statements. She was thinking, I have my little daughter to consider. She shall never be called bastard.
Cranmer’s voice went droning on. He was hinting at her release. There was a pleasant convent at Antwerp. What of the young men whose fate she deplored and whose innocence she proclaimed? All the country knew how she esteemed her brother, and he her. Was he to go to the block? What of her daughter? The King would be more inclined to favor a child whose mother had impressed him with her good sense.
Anne’s mind was working quickly. It was painfully clear. She must make a choice. If her marriage to the King were proved null and void then that was all he need ask for. He could marry Jane Seymour immediately if his marriage with Anne Boleyn had been no marriage at all. The child Jane carried would be born in wedlock. And for this, Anne was offered a convent in Antwerp, the lives of her brother and those innocent men who were to die with him. And if not . . . Once more she was hot with the imaginary fire that licked her limbs. And what would her refusal mean in any case? If the King had decided to disinherit Elizabeth, he would surely do so. He had ever found excuses for what he wished to do.
She had something to gain and nothing to lose, for if she had not been married to the King, how could she have committed adultery? The affairs of Lady Anne Rochford and the Marchioness of Pembroke could not be called treason to the King.
Her hopes were soaring. She thought, Oh, George, my darling, I have saved you! You shall not die. Gladly I will throw away my crown to save you!
Cromwell went back to his master rubbing his ugly hands with pleasure. Once more he had succeeded. The King was free to take a new wife whenever he wished, for he had never been married to Anne Boleyn. She herself had agreed upon it.
It was over. They had tricked her. At the King’s command she had stood and watched them as they passed by her window on their way to Tower Hill. She had sacrificed her own and her daughter’s rights in vain. Although she was no queen, these men had died. It was not reasonable; it was not logical; it was simply murder.
She herself had yet another day to live through. Mary Wyatt came to tell her how nobly these men had died, following the example of George, how they had made their speeches, which etiquette demanded, on the scaffold, how they had met their deaths bravely.
“What of Smeaton?” she asked. She thought of him still as a soft-eyed boy, and she could not believe that he would not tell the truth on the scaffold. Mary was silent and Anne cried out: “Has he not cleared me of the public shame he hath done me!” She surveyed Mary’s silent face in horror. “Alas,” she said at length and in great sorrow, “I fear his soul will suffer from the false witness he hath borne.”
Her face lightened suddenly.
“Oh, Mary,” she cried, “It will not be long now. My brother and the rest are now, I doubt not, before the face of the greater King, and I shall follow tomorrow.”
When Mary left her her sadness returned. She wished they had not given her fresh hope in the Lambeth Crypt. She had resigned herself to death, and then they had promised her she should live, and life was so sweet. She was twenty-nine and beautiful; and though she had thought herself weary of living, when they had given her that peep into a possible future, how eagerly she had grasped at it!
She thought of her daughter, and trembled. Three is so very young. She would not understand what had happened to her mother. Oh, let them be kind to Elizabeth.
She asked that Lady Kingston might come to her, and when the woman came she locked the door and with tears running down her cheeks, asked that Lady Kingston would sit in her chair of state.
Lady Kingston herself was moved in face of such distress.
“It is my duty to stand in the presence of the Queen, Madam,” she said.
“That title is gone,” was the answer. “I am a condemned person, and, I have no estate left me in this life, but for the clearing of my conscience, I pray you sit down.”
She began to weep, and her talk was incoherent, and humbly she fell upon her knees and begged that Lady Kingston would go to Mary, the daughter of Katharine, and kneel before her and beg that she would forgive Anne Boleyn for the wrong she had done her.
“For, my Lady Kingston,” she said, “till this be accomplished, my conscience cannot be quiet.”
After that she was more at peace and did not need to thrust the thought of her daughter from her mind.
The news was brought to her that her death should not take place at the appointed hour; there had been a postponement. She had been most gay, and to learn that she was to have a few more hours on Earth was a disappointment to her.
“Mr. Kingston,” she said, “I hear I shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time and past my pain.”
“The pain will be little,” he told her gently, “it is so subtle.”
She answered; “I have heard say the executioner is very good, and I have a little neck.”
She embraced it with her hands and laughed; and when her laughter had subsided, a great peace came to her. She had another day to live and she had heard that the King wished the hour of her execution to be kept secret, and that it was not to take place on Tower Hill where any idle spectator might see her die, but on the enclosed green; for the King feared the reactions of the people.
The evening passed; she was gay and melancholy in turns; she joked about her end. “I shall be easily nicknamed—‘Queen Anne . . .
She occupied herself in writing her own dirge.
