I Am Come Hither to Die

8am, 17th May 1536

The queen’s view was obstructed on all sides by the curtain walls of the White Tower. On the day they executed her brother, she could only hear the teeming crowds, and snippets of speeches, nobly delivered, from the black scaffold.

To distract, Mary Z had suggested a game of piquet, a card game for two, which, although popular in France, was little known to England. But the queen’s first card had been the Queen of Swords, and although it hardly served as a prophesy, the game was abandoned without words.

‘How long have we been here?’ the queen asked of Margaret Gamage. ‘I should know, but I have lost sight of the days.’

‘Fifteen, your majesty.’

‘There is no further need, is there, Margaret? To address me as your queen? My marriage has been annulled and I am simply Nan Bullen, the goggle-eyed whore ..’

Margaret collected the abandoned cards and put them back in their case. ‘You will always be my queen, your majesty.’

‘Until Jane Seymour is your queen,’ Anne said, with a hint of wry perspicacity.

‘I must do as I’m bid,’ said Margaret. ‘But my heart is sore, Ma’am.’

The queen returned to the window. ‘It has gone silent,’ she murmured, before turning and straightening her skirts. ‘Elizabeth and Mary S will return shortly. I would have it they tell me the truth, without gilding.’

‘Then you must command them so, your majesty,’ said Mary Z, whose physical aspect had visibly waned during her incarceration with the queen.

‘Should I?’ her mistress said, toying with her necklace.

The door was opened by Mrs Marshall, whose matronly exterior disguised a mind in the poorest taste; who could scarce contain her excitement at the calamitous bloodshed on Tower Hill. At the appearance of the queen’s slight, pale figure, she calmed herself and feigned a more appropriate demeanour.

‘It is done, your Majesty.’

‘And where are my other two ladies?’

‘They are recovering ma’am. Shall I order them to come to you now?’

‘No, no. Although they shall at least know what to expect,’ she said, as if to herself, before removing herself the bedchamber, where she took up in prayer.

Several hours passed, until a knock at the door took her up from her knees. It was Elizabeth and Mary S. ‘What news?’ asked the queen without preamble.

‘They were brave, ma’am,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Your brother, the Viscount Rochford, was first. He did not have to witness the others, which was a mercy to him.’

‘And what were his words?’

They shared glances, uncertain. ‘You will tell me,’ ordered the queen.

‘I cannot recall it all,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He commended his soul to God, but —'

‘But what?’

‘He seemed to suggest that he was guilty of something,’ said Mary S. ‘Although I cannot endure myself to think that it is what he was accused of ..’

‘He was speaking directly with God,’ whispered the queen, who knew which deviancy he sought forgiveness for, and it was not incest with his own sister.

‘He was brought too high,’ she said, ‘and I have brought him low.’

The maids, silent as the queen paced the chamber on stiff and bruised knees, shook their heads to dispel the resurrection of horror they had just witnessed - as if by twitching and shaking, it might fall out and be trodden underfoot by the queen’s slippered feet. And then the queen asked the question they feared most.

‘Was it quick?’

‘Yes,’ said Mary S, too quickly for the queen’s alert senses.

‘Tell me the truth of it, Mary.’

Elizabeth placed a hand on the younger woman’s elbow and stepped forward. ‘If I may, your majesty, we do not wish to distress you further.’

‘It is not possible for me to be further distressed than I already am,’ the queen snapped. ‘What I ask for is the truth. The truth is all I have. You may take a seat if it distresses you so, but I wish to hear what you saw.’

Elizabeth, chastened, told the queen that her brother laid his head on the block with great calm, but that the executioner was either drunk or a fool, for it took three chops before his head rolled. The others fared little better. It was an unholy bloodbath and poor Smeaton, who came last, was barely able to hold himself upright as he climbed the steps, sliding over the corpses.

‘Thank you,’ said their mistress. ‘You may leave me now.’

