*

a prudent précaution, strangers had been dismissed from the Tower, and not more than thirty persons were admitted to witness the catastrophe. By one of those few spectators, we are assured, that the Queen approached the platform with perfect composure; that her countenance was cheerful, and retained all its wonted pre-eminence of beauty. As she advanced to the spot, she had to detach herself from her weeping attendants, whom she vainly attempted to reconcile to her destiny. Among these, the most cherished was Wiatt's sister, with whom Anne continued in earnest conversation till the parting moment, and then presented to her, with a benignant smile, a small manuscript prayer-book, which the af flicted friend was ever after accustomed to lodge in her bosom as a sacred relic of imperishable attachment.+ To each of her other companions she made a similar bequest, beseeching them not to grieve, because she was thus doomed to die, but rather to pardon her for not having always treated them with becoming mildness: then ascending the scaf fold, she addressed a few words to the spectators, of which the following is said to have

* The platform was erected on the Tower Green, now designated the Parade, and must have been nearly opposite to the Lieutenant's lodgings.

It is pleasing to revert to the faithful attachment long preserved by the Wiatts for the memory of Anne Boleyn. The little biographical tract so often referred to was compiled from traditional records by a member of that family.

been the purport :-" Friends, and good Christian people; I am here in your presence to suffer death, whereto I acknowledge myself adjudged by law, how justly I will not say: I intend not an accusation of any one. I beseech the Almighty to preserve His Majesty long to reign over you: a more gentle or mild Prince never swayed sceptre.* His bounty towards me hath been special. If any one intend an inquisitive survey of my actions, I intreat them to judge favorably of me, and not rashly to admit any censorious conceit; and so I bid the world farewel, beseeching you to commend me in your prayers to God." This speech she uttered with a smiling countenance: then uncovering her neck, she knelt down, and fervently ejaculated: "To Jesus Christ I commend my soul!" But though her head was meekly submitted to the axe, the intrepidity with which she refused the bandage + delayed the accomplishment of her sentence; the touching expression of her eyes disarmed, for the moment, her executioner, and it was at length by stratagem that he seized the moment for giving the stroke of death. At this crisis, an exclamation of anguish burst from

An acknowledgment of the King's goodness appears to have been the form generally used by culprits at the place of execution. The Duke of Buckingham also spoke of the King's clemency. It is, however, proper to remark that many discrepancies appear in contemporary chronicles, and that it is probable no faithful transcript of Anne's speech was ever published.

See note at the end of the volume.

the spectators, which was quickly overpowered by the discharge of artillery announcing the event, the last royal honor offered to the memory of Anne Boleyn. What report was made of her execution to Henry is unknown: but he was perhaps somewhat appeased by the gentle, submissive demeanor displayed in this awful scene; and, as from her knowledge of his character she had probably anticipated, soon restored to her daughter a large portion of his paternal favor.

It was not without reason, that Anne committed the vindication of her fame to time and truth. The citizens believed her destroyed by the intrigues of the court. The nobility, when they beheld Jane Seymour, on the next Whit-Sunday, invested with royal pageantry, could not but feel, she had been sacrificed to the King's passions. The Catholics discerned in this tragedy the judgment of Heaven; the Protestants detected the machinations of the Pope and the Emperor. Perhaps the remote source of her misfortunes might be traced to superstition operating on the arbitrary spirit of Henry the Eighth, alarmed by the prediction, that the Tudors should not retain the sceptre of England, and yet inflexibly bent on transmitting the crown to his immediate posterity. To whatever cause might be ascribed the calamitous fate of Anne Boleyn, that it was unmerited, appears to have been generally allowed by all but the bigots whom she had offended, or the mercenary courtiers who basked in the sunshine of royal favor. But

these convictions were stifled by slavish devotion to kingly power, till the subsequent exposure of Lady Rochford's infamy extorted a tardy acknowledgment of the injustice to which the most beneficent of queens had been sacrificed. As the principles of the Reformation gained ground, the people became more sensible of their obligations to the woman who had ever warmly supported the cause of humanity and truth; and, although her remains were left to neglect, her charities could not be consigned to oblivion: her munificence was her monument; her expanded sympathies, her open-handed bounty, her enlightened beneficence, all conspired to fix on Henry's ferocious despotism an indelible stain of infamy and the enthusiasm which accompanied Elizabeth to the throne, was, in part at least, a tribute of gratitude and tenderness to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn.

SUPPLEMENTAL REMARKS

ON THE

BOLEYNS.

To the Boleyns, no motto could have been so appropriate as that assumed by the House of Courtenoy, ubi lapsus quid feci? Their rise had been slow and gradual; their fall was rapid and irretrievable, and after the death of Anne they never recovered dignity and importance.

The Earl of Wiltshire survived his ill-fated children but two years, and died, in 1538, at Hever, in whose parochial church his tomb is still pointed out to the curious visitor. For the Countess, contrary to her daughter's predictions, was reserved a longer term of existence; and, eventually, she lived to witness the death or disgrace of the majority of those Peers who sat in judgment on her daughter. The Earl of Northumberland had soon followed the object of his juvenile affection to the grave, overwhelmed with shame and sorrow for the execution of his brother, Sir Thomas Percy, who had been involved in Aske's rebellion. Cromwel and Surry perished on the scaffold; and the Duke of Norfolk was immured in the Tower, ere the remains of Anne's mother were consigned to the tomb of her ancestors, in the chapel at Lambeth, with this brief monumental inscrip

tion:

Elizabeth Howard, some time Countess of Wiltshire.

Mary Boleyn, her younger daughter, died in 1546, at Rochford Hall, Essex, leaving two children: a daughter, afterwards married to Sir Francis Knollys; and a son, Henry Carey, created Baron of Hunsdon by Queen Eli