May 5, 1536: Thomas Wyatt and Richard Page arrested (both later to be released)

Anne, searching her mind for the reasons for her arrest and clearly feeling tremendous anxiety, begins to think out loud about the conversations she has had with the arrested men which might have been misconstrued. (See Alison Weir’s The Lady in the Tower, pp. 166-171, for a full account of Anne’s ramblings.)  Weir’s conclusion: “It was becoming clear, through her own revelations, that she had not kept a proper regal distance between herself and her courtiers, and thus had made herself and them vulnerable to accusations of impropriety.”  Do you agree with Weir, or is this a version of “blaming the victim”?

Thomas Wyatt by Hans Holbein, 1535-1537

1 Comment

Filed under May 19th, 1536 Feature

One response to “May 5, 1536: Thomas Wyatt and Richard Page arrested (both later to be released)

  1. Deena Hoblit

    I hate to say it, but as far as the time period, it was legal. In fact, her trial was a “fair” trial by the law of that day, and in the end, only one charge mattered. When you accuse someone of treason before the very system that was designed to ensure such an act never occurred, they are going to convict and protect themselves. That was the hole reason she was charged with it. All the other accusations were just fluff because the king understood that the people had to find her guilty in their own right if he was going to get out of that marriage unscathed. The lawyers and judges cared about protecting the justice system and the law, and the common people cared about witchcraft and adultery, and sixth fingers.

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