Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

I scream, “Uncle!” but he just gives a gesture of his hand as if to say, “Take her away,” and they do. They lead me up the stairs, past the White Tower, and across the green. The workmen are building a platform on the lawn, a little wooden stage standing about three feet high, with broad steps going up to it. Others are fencing off the paths. The men on either side of me walk a little faster and look away, and this makes me absolutely certain that this is my scaffold, and the fence is to hold back the crowd who will come to see me die.

“How many people will come?” I ask; the little coughing sobs make it hard for me to breathe.

“A couple of hundred,” the warden says uncomfortably. “It is not open to the public. Just to the court. As a favor to you. The king’s own orders.”

I nod; it is not much of a favor, I think. Ahead the door of the tower opens before us, and I go up the narrow stone stairs with one man slightly ahead of me hauling me up and the other pushing from behind. “I can walk,” I say, and they let go of my arms but stay close beside me. My room is on the first floor; the large glazed window overlooks the green. There is a fire in the grate, there is a stool by the fire and a table with a Bible, and beyond that there is a bed.

The men let me go and stand by the door. The warden and I look at each other. “Shall you be wanting anything?” he asks.

I laugh out loud at this most ridiculous question. “Like what?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Some delicacy, or some spiritual comfort?”

I shake my head. I don’t even know if there is a God anymore, for if Henry is special in the sight of God and he knows God’s will, then I suppose God wants me to die, but in private as a special favor. “I should like to have the block,” I say.

“The block, my lady?”

“Yes, the executioner’s block. Can I have it here in my room?”

“If you wish… but… what do you want it for?”

“To practice,” I say impatiently. I go across to the window, and I look down. The green will be filled with people who were proud to be at my court, people who were desperate to be my friend. Now they will be watching me die. If I am to do it, I had better do it properly.

He gulps. Of course he doesn’t understand what I mean; he is an old man, and he will die in his bed with his friends watching his last breath. But I shall be watched by hundreds of critical eyes. I want to do it gracefully if I have to do it.

“I shall have them bring it at once,” he says. “And will you see your confessor now?”

I nod. Though if God knows everything already, and already has decided that I am so bad that I should die before my seventeenth birthday, it is hard to know what the point of confession might be.

He bows and goes from the room. The soldiers bow and close the door. The key turns in the lock with a great clunk. I go and look out of the window at the workmen and the scaffold below. It looks as if they will be finished by tonight. Perhaps they will be ready tomorrow.

It takes two of them to bring in the block with much huffing and puffing as if it is heavy, and many sideways glances at me as if I am rather peculiar in needing to practice. Really, if they had been Queen of England like me, when I was still a girl, then they would know what a comfort it is to get the ceremonies right. There is nothing worse in the whole world than not knowing what you are supposed to do and looking foolish.

I kneel before the great thing and put my head down on it. I can’t say it’s very comfortable. I try it with my head turned one way and then the other. There’s no vast improvement in either direction, and no change of view anyway as I will be blindfolded, and underneath the blindfold I shall have my eyes tight shut, hoping like a child that it isn’t happening. The wood is smooth, cool under my hot cheek.

I suppose I really do have to do this.

I sit back on my heels and look at the damned thing. Really, if it were not so dreadful, I could laugh. All along I thought I had the Boleyn inheritance of grace and beauty and charm, and it turns out that all I have inherited is this: her block. This is the Boleyn inheritance for me. Voilà : the executioner’s block.

She is to be beheaded today; already the crowd is gathering on the green. Looking from the window I can see so many faces I know. These are friends and rivals who go back years and years with me; we were children together when Henry VII was on the throne, and some of us were ladies at the court of Queen Katherine of Aragon. I wave merrily, and a couple of them see me, and point, and stare.

Here comes the block now! They have had it tucked away somewhere, and two of the workmen heave it up to the scaffold and spread the sawdust around it. That’s to catch her blood. Beneath the scaffold is a basket filled with straw to catch her head. I know all of this, for I have seen it before, more than once. Henry has been a king who has used the headsman very often. I was there at the beheading of Anne Boleyn; I saw her walk up those shallow steps to the scaffold, and stand before the crowd, and confess her sins, and pray for her soul. She looked over our heads to the Tower gate, as if she were waiting for the pardon that she had been promised. It never came, and she had to kneel down and put her head on the block and stretch out her arms as a signal that the sword could come down. I’ve often wondered what it must be like, to fling your arms out as if you were flying, and the next moment hear that swish and feel the hair on the back of your neck lift with the wind of the passing blade and then…

Well, Katherine will know soon enough. The door behind me opens and a priest comes in, very grave-looking in his vestments, with a Bible and a prayer book hugged to his chest.

“My child,” he says,“are you prepared for the hour of your death?”

I laugh out loud, and then it sounds so convincingly mad that I laugh again. I cannot tell him that he is mistaken and that I cannot be sentenced to die, because I am insane, but I point at him and say, “Hello! Hello! Hello!” very loudly.

He sighs and kneels down on the floor before me, folds his hands together, and closes his eyes. I skip away from him to the far side of the room and say,“Hello?” But he starts the prayers of confession and penitence and pays no attention to me at all. Some fool has told him that I am to be prepared for death, and I suppose I shall have to go along with it since I can hardly argue with him. I suppose at the last moment they will come and commute the sentence to imprisonment. “Hello!” I say again, and climb up to the window ledge.

There is a stir in the crowd, and everyone is craning to look at the door at the foot of the tower. I stand up on my toes and push my face against the cold glass so that I can see what they are all looking at. It is her: little Kitty Howard, staggering to the scaffold. Her legs seem to have given way; she is being carried between a guard and a woman-in-waiting, and they half drag her to the steps. Then her little wavering feet wander about, and they have to bodily lift her and push her up to the stage. I laugh at the incongruity of this; then I catch myself at the horror of laughing at a girl, almost a child, on the way to her death. Then I realize it sounds as if I am mad, and I laugh again for the benefit of the priest, praying for my soul in the room behind me.

She looks as if she has fainted; they are slapping her face and pinching her cheeks, poor little mite. She stumbles to the front of the stage and clutches the rail and tries to speak. I can’t hear what she says; I doubt anybody can hear much. I can see her lips. It looks as if she is saying: “Please.”