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The 15 Minutes That Killed Him: The Trial of George Boleyn — Transcript

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0:00Picture this. You are George Berlin
0:03galloping down the tiltyard at
0:04Greenwich. The cheers of thousands
0:06ringing in your ears. It is May 1st and
0:10you are the star of the show. But while
0:12you are playfighting in the sun, a
0:14horrific reality is unfolding just a few
0:16miles away. At this exact moment, a
0:20musician named Mark Smeen is being
0:22crushed in a torture device, screaming
0:25your sister's name to stop the pain. You
0:27don't know it yet, but the ink is
0:29already drying on your death warrant. In
0:32less than 24 hours, you will trade your
0:34golden armor for prison rags, plunging
0:37into the center of the most scandalous
0:38legal event of the TUDA era, the trial
0:41of George Berlin.
0:43Before diving into these forgotten
0:45stories of survival and suffering, if
0:47you enjoy learning about the hidden
0:48truths of history, consider hitting that
0:51like button and subscribing for more
0:53content like this.
0:54>> [music]
0:54>> And please comment below to let me know
0:56where you're listening from. I find it
0:58incredible that we're exploring these
1:00ancient stories together from different
1:02parts of the world, connected across
1:04time and space by our shared curiosity
1:07about the past. We need to shatter the
1:09myth that the fall of the blinds was a
1:11slow burn. It wasn't. It was a
1:14blitzkrieg. To understand the brutality
1:16of the crash, you have to realize how
1:19fast the vehicle was moving. George
1:21Berlin, Vic, Count Roford, was not just
1:23a courtier. He was the engine of Henry
1:25VIII's court. Forget the soft poetic
1:28image of a diplomat. George was a
1:30political shark. By his early 30s, he
1:32was sitting on the privy council,
1:33gambling with the king and orchestrating
1:35foreign treaties. He was the definition
1:37of tuda masculinity,
1:40aggressive, brilliant, and dangerously
1:43arrogant. He moved through the corridors
1:45of power with the swagger of a man who
1:47believed he was bulletproof.
1:50Back to the timeline. May 1st, the
1:53Mayday joust. George is on his horse. He
1:56breaks lances. He commands the field. He
1:59looks up to the royal box for
2:00validation. But the signal changes. King
2:04Henry VIII receives a message. He
2:06doesn't deliberate. He stands up. He
2:09ignores the queen. He ignores the crowd.
2:11He mounts his horse and rides for
2:12London, leaving a cloud of dust and
2:14terrifying confusion in his wake. George
2:17is left stranded on the field. The
2:19applause dies. The king's departure
2:22isn't just a social snub. In 1536, it is
2:25an act of war. The predators just become
2:28the prey. Dawn breaks on May 2nd. The
2:31trap springs. George is summoned to the
2:33privy council. He expects a briefing. He
2:35walks into an ambush. The doors are
2:37bolted. The men inside, Cromwell,
2:40Norfolk, Fitz William, are not smiling.
2:42They don't offer him a seat. They arrest
2:44him on the spot. There is no trial yet.
2:47No evidence presented, just the raw,
2:50crushing weight of the state. He's
2:52marched out, not to his home, but to the
2:54river. The barge ride is a study in
2:57psychological horror. As the oes cut the
3:00water, George is stripped [music] of his
3:01agency. He watches the palaces where he
3:04feasted fade into the distance. Ahead
3:07lies the Tower of London. The barge
3:09docks at Traitor's [music] Gate. The
3:11water is black. The stone is cold.
3:15George steps off onto the slippery
3:17stairs. This is where the golden boy
3:19vanishes. The gates slam shut, sealing
3:22him inside a world of silence and stone.
3:25He's led to his cell. He demands
3:27answers. He demands to see the king. But
3:31the only response is the turning of a
3:33key. George Berlin is now alone. He has
3:36been checkmated before he even realized
3:38the game had started. But George is a
3:40fighter. As he paces his cell, he isn't
3:43planning a confession. He's planning a
3:45war of words. He believes his intellect
3:48can [music] save him. He has no idea
3:50that outside those walls, his wife is
3:52already talking and the scaffold is
3:54already being built. The heavy oak door
3:57slams shut. The iron bolt slides home
4:00with a sound like a gunshot.
4:03For the first time in his life, George
4:05Berlin is utterly, completely alone. The
4:08silence of the Tower of London is not
4:10peaceful. It is heavy. It presses
4:13against the eardrums.
4:16Just hours ago, George's world was a
4:17cacophony of trumpets, loot music, and
4:20the constant murmuring intrigue of the
4:22court. He was surrounded by hundreds of
4:24people every waking moment. Now there is
4:28only the dripping of water, the
4:30scuttling of rats in the straw, and the
4:32distant rhythmic lap of the tempames
4:34against the stone walls.
4:36He is held in the lieutenant's lodgings,
4:38or perhaps the Martin Tower.
4:40Accommodations befitting a nobleman,
4:42yes, but a cage nonetheless. The stone
4:45walls are thick enough to crush any hope
4:47of escape. The air is cold, carrying the
4:50damp chill of the river that seeps into
4:52the bones. For Vikount Roford, a man
4:55accustomed to the finest velvets and
4:57roaring fireplaces of Greenwich Palace.
