Upon which she grasped it in her hand, and smiled. When brought, however, to the scaffold, she softened her tone a little with regard to her protestations of innocence. She probably reflected that the obstinacy of queen Katherine, and her opposition to the king's will, had much alienated him from the Lady Mary. Her own maternal concern, therefore, for Elizabeth, prevailed in these last moments over that indignation which the unjust sentence by which she suffered, naturally excited in her. She said that she was come to die, as she was sentenced by the law. She would accuse none, nor say any thing of the ground upon which she was judged. She prayed heartily for the king; called him a most merciful and gentle prince; and acknowledged that he had always been to her a good and gracious sovereign; and if any one should think proper to canvas her cause, she desired him to judge the best. She was beheaded by the executioner of Calais, who was sent for as more expert than any in England. Her body was negligently thrown into a common chest of elm tree, made to hold arrows, and was buried in the Tower.

The innocence of this unfortunate queen cannot reasonably be called in question. Henry himself, in the violence of his rage, knew not whom to accuse as her lover. But the king made the most effectual apology for her, by marrying Jane Seymour the very day after her execution. His impatience to gratify this new passion, caused him to forget all regard to decency; and his cruel heart was not softened a moment by the bloody catastrophe of a person who had so long been the object of his most tender affections.

157.-ANNE BOLEYN'S LETTER.

"Sir, your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are things so strange unto me, as what to write or what to accuse I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing me to confess a truth, and so obtain your favour) by such an one whom you know to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your command.

"But let not your grace ever imagine that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault where not so much as a thought thereof preceded. And to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn. With which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had been so pleased, neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If then you found me worthy of such honour, good your grace let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of mine enemies withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal towards your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter. Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges ; yea let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame: then shall you see either mine innocence cleared, your suspicion and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that

whatsoever God and you may determine of me, your grace may be freed from an open censure; and mine offence being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty both before God and man not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection already set on that party for whose sake I am now as I am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto, your grace not being ignorant of my suspicion therein.

"But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander, must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness, then I desire of God that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof, and that he will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, and in whose judgment I doubt not (whatsoever the world may think of me), mine innocence shall be openly known and sufficiently cleared.

"My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen who (as I understand), are likewise in strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any farther, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May,

"Your most loyal and ever faithful wife,

158. THE TRAGEDY OF ANNE BOLEYN.

SCENE I.

"ANNE BOLEYN."

REV. H. H. MILMAN.

Queen and ladies, Sir Henry Norreys, Sir Francis Weston, Sir William Brereton,

Mark Smeaton.

Norreys. Your Majesty will grace the tilt to-day?

Queen. The king so wills it: mine obedience rather

Than mine own humour sways my choice.

To hope that he your grace has deign'd to name

Your knight, being champion of the ring, your highness
Had given him victory by your presence.

Weston. Our mistress thus commanding, what true knight Can fail or falter?

Queen. Courteous words, Sir Francis ;

But I mistake me or that name calls up

Another, and in truth, a fairer lady.

Weston. Not as I live.

Queen. Take heed! false oath false knight :

Your gallantry's infectious; this poor youth
Must needs admire and imitate your courtesies:
Take heed that thou offend no more-be modest,
As thou wert wont. And now to horse, sir knights,
Go forward, and Heaven speed the brave and noble !
So now to Greenwich, to look gay and light
As this May morning, with a heart as heavy
As dull November; to be thought the happiest,

Be the most wretched of all womankind.

SCENE II.

Gardiner and Angelo (a follower of Loyola.)

Angelo. My lord of Winchester-thou 'st seen the king?
Gardiner. I've seen a raging madman loose; he came
From Greenwich at full speed; their horses seem'd
Like those who ride for life from a lost battle :-
What hath befallen ?

