Page:The Queens of England.djvu/342

 302 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. but Kingston, though not given to pity, could not tell her that Lord Rochford was now in the same prison. "I hear I shall be accused with three men," said the queen ; "but if they open my body" (and therewith she opened her gown), "I can but say, Nay, Nay. O my mother! thou wilt die for sorrow !" The agony of her first hour in the Tower was so intense, that even Kingston was moved to pity : but by degrees it sub- sided into a deep sadness, and she entreated that she might receive the sacrament in a closet adjoining her chamber, and resigned herself to the will of God. The unfortunate queen had still new humiliations to endure ; for Henry, with a malice that haunted his victim even to her prison, appointed those of her ladies whom she most disliked to be her attendants there — her aunt, Lady Edward Boleyn, and Mrs. Cosyns. These ladies fully entered into the spirit of the cruel tyrant by whose will they were placed as spies on his unhappy wife. They allowed her no respite from their hatred presence, and reported every word she uttered, even while she slept, and in her troubled dreams revealed the terror and grief of her tortured breast. But not satisfied with this inquisitorial espionage, they put the most artful questions to her, in order to inculpate her by her own admissions. Frank and unguarded as Anne's nature was admitted to be, it cannot be believed that to two women whom she disliked she would have made the avowals which these declared, relative to her conversations with Norris — conversations fraught with danger to her. The reports made to Cromwell by the governor of the Tower were founded on the information given to him by the two female spies, who repeated every word — nay more, com- mented on every gesture and look of the unhappy prisoner ; each and all so wholly at variance with Anne's character and manner, that hatred alone could give credence to such vile tales. Instead of a woman remarkable for talent, education, and refinement — rare advantages in an age like that in which she lived — and with a quick apprehension of the peculiarities of those around her, and of ready wit, the conversations of Anne, while in prison, as represented by her spies and gaoler, betray a levity, giddiness, want of feeling for her own terrible position, and a total absence of self-respect and dignity, which accord perfectly with the gossiping style of talk of two uneducated and envious women, like those who reported it,