On this day in history, Wednesday 10th May 1536, just ten days after the first arrest, the Grand Jury of Middlesex convened. Their foreman, Giles Heron, son-in-law of the late Sir Thomas More, announced that they had decided that their was sufficient evidence to suggest that Queen Anne Boleyn, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton, Mark Smeaton and Anne’s brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, were guilty of the alleged crimes carried out at Hampton Court Palace and Whitehall Palace, both in the county of Middlesex. The accused were to be indicted and sent to trial.
Two other men had been arrested and taken to the Tower of London, Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, poet, courtier and diplomat, and Sir Richard Page, a gentleman of the privy chamber, but no mention was made of them in the indictments drawn up.
What were the charges laid against the queen and the five men?
You can click here to read the Middlesex indictment listing the charges.
Three years earlier, Queen Anne Boleyn was pregnant and under a month away from her coronation and on this day in 1533, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer opened a special court at Dunstable to rule on the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Click here to read more about that.