4:59The physical shock alone is
5:01disorienting, but the psychological
5:03torture is far worse. The state's
5:06strategy is simple. isolation and
5:09information starvation. They don't
5:11torture George with the rack or the
5:13thumb screw. They torture him with the
5:15unknown. He doesn't know why he's here.
5:18He doesn't know the specific charges.
5:20He's a man fighting a shadow in the
5:22dark. His only contact with the human
5:24race is Sir William Kingston, the
5:26constable of the tower. Kingston is a
5:29terrifying figure, not because he's
5:31cruel, but because he's bureaucratic.
5:33He's an old soldier loyal to the king
5:35and he plays the role of the sympathetic
5:37jailer perfectly. He enters George's
5:40cell bringing food, asking about his
5:42comfort. George, desperate for
5:45information, takes the bait. He's
5:47intelligent, but his intelligence works
5:49against him here. He tries to charm
5:51Kingston. He tries to reason with him.
5:53He asks the question that burns in his
5:55mind. Where is my sister? Kingston gives
5:58vague [music] answers. He listens and
6:01then he leaves. What George doesn't know
6:04is that the moment the door closes,
6:06Kingston rushes to his desk. He grabs a
6:09quill and writes down every single word
6:11George just said, every joke, every
6:14question, every sigh is transcribed and
6:16sent directly to Thomas [music]
6:18Cromwell. George thinks he's having a
6:20conversation. In reality, he's dictating
6:22his own confession. In this vacuum of
6:25silence, George's mind begins to race.
6:28He paces the small floor. Why him? Is it
6:32because of the failed negotiations with
6:33the French? Is it a warning to Anne to
6:36submit to the king's new mistress? The
6:38idea that he's being accused of sleeping
6:40with his own sister is so monstrous, so
6:43insane that it likely hasn't even
6:45crossed his mind yet. It is too absurd
6:48to be real.
6:50But as the days drag on, May 3rd, May
6:534th, the silence begins to break in the
6:56worst possible way. He starts to hear
6:59things, not voices, but sounds from the
7:01courtyard below. The sharpening of
7:04steel, the construction of wood. He sees
7:07birds flying freely past the narrow slit
7:09of his window, mocking his confinement.
7:12He realizes that his status as Viccount
7:14Roford protects him from nothing. In
7:17here, he's just meat for the grinder.
7:20The arrogance of the tiltyard is gone,
7:22replaced by a cold, calculating dread.
7:25He realizes he needs to stop talking to
7:27Kingston. He needs to prepare. If they
7:30give him a trial, he will need every
7:31ounce of his wit to survive. He doesn't
7:33know that the evidence being compiled
7:35against him isn't based on what he did,
7:37but on what someone closest to him is
7:39saying.
7:41While George sits in silence, a woman is
7:43speaking volumes. While George Berlin
7:46paces his cell, staring at the dampstone
7:48walls, the real action is happening a
7:50few miles up river. We need to leave the
7:52claustrophobia of the tower and enter
7:54the quiet, terrifyingly efficient office
7:57of the man who put him there, Thomas
7:59Cromwell. If you want to understand the
8:01Thomas Cromwell conspiracy, you have to
8:04stop looking at it as a crime of
8:05passion. It wasn't. It was a demolition
8:08project. And Thomas Cromwell was the
8:10architect. By 1536, the alliance between
8:14the Berins and Cromwell, the partnership
8:16that had broken the Catholic Church and
8:18changed English history, had
8:19disintegrated. They were no longer
8:21allies. They were rivals fighting for
8:24the soul of the king. And Cromwell knew
8:26something that George, in his arrogance,
8:28had missed. In the court of Henry VIII,
8:32there is no second place. You either win
8:35or you die. Croml had a problem. King
8:38Henry was done with Anne Berlin. The
8:40passion had turned to poison. The king
8:43wanted a new wife, Jane Seymour, and he
8:46needed a way out of his marriage that
8:48was legally watertight and morally
8:50absolute. A simple divorce wasn't
8:53enough. That would leave Anne as a
8:55dangerous political loose end. She had
8:57to be eliminated.
9:00But here is where George enters the
9:02equation. Why target him? Why drag the
9:05queen's brother into a mess that could
9:07have been solved with a few accusations
9:09of adultery against lesser men?
9:11The answer lies in cold, hard political
9:14calculus. George Berlin was not just a
9:16courtier. He was the head of the Berlin
9:18faction. He was brilliant. He was
9:20popular. And he was vengeful. Croml knew
9:24that if he struck an but left George
9:25alive, he would be signing his own death
9:27warrant. George would never forgive the
9:30man who destroyed his sister. He would b
9:32his time. He would whisper in the king's
9:34ear, and eventually he would crush
9:38Cromwell.
