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Discussion: Mark Smeaton Torture?
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QueenAnnaBoleyn |
Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 4 2012, 4:13 AM EST
In the series, it is shown that Mark is very severely tortured and in several other sources it says he was tortured also. However I read somewhere else that he had no mark upon him when he was brought to the scaffold. So, out if pure curiosity, does anybody know if he was tortured or not?
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Mark Smeaton
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freya9 |
1. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 4 2012, 6:02 AM EST
If I remember correctly the source that Mark was tortured was The Spanish Cronicles which has some mistakes in it. As you say there were no signs of torture on Mark although perhaps they used a torture that wouldn't leave bruises or simply threatened him. I personally think that when Smeaton was arrested he panicked and started talking about Anne's flirting with others to take the heat off himself. Similiar to how when Anne was first in the Tower she began to go over out loud what she could have possibly done to have been charged.
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MsSquirrly |
2. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 5 2012, 10:41 PM EST
The speculation that he may have been tortured is also based on the fact that unlike the other men who were men of title....he "could" be tortured ...there was no law against a common man being tortured. He was held at Cromwell's home for a day and by the end of that day, he had confessed. He was the only one who confessed. So its not a huge leap to speculate that he may have been tortured.
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freya9 |
3. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 6 2012, 5:07 PM EST
If he had been there for a day perhaps they interergated him until he cracked. Similiar to the way that wich finders would deprive their suspects of sleep, walking them up and down and constantly questioning them. If Smeaton was tortured, commoner or not ,wouldn't they have to have gotten the King's permission ?
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MsSquirrly |
4. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 6 2012, 11:59 PM EST
do you think he wouldn't have given his permission? Remember what he allowed to happen to Anne Askew? I don't put it past Henry, one little bit.
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freya9 |
5. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 7 2012, 2:06 PM EST
I total agree. The reason I brought it up was that some people claim that the torture was ordered by Cromwell and then taken to the King to get Henry to agree to the investigation.
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MsSquirrly |
6. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 7 2012, 11:35 PM EST
Thats one of the mysteries we will never know....maybe Cromwell did it before and then took the evidence to the king? He was after all, the most powerful man in the kingdom after the king. In 1535, Chapuys said :"Cromwell is constantly rising in power, so much that he has now more influence with his master than Cardinal [Wolsey] ever had. Nowadays, everything is done at his bidding"
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freya9 |
7. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 8 2012, 3:26 PM EST
Smeaton was not arrested until after the King had ordered Cromwell to act on certain allegations that had been made to him concerning the Queen.
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MsSquirrly |
8. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 8 2012, 11:43 PM EST
well in 1536, when Henry agreed to setting up a Commission of Oyer and Terminer, it was to investigate a catch-all selection of treasons and other offenses in Middlesex and Kent..... we will never know to what extent Henry was aware of the particulars. Cromwell was the driver of the investigation and rightfully so since Henry had entrusted him with the investigation. So Cromwell made the arrest of Smeaton and detained him at his own house. Henry was not privy to what happened within the walls of his house and probably didn't care to know because it was beneath him. He just cared about the outcome of the investigation.
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freya9 |
9. RE: Mark Smeaton Torture?
Feb 9 2012, 8:35 AM EST
Cromwell was put in charge of the investigation as it was part of his job description. Henry however was the one in charge and would have wanted to be kept informed of everything that was going on. Whatever useful information that Cromwell got from Smeaton Henry was not the sort of man to let someone overstepping their authority slide.
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