Buckingham was tried on May, 1521, before a jury of his peers, on evidence that now seems a farrago of nonsense, malice, and surmise. But a man accused of treason stood little chance under the absolutism Wolsey had been so busy strengthening, and one by one the peers responded “Guilty” to the Earl Marshal’s query, and the barbarous sentence was read: “To be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, there to be hanged, cut down alive, your members [genitals] cut off and cast in the fire, your bowels burnt before your eyes, your head smitten off, your body to be quartered and divided at the King’s will, and God have mercy on your soul.”
The King’s mercy permitted a more seemly execution, but no more. Catherine begged in vain for the life of the old friend who had welcomed her to England in her girlhood, and danced and jested at her first faraway wedding, who had sent her fruit and venison in the days of her adversity, and whose head was forfeited now, in part at least, because his sympathies were like her own.
If she guessed that Wolsey’s ferocious spring had been meant as a warning for her, too, she gave no sign; but the nobles of England quivered like cattle who scent the wolf, and the commons were appalled. As for Henry, he was surprised how easy it was to kill so great a man. “If the lion knew his strength,” said Sir Thomas More, “hard it were for any man to rule him.”
Now the lion, prodded on by Wolsey, had tasted the best blood of his kingdom. He would not forget that the ax is a sharp conclusion to any argument.
Note:
I thought I’d provide a bit of context, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Buckingham was one of few peers with substantial Plantagenet blood and maintained numerous connections, often among his extended family, with the rest of the upper aristocracy, which activities attracted Henry's suspicion. During 1520, Buckingham became suspected of potentially treasonous actions and Henry VIII authorised an investigation. The King personally examined witnesses against him, gathering enough evidence for a trial. The Duke was finally summoned to Court in April 1521 and arrested and placed in the Tower. He was tried before a panel of 17 peers, being accused of listening to prophecies of the King's death and intending to kill the King. He was executed on Tower Hill on 17 May. Buckingham was posthumously attainted by Act of Parliament on 31 July 1523, disinheriting most of his wealth from his children.
John Guy (1988) concludes this was one of the few executions of high personages under Henry VIII in which the accused was "almost certainly guilty". However Sir Thomas More complained that the key evidence from servants was hearsay.
Source:
Mattingly, Garrett. “Part II: England’s Queen (1509-1527); Chapter Four, Section V” Catherine of Aragon. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 216-17. Print.
Further Reading:
Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham KG
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