Mark Smeaton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mark Smeaton (ex. 17 May 1536) was one of four men executed for alleged adultery with Queen Anne Boleyn.

Smeaton was a handsome musician and dancer in the queen's household, Smeaton was famed for his talents as a singer. He could play the lute, virginals and the organ. His date of birth is not known, but he was probably in his early twenties when he died. Possibly of Flemish origin, the name Smeaton could be derived from the surnames de Smet or de Smedt. Smeaton originally joined the choir of Henry VIII's chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey. However, possibly after his voice broke and Wolsey fell from grace, he was transferred from the Cardinal's household to Henry's Chapel Royal, where his musical ability came to the notice of Henry's wife, Anne Boleyn, who was a great patron of the arts. Smeaton was possibly, as tradition has it, the son of a carpenter and a seamstress. Established as a court musician, he was named a Groom of the Privy Chamber in 1532. A bit arrogant of his rapid rise, Smeaton "dysdayned" his low-born parents and did not have much contact with them after he entered the king's household.

Perhaps because of his lowly social origin, he was never part of the Queen's intimate circle of companions; which included her favourite ladies-in-waiting and courtiers. Even though it seems that he had quite a good opinion of himself, his obscure origin showed in being badly dressed and addressed only as "Mark" by the king. Smeaton could not easily forget his lowly social status. Noticing Smeaton wearing shoddy "yerns," the king supplied him with new shirts, hose, shoes and bonnets. Others began to look jealously at Smeaton's fine clothes, resentful that such lowly, poor peasant should have such a wardrobe.

Sometime around 1536, Smeaton either fell in love or in love with the idea of love with his lady, as in the game of courtly love. However, he followed courtly love tradition by setting his romantic or amorous thoughts on the queen, the highest-born lady in the land, and thus the most worthy of praise. The smitten musician began to sulk around the queen's chambers, apparently jealous of her friendships with various aristocratic lords, bishops and ambassadors who participated in the social life of the Queen's Circle. His unhappiness and misery caught Anne's attention one day in her chamber at Winchester. when she sent for him to play the virginals. As Anne later confessed, "[on] Saturday before May Day...I found him standing in the round window in my chamber of presence. And I asked him why he was so sad, and he answered and said it was no matter." Smeaton's reply was non-committal and churlish, but by this point the musician's unrequited obsession with the Queen was provoking malicious gossip around the palace. Anne snapped, "You may not look to have me speak to you as I should do to a nobleman, because you are an inferior person." Knowing the truth of her words, Smeaton miserably replied, "No, no, Madam. A look sufficeth, thus fare you well."

Before Smeaton was arrested, he lavishly spent on horses and liveries for his servants. This was strange, as Smeaton only earned £100 a year. People began to whisper that Smeaton received the money from the queen in exchange for "services" as her lover.

A choirbook that Anne Boleyn reputedly owned was supposedly signed by Smeaton. It has been suggested that the scribe of the choirbook was of Franco-Flemish roots, of which some believe Smeaton did indeed have the same origin as the mysterious writer. Whether it was him or not, is uncertain.

Unfortunately for Smeaton, his conversation with the queen was quickly reported to Thomas Cromwell, one of Henry VIII's advisors, who was busy formulating a plan to get rid of her, by order of the king. Smeaton was arrested on April 30th by Thomas Cromwell. No one at first noticed Smeaton's absence. Cromwell took Smeaton to his house in Stepney and supposedly tortured him. Though, it is more likely if he was ever tortured at all when he arrived at the Tower of London, as Cromwell's home was not known to have torture implements. The usually unreliable Spanish Chronicles detailed that Smeaton was tortured with a knotted cord around his eyes. At 6 P.M. on May Day, he was sent to the Tower of London. The musician's agony from torture lasted four hours. Upon the rack, Smeaton cracked and "confessed" to being Anne's lover. However, this confession did not match up to the facts. Smeaton could not have possibly had a fling with Anne on May 13, 1535, at Greenwich, as the queen was at Richmond. He also supplied the names of certain of Anne's circle of allies, who were also arrested. Afterwards he was put in a cell in the Tower of London. Cromwell later accused Anne that she took Smeaton and Francis Weston as lovers to beget a son. Other accusations alleged that the queen had committed adultery with Sir Henry Norreys, Francis Weston, William Brereton, and incest with her brother, George Boleyn. However, besides Smeaton, all the other "lovers" maintained their innocence, with Smeaton the only one to admit his "guilt." Out of all the supposed "lovers," Smeaton's arrest caused the greatest scandal. People were shocked that the queen would stoop to have an affair with "a person of low degree."