9:40So Cromwell made a decision that chills
9:43the blood even 500 years later. He
9:46decided to wipe the board clean. To
9:48secure his own survival, the entire
9:50Berlin power structure had to be
9:52liquidated. George had to die. But how
9:55do you kill a man like George Berlin? He
9:58was too smart to be caught in a clumsy
10:00trap. He was too close to the king to be
10:02accused [music] of petty crimes. Croml
10:04needed something catastrophic. He needed
10:07a charge so shocking, so repulsively
10:10fascinating that it would blind everyone
10:12to the lack of evidence. He needed the
10:14charge of incest. This was Cromwell's
10:17master stroke.
10:19By accusing George and Anne of sleeping
10:21together, Cromwell solved two problems
10:23at once. First, it made the death of the
10:26brother inevitable. You cannot let a man
10:28live after accusing him of bedding the
10:30queen. Second, and more importantly, it
10:33provided a theological explanation for
10:35the king's problems. Think about it from
10:37Henry's perspective. He had moved heaven
10:40and earth to marry Anne, yet God had
10:42denied him a son. Why was the king
10:45cursed? Was his seed weak? That was a
10:48terrifying thought for a monarch
10:49obsessed with his verility.
10:52But the incest charge offered a
10:54convenient escape hatch. It suggested
10:56that the marriage was cursed not because
10:58of Henry, but because Anne and George
11:00were monsters. It framed the blinds as
11:03sorcerers of sin who had bewildered the
11:05king. It absolved Henry of all blame and
11:07cast him as the victim of a depraved
11:09sibling duo. Croml sat at his desk
11:13drafting the narrative. He didn't have
11:15physical evidence. He didn't have
11:16witnesses who actually saw the act
11:18because the act never happened. But he
11:20didn't need truth. He needed testimony.
11:24He needed voices. He looked at the
11:26chesspiece of the musician Mark Smeen,
11:29weak, vulnerable, easily broken by
11:31torture. He looked at the courtiers
11:33Norris and Weston, men who could be
11:35framed as lovers. And then he looked for
11:38the final nail in George's coffin. He
11:40needed someone from the inside, someone
11:43who knew George intimately, someone
11:45whose word would carry the weight of
11:47bitter truth. He found Jane Parker, Lady
11:49Roford, George's own wife. We can
11:52imagine Cromwell's slight smile. The
11:54plan was perfect. It was a house of
11:56cards built on whispers, but he knew the
11:58king would blow it over. The Thomas
12:01Cromwell conspiracy wasn't a secret
12:02meeting in a dark alley. It was
12:04bureaucratic paperwork filed with lethal
12:07precision. George Berlin thought he was
12:09fighting for his innocence. He didn't
12:11realize he was fighting against a script
12:13that had already been written, directed,
12:15and approved by the king himself.
12:17History is full of external enemies,
12:19invading armies, political rivals,
12:22religious zealots. But the most
12:24dangerous enemy is the one who sleeps
12:25beside you. As Cromwell built his case,
12:28he realized he was missing a crucial
12:30component. He had the motive, political
12:33survival, and the method, the legal
12:35system, but he lacked the narrative glue
12:37to make the anolin incest charge stick.
12:40He needed someone who could claim to
12:42have seen the unseable. [music] Enter
12:44Jane Parker, Vic Countess Roford, George
12:47Berlin's wife. If George is the tragic
12:50hero of this story, Jane is often cast
12:52as the villain, the wicked wife of TUDA
12:55legend. For centuries, historians have
12:57debated her motives. Was she a woman
12:59scorned, a jealous sister-in-law who
13:02hated Anne's brilliance? Or was she like
13:04Mark Smeon, a terrified porn squeezed by
13:08Cromwell until she broke? We may never
13:10know what was in her heart, but we know
13:12exactly what was in her testimony, and
13:14it was lethal. While George was staring
13:17at the walls of his cell, Jane was
13:18likely sitting in a room with Cromwell's
13:20agents. She didn't have to report a
13:22caught in the act moment because there
13:24wasn't one. Instead, she offered
13:26something far more insidious,
13:28interpretation.
13:30She took innocent intimacies between her
13:32brother and sister, a touch on the arm,
13:34a whispered joke, a late night
13:36conversation in the queen's chambers,
13:38and twisted them into evidence of
13:40depravity. She told Cromwell that there
13:43was an undue familiarity between George
13:45and Anne. In the rigid, paranoid world
13:47of the Tudtor court, familiarity was a
13:50code word for sin. But Jane didn't stop
13:52there. She handed Cromwell the weapon
13:55that would eventually kill her husband.
13:57She reported a conversation, or perhaps
13:59she invented it, where Anne supposedly
14:02confessed to her that the king had
14:03neither skill nor potency in the
14:05bedroom. Pause for a second. This seems
14:08like gossip. In reality, it was treason.
14:11To say the [music] king of England was
14:13impotent was to threaten the stability
14:14of the realm. It struck at the very core
14:17of Henry's power. If the king couldn't
14:20father a son, the dynasty was doomed. By
14:23attributing this quote to Anne and
14:24linking it to George, Jane was painting
14:27a picture of a brother and sister who
14:29not only slept together but laughed at
14:30the king's manhood while doing so. This
14:33was the shock value Cromwell needed. It
14:36turned the case from a political purge
14:38into a moral crusade. It gave the jury a
14:40reason to be disgusted. Why did she do
14:43it? Some argue it was pure malice, that
14:46she loathed George, who preferred the
14:48company of his brilliant sister and his
14:50intellectual friends to that of his
14:51wife. Others suggest a darker, more
14:54pragmatic reason. Survival. The Blind
14:57ship was sinking. Jane knew that if she
15:00clung to her husband, she would drown
15:01with him. By turning state's witness,
15:04she was cutting the rope. She was
15:06trading George's life for her own
15:08financial security and social standing.