Angelo
The game is won ere played!
It fires beyond our hopes, the sulphurous train
Flames up, they 're hurled aloft, but not to Heaven.
Wake, Hell! and lift thy gates; and ye, that tenant
The deepest, darkest, most infuriate pit,

Th' abyss of all abysses, blackest blackness,

Where that most damning sin, the damning others
With direst, most remorseless expiation,
Howls out its drear eternity, arouse

The myriad voices of your wailing; loud
As when the fleshly Luther, or the chief

Of his cursed crew have one by one gone down

To tread your furnace chambers!-Rise! prepare
The throne of fire, the crown of eating flames!
She comes the queen, the fatal queen, whose beauty
Hath been to England worse, more full of peril,
Than Helen's was to Troy, hath seal'd for death,

[Exeunt.

Within the tilt-yard, not to take delight

Carnal, unpriestly, in the worldly pageant:

Though, Heaven forgive me! when the trumpets blew,
And the lists fell, and knights as brave, and full

Of valour as their steeds of fire, wheel'd forth,
And moved in troops or single, orderly

As youths and maidens in a village dance,

Or shot, like swooping hawks, in straight career;

The old Caraffa rose within my breast

Struggled my soul with haughty recollections

Of when I rode through the outpour'd streets of Rome, Enamouring all the youth of Italy

With envy of my noble horsemanship.

But I rebuked myself, and thought how heaven

Had taught me loftier mastery, to rein

And curb with salutary governance

Th' unmanaged souls of men. But to our purpose;
Even at the instant, when all spears were levell❜d,

And rapid as the arblast bolt the knights

Spurr'd one by one to the ring, when breathless leant The ladies from their galleries-from the queen's

A handkerchief was seen to fall; but while

Floating it dallied on the air, a knight,

Sir Henry Norreys, as I learnt, stoop'd down,

Caught, wreath'd it in his plume, regain'd his spear,

And smote right home the quivering ring: th' acclaim Burst forth like roaring waters, but the king

Sprang up, and call'd to horse, while tumult wild

Broke up the marr'd and frighted ceremony.

Gardiner. Something of this I augur'd: as the king Swept furious by, he beckon'd me; yet seem'd Too busied with his wrathful thoughts to heed Whom thus he summon'd; and I heard him mutter "The saucy groom!" and terms, which to repeat Were not o'er fitting priestly lips, but coupled With the queen's name most strangely. Seeing this.

I thought it in mine office to administer
Grave ghostly admonition, mingled well
With certain homily and pulpit phrases
Of man's ingratitude, and gracious kings

Whose bounties are abused; the general looseness
Of the age. The more I spake, the more he madden'd
As though my words were oil on fire.

Angelo.

'Twas well,

But must be better; I have further tidings.

I pass'd the Tower, and saw Sir William Kingston,
Summon'd, 'twas said, with special haste, come forth
Among his archers.

Anne Boleyn landing at the Tower. Sir William Kingston, Guards.
Queen. Here-here, then all is o'er !-Oh! awful walls,
Oh! sullen towers, relentless gates, that open

Like those of Hell, but to receive the doom'd,

The desperate.-Oh! ye black and massy barriers,
But broken by yon barr'd and narrow loopholes,
How do ye coop from this, God's sunshine world
Of freedom and delight, your world of woe,
Your midnight world, where all that live, live on
In hourly agony of death!
Vast dungeon,

Populous as vast, of your devoted tenants!
Long ere our bark had touch'd the fatal strand,
I felt your ominous shadows darken o'er me,
And close me round; your thick and clammy air,
As though 'twere loaded with dire imprecations,
Wailings of dying and of tortured men,
Tainted afar the wholesome atmosphere.

Kingston (to the guard.) Advance your halberds.
Queen.
Oh! sir, pause—one look,
One last long look, to satiate all my senses.
Oh! thou blue cloudless canopy, just tinged
With the faint amber of the setting sun,
Where one by one steal forth the modest stars
To diadem the sky :-thou noble river,
Whose quiet ebb, not like my fortune, sinks
With gentle downfall, and around the keels
Of those thy myriad barks mak'st passing music:-
Oh! thou great silent city, with thy spires
And palaces; where I was once the greatest,
The happiest I, whose presence made a tumult