William Brereton

William Brereton, the son of Sir Randle Brereton and Eleanor Dutton Brereton, was born in about 1488. William entered royal service. By 1521 he was a Groom of the King's Chamber, and from 1524, Groom of the Privy Chamber. He was also a major figure in the local administration in Chester. (1)

Henry VIII continued to try to produce a male heir. Anne Boleyn had two miscarriages and was pregnant again when she discovered Jane Seymour sitting on her husband's lap. Anne "burst into furious denunciation; the rage brought on a premature labour and was delivered of a dead boy" in late January or early February, 1536. (2) What is more, the baby was badly deformed. (3) This was a serious matter because in Tudor times Christians believed that a deformed child was God's way of punishing parents for committing serious sins. Henry VIII feared that people might think that the Pope Clement VII was right when he claimed that God was angry because Henry had divorced Catherine and married Anne.

Henry now approached Thomas Cromwell about how he could get out of his marriage with Anne. He suggested that one solution to this problem was to claim that he was not the father of this deformed child. On the king's instruction Cromwell was ordered to find out the name of the man who was the true father of the dead child. (4) Philippa Jones has pointed out: "Cromwell was careful that the charge should stipulate that Anne Boleyn had only been unfaithful to the King after the Princess Elizabeth's birth in 1533. Henry wanted Elizabeth to be acknowledged as his daughter, but at the same time he wanted her removed from any future claim to the succession." (5)

Arrest of William Brereton

In April 1536, a Flemish musician in Anne's service named Mark Smeaton was arrested and interrogated at the house of Cromwell. He eventually broke down and confessed to having a sexual relationship with Anne Boleyn. David Loades has suggested that the story was "certainly fictitious, and probably a fantasy produced by psychological pressure". (6) Peter Ackroyd, the author of Tudors (2012) believes that Smeaton was tortured on the rack. (7) Another source said he was "grievously racked for almost four hours". (8) Cromwell now had the evidence he needed. It seems that Smeaton had told him that William Brereton had been Anne Boleyn's lover.

On 4th May, William Brereton was arrested. He told George Constantyne that he was innocent: "there was no way but one with any matter alleged against him." (9) Others arrested including Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston and her brother, George Boleyn, who he had charged with incest, also refused to confess. (10)

On 12th May, Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, as High Steward of England, presided over the trial of William Brereton, Henry Norris, Mark Smeaton, Francis Weston at Westminster Hall. (11) Except for Smeaton they all pleaded not guilty to all charges. Thomas Cromwell made sure that a reliable jury was empanelled, consisting almost entirely of known enemies of the Boleyns. "These were not difficult to find, and they were all substantial men, with much to gain or lose by their behaviour in such a conspicuous theatre". (12)

Few details survive of the proceedings. Witnesses were called and several spoke of Anne Boleyn's alleged sexual activity. One witness said that there was "never such a whore in the realm". At the end of the trial the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the four men were condemned by Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley to be drawn, hanged, castrated and quartered. Eustace Chapuys claimed that Brereton was "condemned on a presumption, not by proof or valid confession, and without any witnesses." (13)

George and Anne Boleyn were tried two days later in the Great Hall of the Tower. In Anne's case the verdict already pronounced against her accomplices made the outcome inevitable. She was charged, not only with a whole list of adulterous relationships going back to the autumn of 1533, but also with poisoning Catherine of Aragon, "afflicting Henry with actual bodily harm, and conspiring his death." (14)

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George Boleyn was charged with having sexual relations with his sister at Westminster on 5th November 1535. However, records show she was with Henry on that day in Windsor Castle. Boleyn was also accused of being the father of the deformed child born in late January or early February, 1536. (15) This was a serious matter because in Tudor times Christians believed that a deformed child was God's way of punishing parents for committing serious sins. Henry VIII feared that people might think that the Pope Clement VII was right when he claimed that God was angry because Henry had divorced Catherine and married Anne. (16)

Execution

George and Anne Boleyn were both found guilty of all charges. Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, who presided over the trial left it to the King to decide whether Anne should be beheaded or burned alive. Between sentence and execution, neither admitted guilt. Anne declared herself ready to die because she had unwittingly incurred the King's displeasure, but grieved, as Eustace Chapuys reported, for the innocent men who were also to die on her account." (17)

On 17th May, 1536, William Brereton and the other four condemned men were executed on Tower Hill, their sentences commuted from being hung, drawn and quartered. George Boleyn exercised the condemned man's privilege of addressing the large crowd which always gathered for public executions. "Masters all, I am come hither not to preach and make a sermon but to die, as the law hath found me, and to the law I submit me." (18)

Primary Sources

(1) Alison Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (2007)

On Friday, 12 May, the Duke of Norfolk, as High Steward of England, presided over the trial of Norris, Weston, Brereton and Smeaton at Westminster Hall. The Queen and Lord Rochford would be tried separately by their peers, a privilege reserved for the aristocracy only; their trials were set for the following Monday.

The accused men were brought by river to Westminster. Few details survive of the proceedings. Witnesses were called, and one member of the jury, Sir John Spelman, related that some were ladies of the court who testified to such promiscuity on the part of the Queen that it was said in court that there was "never such a whore in the realm".

One witness repeated the words of a deceased Lady Wingfield, which was hearsay. At the end of it all, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the four men were condemned by Lord Chancellor Audley to be drawn, hanged, castrated and quartered. Chapuys says that Brereton was "condemned on a presumption, not by proof or valid confession, and without any witnesses". Most courtiers reacted to the verdict with sorrow, especially on behalf of Norris and Weston, both popular and respected men. Weston's family made frantic attempts to save his life, and on 13 May it was rumoured that he might escape the death sentence. But Lord Hussey, writing to Lord Lisle on 12 May, was of the opinion that all would suffer death, even the Queen and Rochford; Anne, he said, deserved it, for her crimes had been "so abominable" that he prayed God would give her grace to repent.