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By Root 1215 0

of clothing, as if he were performing a secret ritual. He had kept entirely to himself for the past three days: beginning with the executions of the five men, then on the next day, wild and windy, when he had awaited the arrival of the ship from Calais carrying the swordsman from St. Omer. Now he made ready to go out, ponderously and methodically. His face was expressionless, but I was shocked when I beheld it. The three days had aged him a decade.

“Go there for me,” he said. (No need to ask where “there” was.) “Watch it all. Tell me of it later. I shall be at Westminster. Outside. Perhaps I shall ride.”

Yes, outside was the place of choice, this sweet May morning, when all the meadows were springing mint and violets. A warm wind had come up out of the south.

To die on such a morning would require extraordinary courage.

It was just noon when the door from the Queen’s lodgings opened and Anne emerged, escorted by her only known women friends, Thomas Wyatt’s sister and Margaret Lee. She was exquisitely dressed, reminding us all of her extraordinary ability to radiate beauty when she so chose. We were all struck by the high colour in her cheeks, the glitter in her eyes; she was more alive than any other person on the’ green.

Her neckline was low, to expose her neck and make it easier for her executioner.

She mounted the scaffold carefully, holding up her skirts, then presided over the proceedings as if she addressed Parliament.

Before her was the great wooden execution block, with a cupped indentation for her chin, and a four-inch span for her neck to stretch across. Around its base was enough straw to soak up the blood.

The Frenchman, slender and athletic, stood to her right, his steel sword pointed downward. To her left stood his assistants; their grisly duty was to tend to her headless trunk. A length of black cloth was at the ready, to cover her with. They smiled at her.

Overhead the sky was clear, and no cloud was visible. The damnable birds, lately returned from the winter, insisted on chirping and singing, flaunting their freedom and careless disregard.

“Good Christian people,” she spoke, “I am come hither to die, according to law, for by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it.” Her words rose, and her eyes seemed to fasten on each of us individually. She looked directly into mine, and in an instant I recalled—nay, relived—every meeting we had ever had.

“I come here only to die,” she repeated. “And thus to or more merciful Prince was there never. To me he was ever a good and gentle sovereign lord.”

Her words were respectful, but there was irony and mockery in them. The message was the same as that which Kingston had not dared to carry. Anne would make sure it reached Henry’s ears.

She closed her eyes for a moment and fell silent, as if she had finished. “If any person will meddle with my cause, I require them to judge the best. Thus I take my leave of the world and of you, and heartily desire you all to pray for me.”

Her words were ended. There had been no protestations of innocence, no mention of her daughter, no pious exhortations, no jests. Anne had arranged her exquisite death as she had arranged her fêtes and masques: out of the bare materials she had fashioned something of memorable, fragile beauty.

She turned to her ladies and gave them their farewell remembrances—a gold and black enamelled book of devotions, a few private words.

Then she calmly removed her headpiece and collar to ready herself for the swordsman. Refusing any blindfold, she closed her eyes and knelt down beside the block.

Then, suddenly, her courage deserted her. She heard rustling on her right, and, terror-stricken, looked up to see the swordsman advancing on her. Her eye froze him, and he retreated. Trembling, she lowered her head again, squeezing her eyes shut.

“0 Jesu have mercy on my soul O Jesu have mercy on my soul—” she rattled on. Again her head jerked up, and she caught her executioner as he raised his sword.

She forced her head back onto the block, her whole body straining to