QUEEN'S TRAGIC DEATH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20762, 3 January 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

QUEEN'S TRAGIC DEATH.

FATE OF ANNE BOLEYN.

« doomed before.HEß TRIAL." DARK EYES LOSE THEIR MAGIC. That efficient British Government department' known as the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane is incapable of surprise. People go there to ask for a love letter by Queen Elizabeth, or the household expenses of Henry VIT.; perhaps for one of Nell Gwynn s bills for a skirt length, or the anonymous letter that exposed the Gunpowder Plot. Here, in fireproof vaults made of iron, slate and brick, says Mr. H. V. Morton, in the course of an article in the Daily Express, are the very bones of English history; the faded but still passionate notes of princes, the indiscretions of queens; much nobility, quite a lot of scandal, death sentences that shocked Europe, and a record of treason thai; shook thrones. Mr. Morton says" I sign my name in a book and ask if I may see Pouch IX., of the ' Baga dc Secretis.' An official tuins up a catalogue, says ' Pouch Nino, trial of Anne Boleyn. Take a seat pleasic. . . 11 Now the great ' Baga of State tiials was, until mo'dern times, one of tho mysteries of history. It was known that formerly it had been kept under throe keys —one held by the Lord Chief Justice.

another by the Attorney General, and the third by the Master of the Crown Office. But it was lost. Some said that it bad been destroyed by order* of Henry VIII. so that future ages might not read bow and why Queen Anno Boleyn had been condemned to death. " In 1836. when the records of the Court of King's Bench were transferred to the custody of the Master of the RolJs, the state trials were rediscovered. The famous ' Baga ' had long since disappeared, but the contents, in 91 sheepskin pouches, were found on the shelves of a small room. The most interesting discovery was the trial of Anne Boleyn, one of the wives of Henry VIII. and mother of Queen Elizabeth, who was put to death. "In a few minutes an attendant comes to me with a large sheepskin bag, soft as chamois leather and grey with ag& It bulges with stiff parchments. A great seal hangs out of it as large as a saucer. It is the seal of Henry VIII. So this is the bag of parchment that sent Anne Boleyn to her death! " I untie the leather cords and 'pull out from the bag a roll of 21 parchment sheets closely covered, on both sides with dark brown writing. I pore over them,_ trying to understand them. They are written in Tudor Latin. I can pick out the big capital words. . . . Our Lord Henry VIII. by the Grace of God, of England and France King, Defender of the faith, Lord of Ireland and on earth Supreme Head of the English Church. . . .

" I can even with some difficulty, translate such phrases as ' by the instigation of the devil . . . ' frail and carnal appetite,' . . lady the queen,' . . . ' traitorous deeds.' It is an exasperating document. " 1 turn it over, knowing that these long strips of hide are the very sheets that lay before the Duke of Norfolk 394 years ago when Queen Anne Bolcyn stood before her judges in the Tower of London and declared herself innocent of the charge against her." in speaking of a scrutiny of tho documents that condemned Anne Boleyn, Mr. Morton says: —"They are terrible things to road, if they are true, Anne was one of the most profligate women the world has known. If they are lies, the Englishmen who condemned her to death are shamed for ever." It, is added that dozens of letters preserved in the State arcliives of England France and Spain, prove that Anne Boleyn was doomed months before her trial; that men's minds were casting about to dethrone her. The original documents of the trial >vero not destroyed, as has been generally believed, but. have been preserved in the State archives.