15:10It is a chilling betrayal. George in the
15:13tower likely believed his wife would
15:16support him or at least remain silent.
15:18He had no idea that the evidence Croml
15:21was compiling, the dates, the times, the
15:23whispered insults against the king was
15:25coming from his own pillow talk. Jane's
15:28testimony was the viper in the bed. It
15:30transformed vague rumors into a formal
15:32indictment. She provided the where and
15:35the how, even if the what was a lie.
15:40Without Jane Roford, the charge of
15:42incest might have been too weak to
15:43prosecute. With her, it became the
15:46centerpiece of the trial. As May 15th
15:49approached, the stage was set. Cromwell
15:51had his architect's blueprint. He had
15:53his confession from the tortured
15:54musician Smeen. And thanks to Jane, he
15:57had the poisonous domestic [music]
15:59details that would make the jury gasp.
16:01George Berlin was about to walk into a
16:03courtroom thinking he could use logic to
16:05defend himself. He didn't realize he was
16:08walking into a trap baited by his own
16:10wife. On the morning of May 15th, 1536,
16:14the doors of the tower opened and George
16:16Berlin was led out.
16:18He wasn't taken far. Just a short walk
16:20to the king's hall within the tower
16:22complex.
16:24But in that short distance, he stepped
16:26from the shadows of his cell into the
16:27glare of the most anticipated [music]
16:29spectacle in London. This was not a
16:32court of justice. It was a theater of
16:34death. The great hall was packed.
16:37Estimates suggest over 2,000 people had
16:39crammed into the space, hanging from the
16:42rafters, squeezing into corners,
16:44desperate to catch a glimpse of the
16:46fallen favorite. The air was hot,
16:48smelling of unwashed bodies and
16:50anticipation. These weren't just curious
16:52onlookers. They were the jury of public
16:55opinion, and remarkably, they were on
16:57George's side. As George stood at the
17:00bar looking out at the sea of faces, he
17:02saw the men who held his life in their
17:04hands. The jury appears consisted of 26
17:08noblemen. But the man sitting on the
17:10high chair, the presiding judge, was the
17:12crulest twist of all. It was Thomas
17:14Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, George's
17:17own uncle, a man who hated the blinds,
17:19despite being one of them, and who was
17:21all too eager to cut the branch to save
17:23the tree. George looked physically
17:25diminished. The days of isolation and
17:27anxiety had taken their toll. But the
17:30moment he began to speak, the golden boy
17:32returned. The charges were read out.
17:35[music] They were a mixture of the
17:36absurd and the horrific. Treason,
17:39incest, plotting the king's death. To
17:42any rational mind, they were ridiculous.
17:44And George knew it. He didn't cower. He
17:47didn't beg. He went on the offensive.
17:50For hours, George parried the
17:52prosecution's attacks with a brilliance
17:54that stunned the room. He answered every
17:56accusation with cool logic, [music]
17:58dismantling the crown's case piece by
18:00piece. When they accused him of sleeping
18:03with his sister, he demanded dates,
18:05times, and places. When they couldn't
18:08provide them, he mocked their
18:09incompetence. He was articulate,
18:12commanding, and utterly fearless.
18:15The mood in the room began to shift. The
18:17spectators, who'd arrived expecting to
18:19see a monster, were now watching a man
18:21fighting a hero's battle against a
18:23rigged system. Whispers [music] rippled
18:26through the crowd. Bets were being
18:28placed on the floor. The odds 10 to1
18:31that he would be acquitted. Think about
18:32that. In a TUDA treason trial where the
18:35verdict is almost always guilty, the
18:38gambling men of London were betting on
18:39George to walk free. That is how well he
18:42was performing. He was winning. He was
18:44making the Duke of Norfolk sweat. He was
18:47making Cromwell watching from the
18:48shadows nervous. George must have felt a
18:51surge of hope. He could see it in their
18:53faces, the doubt. He had exposed the
18:56conspiracy for what it was, a hollow
18:58sham. He stood there, perhaps leaning on
19:02the railing, a slight smile on his lips,
19:04realizing that he might actually talk
19:06his way out of the executioner's grasp.
19:10But trials in Henry VII's England were
19:12not decided by logic. They were decided
19:14by traps. And the prosecution had one
19:17final card to play. It wasn't a witness.
