“And thus I take my leave of the world, and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me,” she finished.
The crowd, of a sudden, turned and grew respectfully silent. “God bless you, Your Grace,” one called out loudly, and there was a wave of hums of approval and agreement.
Anne returned to the center of the platform. I gave her an encouraging look and removed her ermine mantle, leaving her gracious white neck unencumbered. She stayed me from lifting off her headdress; instead, she took it off herself, first shaking free her magnificent black hair one last time afore tucking it under a modest white cap.
“Jesu, receive my soul; O Lord God, have pity on my soul,” she spoke as she knelt. I knelt near her to tie a blindfold around her eyes—she, unlike many others led to this place, needed nothing and no one to restrain her in her place. I had scarce stepped back from tying the blindfold when the sword of Calais sliced through the air and through her neck, severing her head in one clean blow. I heard gasps and sighs from the crowd and then nothing.
Her head rolled but a little way from her body, and I could see her lips still moving in silent prayer for a few moments while the blood pumped outward from the body and from the head. I was stuck firm in my place by the horror of it, jarred loose only by the clattering of Nan Zouche and Alice as they ran up the stairs with linen. I quickly leaned down and picked up her head, eyes still open and aware as the linen slipped from them, as they looked at me. I willed the bile back down my throat and forced myself to look into those eyes with love for the few moments before awareness dimmed from them.
Within seconds, she slipped away. I took the head into the smallest and finest of the linens and carefully wrapped it, her blood running thickly between my fingers, under my nails, and staining my forearms as I sought to save her from any indignity. Gorge rose in my throat but I swallowed it back every few seconds and tried not to feel the spidery trickle of blood running down my arms. Nan and Alice quickly wrapped the body and, while the guards held back the crowds, we made our way the hundred or so feet toward the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. On the way we passed the freshly dug graves of the men of the privy chamber, so recently laid to rest.
Do not waver. Do not stumble. Do not faint. Keep walking.
Once inside the church we removed her outer garments: much like the Roman soldiers casting lots for Christ’s clothing, Anne’s clothing were required to be parceled out to those who worked in the Tower keep, though she was allowed to keep her shift for modesty. We placed head and body together in a hastily emptied elm chest. It would be buried, and guarded, immediately.
“Good-bye, dearest,” I whispered afore they closed the lid. “Till we meet again.”
Sir William’s men escorted us back to the Queen’s Lodging. Nan Zouche was sick on the green along the way. “Get moving, and get your things,” one guard roughly commanded.
“Where are we to go?” Alice asked. She looked wan and ill.
“You”—he pointed at her—“will go to the household of your son. You”—he pointed at Lady Zouche—“will go to the keep of your husband. And you”—he pointed at me—“will be escorted back to Greenwich Palace, where you shall await your brother, who is now your guardian. He shall come to collect you shortly.”
We were to keep our lives. But mine would be enslaved to Edmund. I looked up to where my brother Thomas was still imprisoned and sent a prayer his way. I had no strength to do more.
Before we left Anne’s quarters I was sick over and over again in her privy basin.
As we left the Tower my anger grew. The man charged with delivering us back to our quarters carried on, either out of ill will or stupidity, about how the king was now free to marry Jane Seymour, and he would do so, anon, at York Place, and then present her as queen after Mass at Greenwich on Whitsunday, June 4. She was, I’d heard, at that moment being fitted for her wedding gown! Have a care, Mistress Seymour, I thought. You know not whom you marry. Or mayhap you do.
I knew Anne had been required by our times, by our God, and by her hopes for her daughter to speak well of the king. And I knew she was at peace. But it did not seem right that His Grace—the man who had not a sense of the meaning of the word yet carried the title—should be frolicking with Jane Seymour.
“Commend me to His Grace….” Anne’s words came floating back to me.
I would. I would do exactly that. I knew not how but afore I was banished from the palace I would do it. With a life with Edmund ahead of me I risked little, if anything at all.
Once at the castle, I packed my items and sat in my small quarters, wondering when Edmund would arrive. I did not leave my room at first. I closed my eyes and I saw Anne—her eyes staring at me, last bits of life being snuffed out. They had looked at peace and yet I was not. The next time I closed my eyes I saw the two of us dancing together as girls, learning under the steady gaze of the dance master. I willed myself to read Scripture till I was tired, and then I tried to sleep again. This time, I saw Anne as she was on her Calais wedding night, the air crackling between her and Henry. She was so happy. I saw her snapping her fingers at a servant. She was certainly born to be royal. I heard her witty ripostes to Suffolk, unmanning her lifelong enemy to the bemusement of the king. I opened my eyes to stop the pictures and words.
Mayhap sleep would elude me. I wandered the hallway, toward the kitchen, and as I passed the great hall I could see her, dancing, for many years past. Unwell now, I returned to my room without eating. I felt my own head; ’twas feverish, and yet I had no lady servant to assist me.
That night I put my own dressing gown on afore bed. Hours later, I woke up screaming and clawing at my arms. I’d been dreaming that her blood was still running down my arms and I could not get it off. When I awoke I saw that I had scratched deep streaks into each forearm. They bled now, with my blood, along the same rivulets that Anne’s had. I wiped them off with a linen.
Someone kindly sent a servant with food the next day; I knew not whom, but I suspected it was someone sympathetic to Anne, of course. Afraid to sleep, I spent the second night trying to think of a way to speak with the king, but of course, he was already at York Place with Mistress Seymour. Late that night I left my things in my traveling chest and made my way in the blackness down the hall to the chapel. I pushed open the door—it squeaked but a little—and made my way to a pew, wherein I looked up at the Lord on the cross and prayed. After an hour or so I began to make my way back toward the door out of the chapel and stopped, of a moment, at the royal box. In a feverish moment, I knew how to convey Anne’s final message to Henry, to superstitious Henry, in a way he would never forget and would, I hoped, haunt him forever.
I crept back to my chambers and dug through my chest till I found what I was looking for—a quill and ink. I pulled a plain cloak about me so that if I should be seen in the hallway I should not be recognized. As the court was mainly with Henry at York Place there was little likelihood of being found out. And then I snuck back into the royal box at the chapel and opened the Scriptures to Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, which should surely be read at the celebration of Pentecost, Whitsunday, when His Grace should be in this very place with his new bride.
In the margins next to the Scripture I disguised my hand as best I could and wrote, You hath ever been constant in your career of advancing me; from private gentlewoman you made me marquess, from marquess a queen, and now that you hath left no higher degree of honor you give my innocence the crown of martyrdom. Your beloved wife, Anne.