smeton and Brereton acknowledged the justice of their sentence.
We return to the prisoners in the Tower. Mark Smeton, who had confessed his guilt, was ironed. The other gentlemen, not in consideration of their silence, but of their rank, were treated more leniently. To the queen, with an object which may be variously interpreted, Henry wrote the Friday succeeding her arrest, holding out hopes of forgiveness if she would be honest and open with him.
They will not diminish as we proceed. Friday, the 12th of May, was fixed for the opening of the court. On that day, a petty jury was returned at Westminster, for the trial of Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, Sir William Brereton, and Mark Smeton. The commission sat, the Earl of Wiltshire sitting with them, and the four prisoners were brought to the bar.
She then begged that she might have the sacrament in the closet by her chamber, that she might pray for mercy, declaring "that she was free from the company of man as for sin," and was "the king's true wedded wife." She was aware that the other prisoners were in the Tower, or, at least, that Smeton, Weston, and Norris were there.
Sir William Brereton, a gentleman of the king's household, was sent suddenly to the Tower; 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. The day following was the 1st of May.
In the inmost circle of Melville's friends were such men as Arbuthnot, Principal of Aberdeen, and Smeton, his own successor as Principal of Glasgow both, like himself, eminent in learning; David Ferguson, minister of Dunfermline, the patriarch of the Assembly, and one of the six original members of the Reformed Church; and the four ministers of Edinburgh all notable men John Durie, James Lawson, James Balfour, and Walter Balcanquhal.
On their arraignment, Mark Smeton, we are told, pleaded guilty of adultery with the queen; not guilty of the other charges. Norris, Weston, and Brereton severally pleaded not guilty. Verdict, guilty. The king's sergeant and attorney pray judgment. Judgment upon Smeton, Norris, Weston, and Brereton as usual in cases of high treason. This is all which the record contains.
In connection with the terrible charge, as her accomplices five gentlemen were arrested Sir William Brereton, Mark Smeton, a court musician, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, and, the accusation in his case being the most shocking, Lord Rochford, the queen's brother. The trial was hastily pushed forward, and all were executed.
VIII., procured and incited Mark Smeton, Esq., one of the grometers of the king's chamber, to have illicit intercourse with her; and that the act was committed at Westminster, 26th April, 26 Henry VIII.
The other prisoners were then examined; not Brereton, it would seem, but Smeton, who must have been brought down from the Tower, and Sir Henry Norris, and Sir Francis Weston, two young courtiers, who had both of them been the trusted friends of the king. Each day the shadow was stretching further. The worst was yet to come. Tuesday.
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