19:20It wasn't a weapon. It was a simple
19:22piece of paper. As the proceedings
19:25lulled, a prosecutor stepped forward. He
19:27didn't ask a question. He handed George
19:30a small folded note. He instructed
19:32George to read it, but not out loud. He
19:35was to read it silently to himself and
19:37simply answer yes or no. The room went
19:39quiet. All eyes were on George's hands
19:42as he unfolded the paper. This was the
19:44turning point. The trap was set. George,
19:47in his arrogance, in his
19:49adrenalinefueled state of near victory,
19:51looked at the paper. He saw the words
19:53written there. They were the words Jane
19:56Roford had whispered. They were the
19:58forbidden words about the king's body. A
20:00prudent man would have read it, folded
20:02it, and remained silent. But George
20:05Berlin was not a prudent man. He was a
20:07man who had been pushed to the edge. A
20:09man whose honor had been dragged through
20:11the mud. He looked at the paper, then he
20:14looked at the judges, and he made a
20:16decision that would echo through
20:17history. He decided he wasn't going to
20:19play by their rules anymore. The hall is
20:21silent. The air is thick with dust and
20:24tension. George Berlin holds the slip of
20:26paper in his hand. The prosecutor has
20:28just given him a clear instruction. Read
20:30the charge silently and simply answer
20:33yes or no. It is a trap and George knows
20:37it. If he whispers the answer, the jury
20:40will assume the worst. They will assume
20:42the secret on the paper is so vile, so
20:44damning that it cannot be spoken in
20:46plight society. It preserves the
20:48mystery, and mystery breeds guilt.
20:52But George looks at the paper and he
20:54sees the words. They are not about
20:56treason. They're not about poison.
20:58They're about the one subject in England
21:00that is more dangerous than any weapon,
21:03the king's penis.
21:05The note contains the allegation that
21:07George and Anne had discussed the king's
21:09sexual failures, specifically that the
21:11king had neither skill nor potency to
21:14know a woman in 1536. This isn't just an
21:17insult. It is a political nuclear bomb.
21:20Henry's entire reign, his break with the
21:23Pope, his discard of Catherine of
21:24Araggon, his marriage to Anne, all of it
21:27is built on the foundation of his
21:28verility. He is the father of the realm.
21:31If he cannot father a child, if he lacks
21:33potency, then he is not a king. He is a
21:36failure. George looks up. He makes eye
21:39contact with the Duke of Norfolk. He
21:41sees the row of peers, the scribes, the
21:44gaping crowd. And in that moment, George
21:47decides that if he is going down, he's
21:49going to take the king's dignity with
21:50him. He takes a breath and he doesn't
21:53whisper. He shouts. He reads the
21:55forbidden words at the top of his lungs,
21:57his voice ringing off the hammer beam
21:59roof. That the king has neither skill
22:02nor potency. The reaction is instant and
22:06visceral. A collective gasp sucks the
22:09air out of the room. The scribes stop
22:11writing. The Duke of Norfolk likely
22:12turns a shade of purple. The crowd is
22:15paralyzed. George has just done the
22:17unthinkable. He has publicly emasculated
22:19Henry VII in his own court. Why did he
22:22do it? Historians have argued about this
22:24for 500 years. Was it a blunder? Did his
22:28arrogance finally get the better of him?
22:31Or was it a calculated act of suicide?
22:34There was a compelling argument that
22:35this was George's final desperate
22:37attempt to save his sister. By reading
22:40the charge aloud, he was revealing the
22:42true nature of the trial. He was showing
22:44the world that this wasn't about incest.
22:46It was about the king's insecurity. He
22:49was proving that the incest was a cover
22:51story for a much simpler, sadder truth.
22:53The king couldn't perform. And he was
22:55blaming the women in his life. By
22:58shouting those words, George was saying,
22:59"We are not monsters. We are just the
23:01victims of a man who cannot be a
23:03father." But in doing so, he sealed his
23:06fate. The moment those words left his
23:09lips, the betting odds on the floor
23:10crashed to zero. No jury could acquit
23:13him now. To let him live after he had
23:16humiliated the king would be treason in
23:18itself. The sympathy of the crowd
23:20evaporated into fear. No one wanted to
23:24be associated with the man who called
23:25the king impotent. The rest of the trial
23:28was a formality. The energy in the room
23:30had shifted from excitement to dread.
23:33The peers retired to consider their
23:35verdict.
23:37It didn't take long. They returned one
23:39by one, answering to their names.
23:41Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. George listened
23:46to the verdict without flinching. He had
23:48gambled [music] everything on one moment
23:50of truth, and he had lost.
23:53But he wasn't done yet. When the
23:55sentence was read that he was to be
23:57engagingly hanged, drawn, and quartered,
23:59or beheaded at the king's pleasure,
24:01George stood tall. He addressed the
24:04court one last time. He didn't beg for
24:06his life. He didn't apologize for the
24:08incest because he knew he was innocent.
24:10Instead, he asked for one thing, that
24:13his debts be paid out of his seized
24:15assets so that no man may suffer by my
24:17death. It was a final act of nobility.
