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finding the King not to content her,” resorted to taking four lovers, and finally her brother, to achieve her desire. Yet it is highly unlikely that she was motivated in this way, because if Henry were indeed impotent, which is again unlikely, he would surely have known that any child she conceived was not his. No, it would appear that these charges were drawn up with the specific purposes of character assassination and providing a foolproof means for getting rid of her. Describing Smeaton as “a person of low degree” emphasized how far the Queen had stooped to gratify her desires, and the charge of treasonable incest—graphically enlarged upon in the indictment—was clearly meant to arouse outrage and revulsion.
    That, George Wyatt observed, was “the most odious” of the accusations. “Partly it is incredible, partly by the circumstances impossible. Incredible, that she had it as her word, the spirit of her mind, that she was Caesar’s all, not to be touched of others”—Wyatt is here echoing his grandfather’s famous poem,
“Noli me tangere”
—and yet had been “held with the foul desire of her brother. Impossible, for the necessary and no small attendance of ladies ever about her, by office appointed to wait upon her continually, would have been witnesses to her doings.” Moreover, Anne was aware of the danger in which she stood, and could not have been “more wary and wakeful, if for none other cause [but] to take away all color from her enemies, whose eyes were everywhere upon her, and their malicious hearts bent to make some where they found none; as plainly enough as was to be seen when they were driven to those straits to take occasion at her brother’s being more private with her.” They feared that “his conference with her might be for the breaking off [of] the King’s new love.” 36
    Close scrutiny of the facts suggests that thirteen out of the twenty-one charges were impossible, and that if, four and a half centuries later it can be established that only eight were even plausible—which in itself suggests that even these were not genuine offenses—then the case against Anne is shaky indeed. 37 Furthermore, allegations that a number of unspecified offenses had been committed “on diverse days before and after” the stated dates on which the crimes had purportedly been committed would be difficult to disprove, and Cromwell was doubtless aware of this; it was a “catchall guarantee.” 38 It is also evident that Cromwell was not as thorough as he should have been. In no fewer than twelve instances, either Anne or her alleged accomplice can be shown not to have been in the specified location. For example, she was accused of committing adultery with Brereton on December 8, 1533, at Hampton Court, but the court was at Greenwich on that date. 39 And because it can be shown that quite a few of the dated offenses could not have been committed in the places specified, then the rest of the charges are also undermined. 40
    It has been argued, however, that while the substance of the charges was sound, the details were subject to clerical error or faulty memories, given the lapse in time since the offenses were committed, the confusing amount of detail in the indictments 41 and the speed with which they were drawn up. If Cromwell manufactured these charges, he surely would have taken care to ensure that the details were correct; 42 his political survival, indeed, his very life, would have depended on him concocting a watertight and credible case against the Queen. So these discrepancies in location cannot be taken as conclusive proof that the charges were fabricated. Yet there are other disturbing aspects to consider.
    On all but one of the dates cited, Anne was pregnant. Indulging in sex during pregnancy was scandalous in itself, because intercourse was forbidden until forty days after delivery. For centuries the Church had enforced the teaching that sex was only for procreation, and that taboo