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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ. Queens of England. Vol.1.

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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ.
Queens of England. Vol.1.
page 412



to be put to death for that crime. 2nd. If the same judgment were good, the act of settlement became null, because it was based on the supposition of a valid marriage, and all the treasons created by that act were at once done away. 3rd. If the act of settlement were still in force, the judgment itself, inasmuch as it ' slandered and impugned the marriage,' was an act of treason." But Anne derived no benefits from these doubts. She was executed, and the next Parliament, put an end to all controversy on the subject, by enacting, that offences made treason by the act should be so deemed if committed before the eighth of June, but that the King's loving subjects concerned in the prosecution of the Queen in the archbishop's court or before the lords, should have a full pardon for all treasons by them in such prosecution committed. On the day on which Cranmer pronounced Anne's divorce, her brother and the other gentlemen were led to execution on Tower Hill, lîochford exhorted those who suffered with him to die without fear ; and warned the spectators not to rely on court favours, but to live according to the gospel, and put their trust in God only. Noms was silent. AVeston lamented that he had given his youth to sin, and his old age to repentance. Brcrcton declared that he had deserved to die, if it were a thousand deaths ; but exhorted the spectators, if they judged, to judge the best. Smeaton was hanged. His last words, though susceptible of a different meaning, were considered by his hearers as tantamount to a confession of his guilt. "Masters," said he, " I pray you all pray for me, for I have deserved the death." Anne betrayed no violent emotion when she heard of the execution of her brother and his unfortunate companions. She said, she feared Smeaton's soul would suffer for the false witness he had borne, but the others, she doubted not, were, where she in a few hours would be, in eternal glory. The last two days of her life she spent for the most part in the company of her confessor, who administered the sacrament to her according to the rites of the Roman Catholic church. The evening before she suffered she took Lady Kingston into her presence chamber, and after locking the door, commanded her to sit down in the chair of estate. " It is my duty always to stand in tho Queen's presence," answered Lady Kingston. "Ah ! madam," replied Anne, "that title is gone ; I am a condemned person, and by law have no estate left mo in this life, but for the clearing of my conscience. 1 pray you sit down." "Well," said Lady Kingston, "I have often played the fool in my youth, and to fulfil your command I will do it once more in mine age." And thereupon sat down under the cloth of estate ; when the Queen most humbly fell on her knees before her, and, with hands uplifted and weeping eyes, charged her, in the name of God and his angels, and as she would answer before them on tho great Judgment day, that she would so fall down before the Lady Mary's grace, her daughter-in-law, and in her name, in like manner, ask her furgiveness for the wrongs she had done her ; for till that was accomplished, her conscience, she said, could not be quiet. The above dialogue, quoted by Speed, is a tolerable proof that Anne, even after her condemnation, continued to occupy her own royal apartments in the Tower, known as the Queen's lodgings, and that she was not, as some have supposed, confined in a dungeon in that part of the fortress named the Martin Tower. The scaffold on which Anne was beheaded, was erected on the green within the Tower ; for as this was the first instance of an English Queen being decapitated, Henry anticipated the possibility of an attempt at a rescue. Henry having decided that the head of his condemned consort should be struck off with a sword, the headsman of Calais, a man who for skill stood at the head of his horrible profession, was brought over ti England for that purpose. The conduct of Anne the last few hours before she was led to the scaffold, and with what caution the preparations for her


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