24:21Even as the executioner's shadow fell
24:23over him, he was thinking of his
24:24creditors, [music] his reputation, his
24:27honor. He was dragged away from the bar,
24:29leaving behind a courtroom [music] that
24:30was still reeling from the shock of his
24:32testimony. He had walked in as a man
24:34with a fighting chance. He walked out as
24:37a dead man walking. He had committed the
24:39fatal mistake of speaking truth to power
24:42in a world where power demanded only
24:44flattery. The trial was over. The
24:47waiting had begun. The adrenaline of the
24:50courtroom fades fast. George is marched
24:52back to his cell. The echoes of his own
24:54voice still ringing in his ears. He has
24:56just shouted down a king. But now the
24:58door locks and the heavy silence of the
25:01tower returns. May 16th, 1536. the day
25:05in between. This is the hardest part of
25:08the story to tell because it is the most
25:10human. It is the day of waiting. George
25:13knows the verdict is guilty. He knows
25:15the sentence is death. But the specific
25:18horror of how he will die is still
25:20hanging over him like a dark cloud.
25:23The original sentence passed down by the
25:25Duke of Norfolk was the full traitor's
25:27death. To be hanged, drawn, and
25:30quartered. If you are unfamiliar with
25:32TUDA execution methods, consider
25:34yourself lucky. It was a punishment
25:37designed not just to kill, but to
25:39dismantle the human body while the
25:40victim was still alive. It involved
25:43strangulation, disembowelment, and
25:45butchery. It was a theater of agony
25:47intended to terrorize the population.
25:50For a nobleman like George, this was the
25:52ultimate humiliation. To die like a
25:55common traitor would be to strip away
25:57the last shred of his dignity. So George
25:59spends May 16th waiting for news. He
26:02looks out of the narrow slit of his
26:04window. He can't see his home. He can't
26:06see the court. But he can likely see or
26:08at least hear the activity on Tower
26:10Hill. The sounds of carpentry drift on
26:13the wind, hammers hitting wood, sores
26:16cutting through timber. They are
26:18building the scaffold. It is a surreal,
26:21stomach churning reality. Men are
26:23currently sweating and working to
26:25[music] build the physical stage upon
26:27which he will die tomorrow. Sometime
26:29during that long gray day, a messenger
26:31arrives. It is a small mercy from the
26:33king. Henry VIII has commuted [music]
26:35the sentence. George will not be
26:37butchered. He will be beheaded. The axe,
26:39not the rope. For us, this seems like a
26:42grim distinction. But for George, it
26:44matters. The axe is a nobleman's death.
26:47It is quick. Usually, it preserves the
26:50body. It allows him to die with his
26:52status intact. It is a strange twisted
26:55gift from the brother-in-law he once
26:57called a friend and the king he just
26:59publicly humiliated. But George isn't
27:01the only one waiting. In the cells
27:04nearby, four other men are counting down
27:06their final hours. Mark Smeon, the
27:09musician who cracked under torture.
27:11Henry Norris, the king's groom. William
27:14Breitton and Sir Francis Weston,
27:16gentleman of the privy chamber. George
27:19didn't just lose his life, he lost his
27:21circle. These men were his friends, his
27:24colleagues, his rivals. Now they're his
27:27co-stars in a tragedy. There is a
27:30profound sense of isolation. Yet, they
27:32are bound together by this shared
27:34doomladen destiny.
27:36As the sun sets on May 16th, the reality
27:39settles in. There will be no rescue. The
27:42Berlin faction, once the most powerful
27:44political machine in Europe, has been
27:46reduced to five men in stone cells and a
27:49queen waiting for her turn. George turns
27:52away from the window. The view of the
27:54scaffold is too real. He turns inward.
27:58In these final hours, the golden boy,
28:01the arrogance, the wit, the political
28:02maneuvering begins to shed away. What is
28:05left is a man facing the great unknown.
28:08He begins to prepare not his defense,
28:10but his soul. He knows that tomorrow he
28:13will have to walk out onto that scaffold
28:14and perform one last time. And he knows
28:16that every word he says will be written
28:18down, analyzed, and remembered. He needs
28:21to get it right. The night of May 16th
28:24is a long, dark tunnel. George Berlin is
28:26spending his final hours on Earth, not
28:28with a lawyer, but with his conscience.
28:31To understand the man who walks out onto
28:33the scaffold tomorrow, we have to
28:35understand the paradox of George Berlin.
28:38We've seen the jouster, the diplomat,
28:40the arrogant courtier. But there was
28:42another side to him, one that the
28:44history books often gloss over. George
28:47was a deeply religious man. He was a
28:49passionate supporter of [music] the new
28:50religion, what we would now call
28:52Protestantism.
28:54He was a patron of scholars, a man who
28:57championed the translation of the Bible
28:59into English so that common people could
29:01read the word of God. It is a [music]
29:03supreme irony. The man accused of the
29:06most depraved, godless sin imaginable,
29:08incest, was actually one of the most
29:11pious men in the king's court. In the
29:13silence of his cell, George isn't
29:16plotting an escape. He's engaging in a
29:18brutal spiritual accounting. In the
29:20tudtor mindset, nothing happens by
29:22accident. If the axe is falling, it is
29:24because God wills it. George, with his
29:27intense faith, likely believes that
29:29while he is innocent of the crimes
29:31written on the indictment, he's guilty
29:33of something. He looks back at his life,
29:36the pride, the gambling, the womanizing,
29:38the vanity of the court, and he sees a
29:40wretched sinner. This is a crucial
29:43distinction that modern audiences often
29:45miss. When George prepares to confess,
29:48he isn't admitting to sleeping with his
29:50sister. He's admitting to being a flawed
29:52human being who lost his way in the
29:54glitter of the world. He believes God is
29:56punishing him for his arrogance, using
29:59the king's false charges as the
30:00instrument of divine justice. This
30:03theological gymnastics is what allows
30:05him to find peace. If he views his death
30:07as a penance for his actual sins, he can
30:10face the executioner with a clear
30:12conscience. He isn't dying as a traitor
30:14to the king. He's dying as a penitent
30:17son of God. There's also a practical
30:19aspect to this final night. George knows
30:22the rules of the good death. In Tudtor
30:24England, you don't scream your innocence
30:26from the scaffold. You don't rail
30:28against the king. If you do, the king
30:30might strip your family of their
30:32remaining property, or worse, take
30:34revenge on your relatives who are still
30:36alive. To save what is left of the Bin
30:38legacy, George has to thread a needle.