A different version of the events surrounding Smeaton's guilty plea is told by Agnes Strickland. Smeaton was lured into signing the incriminating deposition by the subtlety of Sir William Fitzwilliam. The latter noticed Smeaton's terror and replied, "Subscribe, Mark, and you will see what will come of it," as Fitzwilliam tried to make Smeaton feel dishonorable enough to confess. Whether Smeaton was tortured or coaxed into guilt, "it was generally said that he had his life promised him, but it was not fit to let him live to tell tales."

Smeaton's trial took place at Westminster Hall, but it was generally believed there was no question of his guilt. Smeaton was condemned to death on 12th May 1536, as were the four other men accused of being the Queen's lovers. Anne herself was condemned on the 15th. It was supposed that the queen would "admist Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, Master Brereton, Mark Smeaton the musician, and her brother Lord Rochford, into her chamber, at improper hours," adding ," that Smeaton could tell a great deal more." On news that Smeaton was now clapped in irons, she replied dismissively,“he was a person of mean birth and the others were all gentlemen.” When she heard that Smeaton had failed to withdraw his "confession" in fully explicit terms, Anne was angry.

As Smeaton was led to his execution, he stumbled back from the bloody scaffold. Collecting himself, he said despairingly, "Masters, I pray you all pray for me, for I have deserved the death." Smeaton was granted the "mercy" of a beheading, rather than the usual brutal quartering assigned to commoners. This is thought to have been due to his co-operation with Anne's enemies. The other four men were also beheaded.

Smeaton's body was buried in a common grave with another accused adulterer with the queen, William Brereton. He was the unwitting and hapless tool in a political intrigue designed to topple the proud Boleyn queen and her circle of political, religious and foreign allies. Years after Smeaton's death, Queen Mary convinced herself that her sister Elizabeth was illegitimate. She repeated several times that she thought Elizabeth had the "face and countenance" of the doomed young Smeaton. But the extreme resemblance of Elizabeth to her father Henry VIII disproved this claim.

Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder alledgedly wrote a sonnet about the doomed Smeaton:

Ah! Mark, what moan should I for thee make more,/ Since that thy death thou hast deserved best,/ Save only that mine eye is forced sore/ With piteous plaint to moan thee with the rest?/ A time thou hadst above thy poor degree,/ The fall whereof thy friends may well bemoan:/ A rotten twig upon so high a tree/ Hath slipped thy hold, and thou art dead and gone.

[edit] Sources Cited

• Fraser, Antonia. The Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Knopf, 1992.
• Froude, James Anthony. History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. C. Scribner's sons, 1881.
• Ives, Eric. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
• Lancelott, Francis. The Queens of England and Their Times. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1894.
• Lofts, Norah. Anne Boleyn. New York: Coward, McCann, Geoghegan, 1979.
• Somerset, Anne.Elizabeth I. New York: Anchor, 1991.
• Starkey, David. Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
• Strickland, Agnes. Lives of the Queens of England: From the Norman Conquest. (Vol. 4). Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1852.
• Weir, Alison. Henry VIII: The King and His Court. New York: Ballantine, 2001.
• Weir, Alison. The Six Wives of Henry VIII New York: Grove, 1991.