*****

18th May 1536

London was enjoying a glorious late spring. The windows leading to the view of Anne’s own execution site had been boarded, casting that part of the royal apartments in gloom. Sleep would not come and the absence of it, the necessity for it, claimed a part of the queen’s mind and shackled it to thoughts which were dreamlike. Part of it was the light of God’s salvation, of an end to her troubles, and yet other facets returned to the past, and then to her most immediate future.

And nor could she eat. It all seemed unnecessary. She envisioned going to God as a hollowed-out martyr should. The deep growl of nausea overcame her on the morning of that last full day, retching into the close stool. The king had implied, through devious envoys, that if she declared her marriage null and her daughter Elizabeth a bastard, then he may commute her to a nunnery in France. Yet she was tired of living, her mind having resigned itself to this particular, infamous end. She had not the energy or the will to trespass against it now.

And he would change his mind. She would die any way. Plump little Elizabeth would survive both of them, and all of her mother’s wit and intelligence would bleed through her and become triumphant. Of all the vagaries of thought which shot through her mind in her final hours, Anne was certain of it. She had taken off her necklace, the one with the ‘B’ which had graced the hollow of her slender neck, and given it to Mary Z the night before.

‘You will find a way to give this to my child, the Princess Elizabeth,’ she said.

*****

In the main chamber of the Queen’s Lodgings, where she and the king had spent their night before her second, public coronation, there was a clock which Henry had gifted to her. It told the time, the day, the month, a ticking lantern clock which drove her maids to quiet distraction. They could not read it, but Anne could. Each passing second marked the diminution of her life, and at the sound of it, she marvelled at how strange it was, to know how many exact minutes there are left to you. By strange discrepancy it was more of comfort than of dread, that steady tick-tock marking the passage of her remaining time on earth. She willed it to hurry because there was anxiety nonetheless, but these were stripling considerations, based on vanity and the real fear of an absence of bravery at the last recorded minute of her life.

Her human concerns harried her, whilst death itself was her greatest comfort.

At three that afternoon, Anne demanded that the blinds be removed, and so she was looking down upon her scaffold when Elizabeth interrupted her with a dainty, clearing throat. ‘We were wondering, your majesty, if you might like to practice your speech again. We know it is of great importance to you. To deliver it well.’

‘Yes of course. Although it should ease you all to know that I am quite word perfect!’

When it was delivered, the queen’s voice steady and soft, the women wept.

‘Come, come, women,’ she cajoled. ‘It is a moment of unpleasantness and then I am with God for eternity.’

Mary S, who was young and injudicious, cried out that she was too kind to her lord, the king. The queen, who knew how bitter those words tasted in her own mouth, advised the younger woman of her reasons. ‘Think on it, Mary. I leave a mortal thing behind in my daughter, my own flesh. I will not have her incur the king’s wrath anymore than is necessary. To use inflammatory words would imperil her beyond hope of reprieve. I do this for Elizabeth, not for my lord the king.’

And then, perhaps realising her own mistake, she threatened them with a long campaign of haunting if they dared to repeat her words.

Anne had a flashing memory of her and her brother George, gossiping at Hampton Court about the king’s sexual inadequacies in the bed chamber. That alone, in the shifting terminology of treason, would have signed her death warrant had they been overheard. It was an irony that she had been accused of all the things she was innocent of, and none of the things for which she was guilty. And with a flash of her customary spirit, she told her women that an intelligent woman would always suffer in the world of men, not only in this life, but in all those succeeding it.

She turned her mind to other, practical matters. The queen was hungry, and she quipped, she conceded, that the nausea of her empty stomach was worse than death. Mrs Marshall was summoned to bring something from the kitchens. She then addressed the matter of her clothing.

‘I have decided on the deep grey damask with the red kirtle —‘

‘But your majesty!’ protested Margaret, ‘that will be seen as a Catholic colour. Will you confuse them now?’

‘No, Margaret, it is merely a colour, and I choose it to disguise my spilt blood. That is the truth of it.’