30:41He has to speak without offending the
30:42king, yet without lying about his guilt.
30:45He spends these final hours composing
30:47his last words. He treats it like a
30:49diplomatic dispatch. Every phrase must
30:52be measured. He must acknowledge that he
30:54deserves to die theologically, while
30:56maintaining that he did not commit the
30:58crime legally.
31:00As the candles burn down, George likely
31:02thinks of Anne. She's imprisoned just a
31:05few hundred yards away, yet she might as
31:07well be on the moon. They will never
31:09speak again.
31:11The partnership, the climb to the stars,
31:13is ending in two separate pools of
31:15blood. The sun begins to rise on May
31:1817th. The darkness of the cell turns to
31:21gray. The sound of boots on stone echoes
31:23in the corridor. Sir William Kingston
31:26arrives, not with breakfast, [music] but
31:27with a guard. George stands up. He is
31:30reportedly calm. The panic of the trial,
31:33the anger of the fatal mistake [music]
31:35has evaporated. He has made his peace
31:37with God. Now he just has to perform for
31:40the crowd. He smooths [music] his
31:41dublet, perhaps as a final prayer, and
31:44steps out of the cell. The golden boy is
31:47gone. The man who walks into the light
31:49is something far more formidable. A
31:51martyr in the making. The morning of May
31:54the 17th, 1536 is cool and bright. The
31:58gates of the tower open and George
32:00Berlin steps out into the world for the
32:02last time. He is not alone. Behind him,
32:05looking pale and broken, come the other
32:07four men condemned to die with him.
32:09Henry Norris, Francis Weston, William
32:12Beritton, and the musician Mark
32:14Smeittton. It is a macab procession of
32:17the king's former favorites, but George
32:19takes the lead. As the highest ranking
32:22prisoner, the protocol of death demands
32:24that he die first. They walk toward
32:26Tower Hill Scaffold. This isn't a small
32:29private affair. It is a stadium event.
32:33Thousands of Londoners have gathered.
32:35The crowd is a crushing weight of
32:36bodies, noise, and morbid curiosity.
32:40They have climbed onto roofs, hung from
32:42windows, and jostled for position just
32:44to see the queen's brother lose his
32:46head.
32:48When George climbs the wooden steps of
32:49the scaffold, the noise of the crowd
32:52begins to dip. They want to hear him. In
32:55Tuda, England, the scaffold speech is a
32:57performance art. It is the last chance a
32:59man has to define his legacy. If he
33:02cries, he's a coward. If he rages, he's
33:05a traitor. George has to be perfect. He
33:08stands at the railing. He looks out at
33:09the sea of faces, some jeering, some
33:13weeping. He's dressed in black velvet, a
33:16somber contrast to the golden armor of
33:18the joust just two weeks ago. He takes a
33:21breath and he begins to speak. His voice
33:24is steady. He doesn't stammer. He says,
33:27"Christian people, I am born under the
33:29law and judged under the law and die
33:31under the law and the laws condemned
33:33me." Listen closely to what he's doing.
33:36He's admitting that the law has
33:37condemned him, but he's not admitting he
33:39committed the crime. It is a brilliant
33:41legal distinction. He continues telling
33:44the crowd that he is a wretched sinner
33:45who deserves to die not for incest but
33:48for his other sins against God. He warns
33:51the courtiers watching to trust not in
33:53the vanity of the world or the favor of
33:55kings. It is a stinging rebuke of Henry
33:58VIII wrapped in the language of piety.
34:01He's telling them, "I played the game. I
34:03won the game and look where it got me."
34:06He finishes by asking the crowd to pray
34:08for him. There is no hatred in his
34:10voice, only a profound, exhausting
34:12sadness. The crowd, which had come for
34:15blood, is silenced. Many are crying.
34:19They know they are watching an innocent
34:20man die with more dignity than the king
34:22who condemned him ever possessed. George
34:25turns to the executioner. The man kneels
34:28and asks for forgiveness, a custom of
34:30the time. George grants it. He gives the
34:33executioner a purse of gold coins, a
34:35final tip for a clean strike. He removes
34:38his gown. He unbuttons his collar. He
34:41kneels in the straw. There is no block
34:43to rest his head on. That is a common
34:45misconception. In English beheadings of
34:48this era, the victim usually knelt
34:50upright and the executioner struck
34:52horizontally or they leaned over a low
34:54block. George places his head down. He
34:57closes his eyes. He whispers a prayer.
