"Let us leave it all to God. He knows the truth. Let us yield ourselves to Him; for no one else can help us now." The more she seemed resigned, the more they wept for her-so high in spirit, yet so meek of heart!

8. Others beside the Queen were tossing through that night in agony of soul. Early in the morning, Alesse was startled in his bed. Whether he was awake or sleeping he hardly knew, but looking towards the first faint streaks of dawn, he fancied he beheld a ghastly sight-the Queen's neck, after the head was stricken off. He rose and ran into the street. It was but three o'clock. He took a boat and paddled up the stream. Coming to Lambeth Stairs, he thought of the Archbishop's garden, as a place where he was used to walk, and where, beneath the shade of arching trees, he might compose his troubled spirit. Finding the gate open, he went in, thinking he would sit beneath the trees; but looking up the path, he saw the bent and sorrowing form of his illustrious friend. Cranmer, on coming up, inquired why the good pastor was stirring at that early hour, the clock not having yet struck four? "I have been horrified by a vision," said the pastor, and he told the primate all that he had seen. Cranmer looked at him in silent wonder for a long time; since hardly any one was aware that the execution had been ordered for that day. At length the Primate asked, with choking voice, "Do you know what is to happen this day?" "No," said Alesse, ❝since the date of the Queen's imprisonment I have never left my room, and know

nothing of what is going on."

The Primate raised

his eyes to heaven in prayer. At last, covering his face, now wet with tears, he gasped with deep emotion, "She who has been the Queen of England on earth, will this day become a Queen in heaven!"

CHAPTER X.

Peace.

1536.

I. SOME time before twelve o'clock a royal barge swept round to the Tower, and Audley, Cromwell, and Suffolk stept on shore. By Henry's orders they were come to see his consort hacked to death, while Henry rode afield with hound and horn. With Cromwell came the Duke of Richmond, whom he now regarded as the King's successor. Both the girls being bastardised, the son of Mistress Blount stood up before the daughters of Queen Catharine and Queen Anne. Audley was preparing a speech, in which he meant to recommend the peers and burgesses to name Henry Fitzroy Heir-apparent. Norfolk was not murdering his niece in vain, for when that deed was done, his daughter Mary would be near the crown. The three conspirators, with the boy who was to take Elizabeth's place in the succession, walked through the archway of the Bloody tower, and passing by the Nun's prison, so lately occupied by the Maid of Kent, came out on the open Green. A scaffold was erected in the front of Beauchamp tower. Fitzroy mounted the platform first. Audley, Cromwell, and Suffolk, followed him. Near the scaffold stood the Lord Mayor, some of the Aldermen, and a few other citizens. They were waiting for the Queen,

2. A few minutes before noon, Kingston came into the Queen's apartments. His orders were to have her head struck off at twelve o'clock, and he had seen too much of Henry's mood to swerve one hair from his command. But she was not to die, as Rochford and the rest had suffered, by the stroke of an old English axe. In France, they had a method of executing criminals by the sword, and Henry, wishing to introduce that method into England, chose to have the first experiment tried on his own wife! No man in London was accustomed to the work, and Cromwell had to send to Calais for an expert in this novel craft. Anne shrank in horror from such novelties; but Kingston, meaning to be kind, assured her in his burly way that her head would be off in no time.

3. The hour had come. One woman was allowed to go with her, and stand beside her to the last. The others were to follow her to the scaffold steps, and there remain till she was dead. Anne chose for this sad office Wyat's sister, Margaret, the companion of her youth in the old Hever days, when they had mused together in the garden by the moat. She thanked the stern old soldier and his wife for all that they had done to soothe her pain while she had been a prisoner. Kingston tried to comfort her. "I trust," she answered with a patient voice, "that God will give me strength," on which all those who were about her noticed that her face became suffused with a strange beauty-rapt, serene, angelic. With that beauty visible on her face, she bade her last farewell to Wyat's wife, the dear com

panion of her womanhood, and to the other ladies who had watched and prayed with her all night. Giving to each a little keepsake, which was treasured afterwards as a sacred relic, she descended to the Green, her feeble health and failing steps concealed by her unfaltering spirit.

4. Few nobler sights were ever seen on earth. Dressed in a black robe, a white cape falling from her neck, a book of Psalms in her hands, the Queen walked slowly past the file of guards, the group of citizens, the knot of councillors, and the boy who was to supersede her daughter. Now and then she glanced aside, as if to see that Margaret Lee and Elizabeth Wyat were near her. Mounting the scaffold steps, she made a sign to Kingston. "Do not hasten the signal till I have spoken that which is on my mind to say." She seemed a little faint, although her cheek, so pale at ordinary times, was burning red. Kingston stood apart, for there was something not of earth about this woman on the verge of death. Turning to the ladies of her train, she said to them; "My friends, do not grieve to see me die! Pardon me, of your good hearts, if I have not always shown towards any of you the kindness which you deserved from me, and which I had the power to show!"

5. Then facing the councillors and other picked spectators of her end, she said: "To speak of the causes for which I die, is of no use to you, and none to me. But I pray that any one who looks into these affairs may be able to see the true opinion. God, the true and upright Judge, knows all.

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