"O Death! rock me asleep!
Bring on my quiet rest;
Let pass my very guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Ring out the doleful knell;
Let its sound my death tell;
For I must die.
There is no remedy,
For now I die!"
Her old friend, Sir Henry Kingston, was charged to announce the dreadful sentence that she be beheaded at noon the 19th of May, 1536, and, instead of the axe, the King graciously ordered she be beheaded by a sword; there was an expert in the horrid business who should be sent for to come from Calais.
Said the messenger, "I told her that the pain would be little, it was so subtle"; and then she replied, "I have heard say the executioner is very good, and my neck is very slender," upon which she clasped it with her two hands and smiled serenely; was even cheerful.
ANNE BOLEYN.
A few minutes before noon the Queen of England, attended by four maids of honor, appeared on Tower Hill, dressed in a robe of black damask, with deep white crape ruffling her neck, a black velvet hood on her head. Her cheeks were flushed with fever, and her beauty, says an eye-witness, was fearful to look upon.
In sight of the scaffold she made a speech, resigned and gentle: "I come here to die, not to accuse my enemies.... I pray God to save the King, and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler and more merciful Prince was there never. To me he was ever a good and gentle sovereign lord.... Thus I take my leave of the world and of you, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me."
Then she bade her weeping ladies farewell, refusing to allow her eyes to be covered, and the skilful Frenchman, avoiding her reproachful glance, with one blow of the sharp steel parted the burning brain from the true heart, and Anne Boleyn entered the strange peace we call death.
The dripping head with its soft silky tresses and the dis-severed body reeking in blood, were thrown into an old elm chest that had been used for keeping arrows, and carelessly buried in the chapel, without hymn or prayer.