"If ever I have found favor in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn has been pleasant in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your Grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your Grace in His good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions.
"From my doleful prison in the Tower this 6th of May.
The trial was held the 16th May in the great Hall of the Tower, the scene of much iniquity, but none so black as this. The twenty-six "lords triers" were picked men who knew Henry's will and pitiless cruelty. The defenceless prisoner had no counsel or advice of any kind, but she bore herself composedly, and fearlessly held up her hand and pleaded not guilty. The records of the trial were destroyed, but it is said she defended herself with power and eloquence. It was a mere form; she was sentenced to be burnt or beheaded in three days, at the pleasure of the sovereign, and was requested to lay aside her crown, which she did, swearing herself innocent of any crime against her husband. Then clasping her hands, she appealed from earth to heaven, to the One who judgeth quick and dead: "O Father! O Creator! Thou who art the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Thou knowest that I have not deserved this fate!"
The whole proceeding was a bitter mockery, the deliberate sentence of death of a wife to make room for another.
She knew him too well to entreat for life or an extension of time. Three days more were allowed her, and of the hundreds the lovely lady had befriended not one was bold enough to stand between the murderer and the Queen. He was surrounded by flatterers who compared him to Absalom for beauty, Solomon for wisdom, and heroes ancient and modern for courage. And the same day she was condemned bluff King Harry signed the death warrant of his "entirely beloved Anne Boleyn."
In the dismal Tower she wrote her own requiem, so pitiful, yet so brave a thing few souls could dare. It begins:
"O Death! rock me asleep! Bring on my quiet rest; Let pass my very guiltless ghost Out of my careful breast. Ring out the doleful knell; Let its sound my death tell; For I must die. There is no remedy, For now I die!"
Her old friend, Sir Henry Kingston, was charged to announce the dreadful sentence that she be beheaded at noon the 19th of May, 1536, and, instead of the axe, the King graciously ordered she be beheaded by a sword; there was an expert in the horrid business who should be sent for to come from Calais.