Marcella Mayfair - Anne Boleyn: The Final 24 hours

When the Tower is white, and another place green,

Then shall be burned two or three bishops and a queen.

And after all this be passed we shall have a merry world.

The prophecy of the Abbot of Garadon

4:50AM 18 th May 1536

The Queens Lodgings - The Tower of London

Just over four hours until the scheduled time of Anne Boleyns execution.

Anne Boleyn is nearing the end of hearing Mass.

The service is being conducted by her friend and longtime confidante the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who has arrived from Lambeth Palace specifically for the task.

Also present are her ladies: Margaret Wyatt, a woman she has known since childhood Katherine Carey, her 12-year-old niece; Lady Boleyn; Elizabeth Wood, her aunt; and Mrs Mary Orchard, her one-time nurse. Her almoner, John Skip, is also in attendance. Both he and Anne have been praying since two of the clock after midnight. Mass, followed by her final confession, is the natural conclusion to the process of preparing her soul for immortality.

Also present, at the specific request of Anne, is Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower.

Kingston is feeling weary and not just because of the earliness of the hour.

He is approaching sixty years of age and has been Constable of the Tower for twelve years. He has fought wars side by side with the Duke of Suffolk and has loyally served the king in a variety of capacities ever since Henry came to the throne as a teenage boy. He might venture so far as to consider the king a friend.

Yet nothing has aged him like the events of the previous fortnight.

Until recently he had been responsible for the imprisonment of six men accused of committing the vilest of acts with the Queen of England. Just yesterday morning he accompanied five of them, Henry Norris, Francis Weston, William Brereton, Mark Smeaton and the queens brother, Lord Rochford on the short journey to Tower Hill. There, in front of the London crowd, an executioner supplied by the city removed their heads with an axe according to the judgements that had been delivered against them.

Kingstons important charges were suddenly much reduced in number.

One man still remained in the Tower. Thomas Wyatt, brother of Margaret who was currently serving the queen. He had not yet been sent to trial. But the rumour around court was that it was surely just a matter of time, and no one had any doubt as to what his fate would be.

At the start of the month, on the 2 nd of May, Kingston had been requested to attend court. This was not an unusual event for Kingston. He attended court on a regular basis and was on very good terms with the king. Yet something was strange that day. There was talk of arrests amongst both the king's and queens households. People were walking the corridors in fear. There was also the matter of the kings sudden departure from the previous days May Jousts. With his years of experience in political dealings, Kingston knew something significant was occurring.

And so he was proven correct.

He was summoned to a secret meeting with the kings Chief Minister, Thomas Cromwell. During the meeting he received orders to hurriedly prepare the queens apartments at the Tower. The queen was coming to stay; she would be arriving by barge later that day. This was not the same as her previous stay in the apartments. Then, she had awaited the joyful event of her coronation. Today, she would be lodging as the kings prisoner. Kingston was also instructed by Cromwell to keep a close watch on Annes demeanour and to record, in detail, any talk of significance. This was to be reported back to him on a daily basis as a minimum. If something important was mentioned, then it was to be reported immediately. In order to aid Kingston in his spying endeavour, Lady Boleyn was placed as one of those to serve upon the queen. Cromwell also requested that Lady Kingston spend as much time as possible with the prisoner. The ladies in question would report to Kingston who would, in turn, submit his report to Cromwell.

Kingston duly hurried back to the Tower to take control of the situation.

After seeing that the arrangements regarding her accommodation had been carried out satisfactorily, Kingston was present at the arrival of the queen and greeted her with due respect, at which point Anne enquired if she should be placed in a dungeon. Kingston assured her that her own apartments had been made up for her and that she would be lodging there. She retorted that it was too good for her. Then she burst into a bout of hysterical laughter which quite unnerved Kingston and sent a shiver down his spine. On recovering her composure, the queen enquired as to whether Kingston was aware of the reason behind her imprisonment. Kingston confirmed in all honesty that he was not. Anne furthered her questioning of her custodian, asking when he had last seen the king. Kingston replied that he had not seen him since his appearance at the May Day jousts. She asked about her brother George and her father. Kingston gave her truthful answers where he could on their whereabouts. Anne then commented on the rumours that she would be tried with three men. Kingston told her that he could not comment on this matter. Quite simply he had no idea himself what was occurring.

Before the two parted, Anne asked Kingston a final, searching question. Master Kingston, she asked. Am I going to die without justice? Kingston replied that even the poorest subject in the kingdom had justice.

Anne simply laughed at Kingstons answer in the same hysterical manner that had become commonplace over the last two weeks.

The next morning Kingston reported the full detail of this conversation in a communication that he rushed to Thomas Cromwell. It was the first of many such letters.

Over the next days Kingston was made responsible for arranging suitable accommodation for the trial of the two currently held in the tower, namely the Queen and her brother. The trial was set for the 15 th of May and the Tower had to be made available for the peers of the land who had come to pass judgement on the prisoners. With so much happening and so many great men in attendance, the people within the Towers mighty buttresses had to be managed. There was talk of terrible scandal, wickedness, adultery and incest throughout London. People naturally gravitated towards the Tower to be close to the centre of intrigue.

For Kingston it was a logistical nightmare without precedence.

After the judgement was passed, which incidentally was guilty and was unanimous (even Thomas Boleyn found his own children guilty), Kingston had to arrange for a suitable scaffold to be built within the precinct of the Tower. Word had been sent that the queen would not burn as the original sentence had decreed. The king had graciously communed the sentence to a mere be-heading, thus sparing his former wife (an annulment had already been issued) the horrors of a death by fire. There were also instructions of a further concession. The executioner of the Tower would not be required. Instead, the famed executioner of Calais, who used a sword as opposed to an axe, had already been sent for and had been lodging within the Tower since the previous evening. How word had managed to be sent and the swordsman managed to arrive in London with such speed was a mystery to Kingston.

The only conclusion he could come to was that the executioner had been sent for before Anne Boleyns trial had even taken place. He had already decided that he wouldnt ask Cromwell for clarification regarding this matter. The kings business was the kings business.

So his exhaustion while he watched Anne Boleyn take her last sacrament was understandable. He half wondered why the queen had requested him to be present at this very private affair. But in reality he knew the answer. Anne was clever. Her wit was one of the qualities that first attracted the king. Anne knew that Kingston was reporting everything directly to Cromwell and possibly even to the king. She wanted them to know that she was behaving with the utmost dignity and that she wasnt in floods of tears confessing her guilt.