35:00Lord God, have pity on my soul. The
35:03executioner raises the axe. The crowd
35:06holds its breath. The silence on Tower
35:08Hill is absolute. And then with a wet
35:10thud, it is over. The head of George
35:13Berlin, the golden boy, the diplomat,
35:15the poet, falls into the straw. The
35:18executioner lifts it up by the hair,
35:20shouting, "Behold the head of a
35:21traitor."
35:23But the crowd doesn't cheer. The energy
35:25has gone out of them. They have just
35:27witnessed the butchery of a man who
35:29minutes before spoke with the tongue of
35:31an angel. One by one, the other four men
35:33are brought forward. Norris, Weston,
35:36Breitton, Smean. They're forced to look
35:38at George's body before they take their
35:40turn. The blood on the scaffold turns
35:43the wood slick. It is a conveyor belt of
35:45death. By noon, it is finished. Five men
35:49are dead. The threat to the king's
35:51masculinity has been purged. The path is
35:54now clear for the main event. The
35:56execution of Anne Berlin, which will
35:58follow in 2 days. But as the crowd
36:00disperses, drifting back into the
36:02taverns and workshops of London, the
36:04mood is heavy. They know that something
36:06broke today. The golden era of the court
36:09is over. The shadows have won. The
36:12crowds disperse. The blood is washed
36:14from the wooden planks of the scaffold.
36:17The spectacle is over. But for George
36:19Berlin, the final indignity is yet to
36:22come. There is no state funeral for the
36:24brother of the queen. There is no
36:26mournful procession back to a family
36:28crypt. His body along with his head is
36:31gathered up and taken to the chapel of
36:33St. Peter at Vincular located just a few
36:36yards away within the tower walls. This
36:39chapel is not a place of honor. It is
36:41the dumping ground for the state's
36:42mistakes.
36:44George is buried quickly, likely without
36:46a coffin, placed in a simple wooden
36:48chest, or perhaps just wrapped in a
36:50cloth. He's laid to rest under the
36:52flagstones of the chancel. 2 days later,
36:55his sister Anne would join him there,
36:57her headless body placed in an arrow
36:59chest, buried beside the brother she was
37:01accused of loving too much. They lie
37:04there still, together in the dark,
37:06victims of a lie that changed history.
37:09But what of the architect of this lie?
37:12What of Jane Roachford? History has a
37:14strange sense of irony. Jane survived
37:17the purge. She kept her head. She kept
37:19her [music] status. And for a few years,
37:21she thrived. But the wheel of fortune in
37:24Tudtor England never stops turning. 6
37:27years later in 1542, Jane would find
37:29herself back in the tower. This time she
37:32was accused of aiding another queen,
37:34Katherine Howard, in her illicit
37:35affairs. On a cold February morning,
37:38Jane Roford was led out to the exact
37:40same spot on Tower Hill Scaffold where
37:42her husband had died. She faced the same
37:45crowd. She faced the same ax. And in her
37:48final moments, it is said she didn't ask
37:51for mercy, but simply acknowledged that
37:53her death was a just punishment. Not for
37:56what she'd done to the king, but for
37:57what she had done to her husband,
37:59innocent of the charge of incest.
38:02The Viper had finally bitten herself.
38:05So, what are we to make of George
38:07Berlin? For centuries, he was a
38:09footnote, a shadow, the incestuous
38:13brother. But when you strip away the
38:15propaganda of Henry VIII, you find a man
38:17of remarkable [music] substance. George
38:20was a diplomat who charmed kings. He was
38:22a poet who helped bring the Renaissance
38:24to England. He was a religious reformer
38:26who fought to put the Bible in the hands
38:28of the common man. His story is a
38:31terrifying reminder of the fragility of
38:32truth in the face of absolute power.
38:35George Berlin did everything right. He
38:37was smart. He was capable. He was loyal.
38:40But he lived in a world where facts
38:41didn't matter. only the king's feelings
38:44did. He was destroyed not because he was
38:47guilty, but because he was inconvenient.
38:51As we look back at his life from the
38:52safety of the modern world, we shouldn't
38:54just see a victim. We should see a man
38:57who in his final 15 minutes on earth
39:00found the courage to shout the truth
39:01into the face of a tyrant. He lost his
39:04head, but he kept his dignity. And in
39:06the long bloody history of the TUDA
39:08court, that is a victory worth
39:11remembering. This has been the story of
39:13the trial of George Berlin. If you were
39:15moved by this tragedy or if you learned
39:18something new about the man behind the
39:19myth, please give this video a like. It
39:22truly helps these forgotten stories
39:24reach more people. Make sure you are
39:26subscribed and have notifications turned
39:28on so you don't miss our next deep dive
39:30into history's darkest corners. And I
39:33want to hear from you. Do you think
39:34George's decision to read the note aloud
39:36was an act of bravery or a fatal
39:38mistake? Let's debate it in the comments
39:41below. Until next time, keep questioning
39:44the past.

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