Short answers, pulled from the story.
Mark Smeaton was a musician in the household of Queen Anne Boleyn at the court of Henry VIII. He was executed on the 17th of May 1536, condemned for alleged treason and adultery with the Queen. He was the only one of the five men put to death that day to confess to the charges against him.
Smeaton was the only one of the condemned men to confess, but his confession contained a provable error. He stated he had been with Anne at Greenwich on the 13th of May 1535; records show she was at Richmond that day. According to the Spanish Chronicle, he may also have confessed only after being tortured with a knotted cord twisted around his eyes.
Smeaton was arrested on the 30th of April 1536 on the orders of Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell took him to his house in Stepney, where the Spanish Chronicle records that Smeaton was tortured with a knotted cord twisted around his eyes. At 6 pm on the 1st of May 1536 he was transferred to the Tower of London.
Smeaton is believed to have been the son of a carpenter and a seamstress, with a surname possibly derived from the Flemish-French names de Smet or de Smedt. He first joined the choir of Cardinal Wolsey and was transferred to Henry VIII's Chapel Royal after Wolsey's fall from favor. In 1532 he was named a Groom of the Privy Chamber.
Smeaton appears in Gaetano Donizetti's opera Anna Bolena as a trouser role traditionally sung by a contralto. On screen he has been played by Gary Bond in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days, Michael Osborne in the 1971 series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and David Alpay in Showtime's The Tudors. Hilary Mantel's novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies also portray him at length.
At the scaffold on the 17th of May 1536, Smeaton said: "Masters, I pray you all pray for me, for I have deserved the death." He stumbled back from the scaffold before collecting himself to speak. His execution was by beheading rather than quartering, which was thought to reflect his cooperation with those who had built the case against Queen Anne.