I hoped these words would make a mark on that conscience of his. I hoped they would be so telling that he would not be able to shrug them aside. I hoped he would be haunted by them for a long time to come.

There were moments when I longed to see him, that I might say to him what was in my mind, tell him that I saw clearly behind the mask of geniality—though that had been used less and less as time passed. Bluff King Hal was Henry the all-powerful, the selfish monster, the murderer.

I did not so much hate as despise him. He would be remembered throughout the ages to come as the King who, because of his carnal desires, had discarded the wife of twenty years on a trumped-up charge; and having succeeded in that he murdered his second. I wondered what would be the fate of the next… and the next… and the next…

But I must calm myself. I must prepare myself for departure.

I would dress with care. I should be elegant to the end. I should wear a robe of black damask with a white cape, and my hat with ornamental coifs under it.

I would calm myself. Indeed—but for leaving Elizabeth—I should have gone gratefully to my death. I would not want to live again through the last year of my life.

Perhaps I shall not be forgotten, but remembered as the Queen who was murdered because she stood in the way of one who had the power, cruelly and most unjustly, to murder those who were an encumbrance to him.

I did not retire that night. What use? Tomorrow I should no longer need sleep.

I was inspired to express my feelings in verse.

Oh, death rock me to sleep [I wrote]


Bring on my quiet rest,


Let pass my very guiltless ghost


Out of my careful breast.

The clocks have struck midnight. The new day has come.

Very soon now they will be leading me out to the Green. Before this day is over, my life will be no more.

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