The legal offensive launched against Anne Boleyn was unprecedented in English royal history. Cromwell manufactured a sweeping conspiracy involving five men: the royal musician Mark Smeaton, courtier Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton, and the Queen’s own brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford.
Under the Treason Act of 1534, imagining the King’s death constituted capital treason. Adultery committed by a queen consort did not legally qualify as treason in itself. Cromwell bridged this gap by arguing that Anne and her lovers had plotted the King’s death so that she could marry one of them and rule the country.
The indictments fell apart upon basic scrutiny. Legal historians analyzing the trial records preserved in the Baga de Secretis have demonstrated that many dates listed in the official charges were physically impossible. Anne was alleged to have seduced Norris at Westminster on dates when she was actually recovering from childbirth at Greenwich, or when the courtiers were confirmed to be miles away on royal business.
Only Mark Smeaton, a commoner lacking aristocratic protections, confessed, likely under severe physical torture or the false promise of royal clemency. The other four men adamantly maintained their innocence and Anne's to the scaffold.
George Boleyn's indictment on charges of incest demonstrated the extreme lengths of the prosecution. The primary evidence presented at his trial was a whisper campaign regarding his private conversations with the queen, backed in part by depositions attributed to his wife, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford. Modern scholarship heavily revises the Victorian caricature of Lady Rochford as a monstrous betrayer; court records indicate Jane navigated a deadly aristocratic minefield, attempting to protect herself and her family holdings amidst intense pressure from the crown's interrogators. Her reported comments regarding George's intimate access to Anne's private chambers were manipulated by prosecutors into an accusation of incestuous conspiracy.