And then she asked for ink and paper. ‘I am going to draw you a diagram of the time on the clock,’ she said, pointing her quill towards the ornate, silver-gilt ornament topped with her cypher. 'At 8 of the clock tomorrow, I shall be brought to the scaffold. At fifteen minutes before that hour, I wish to be ready. When you hear the ravens at dawn, I want you to awaken me. We shall have one last game of piquet and you will tell me of all your hopes for the future. But it is important that you should know when the knock on the door comes: at one quarter of an hour towards eight o’clock.’

‘Shall we cut your hair, your majesty?’ This from Margaret. The queen smiled.

‘No. I have beautiful hair and I am not without vanity. The swordsman is late, as we know. I have been granted two extra days on this earth due to the delayed sea voyage from Calais and the procurement of his fine, French blade. Otherwise my head might have rolled against my brother’s, which would have made a bleak comedy of my happy childhood with him. You will tie my hair securely and place the hood and the linen cloth on top. I have a very small neck. The Frenchman must be able to locate it. I would also beseech that one of you blindfolds me. I will be communing with God my maker when the blow falls and I do not wish for the distraction of a thousand faces - each one marking a day as your queen.’

The sun sank low on her last day. In truth, the weeping maids were irksome to her now. None of them had come here loving the queen, and yet it seemed they did now. She was unsure how deep that ran and how much of her they would preserve with dignity when she was gone. But the king was mercurial, and she had advised them, more than once, to keep their lips closed for evermore. The king’s breeze had the habit of blowing intemperate. He may love her again when she was dead.

‘What have you heard,’ the queen asked, ‘about my burial arrangements?’

Again, it was Elizabeth, the oldest of the four, who offered up what she knew.

‘You are charged as a traitor,’ she began, ‘and so there is no provision, your majesty. But we have managed to secure an elm arrow-box. It is narrow, but you are slender and you will fit within it. You will be buried, aside your brother, in the church, here on the grounds, without memorial. It is seen to.’

‘I see,’ said Anne. ‘As I thought. And who will manhandle me into this elm box?’

Mary Z leaned forward. ‘We will, your majesty. We four. We will collect your remains and ensure that you are buried next to George. It is already done. The king has no objection to it.’

The queen found the tears that had been lacking since her trial. ‘This is a terrible burden for you women,’ she cried. ‘That you should scoop up my bloody head and my lifeless corpse. I am ashamed to bring you to this, that you should offer to do it. I shall make an obscene sight!’

‘We would all be ashamed if we did not, your majesty,’ said Mary S. ‘We do not want for you to be handled by rough men, however kindly they may be disposed. We have a large kerchief to cover your head at the moment of its dislocation. Believe us, your majesty, we shall be upon it like locusts.’

‘And you will lift me and put me in the box?’

All four of them nodded their acquiescence.

*****

19th May 1536: 8.45am

‘I have never seen you look so beautiful, Anne.’

The queen touched the youthful cheek of Mary S. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For giving me my name back.’

And in the deep of knowing exactly what the hour was, she took one last chance to see if her maids had been paying attention. ‘What time is it?’ she enquired.

‘A quarter to eight o’clock,’ they chimed.

They curtsied deeply as the door knocked three times.

The gates to the Tower had been opened by a miscreant within, but the time of execution had not been announced to the wider public. The throngs of people, duly assembled, would have been countless more had they have known it. As Anne walked, serene and dedicated towards the scaffold, there were shouts of ‘whore,’ and ‘witch,’ and other voices of kindness. She was, to the last, a most controversial figure. Yet no one doubted her courage as she walked the steps. There was not a cloud in the sky as she delivered her last words, which were heard in silence. A distant bird might have heard the hunting horns of Henry, looking forward to his forthcoming marriage.

She did not have a block, but was sunk to her own praying knees, blindfolded and without balance. The executioner, so far obscured by black drapes, emerged and called out to a fictitious boy in the crowd - ‘bring me my sword!’

Anne, disoriented, fearful in her last moments, blindly turned her head towards the crowd as he swept behind her and took off her head with one clean blow.

In the Queen’s Lodgings, emptied of all activity, the clock displayed the hour of two minutes past eight as four women, resentful of all help, lifted her into the arrow-box.