‘Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same the fact indeed against the Queen’s Highness was unlawful and the consenting thereunto by me.’ Jane was observing the convention that those about to die should concede the legality of their sentence. ‘Can I speak what is in my mind?’ ‘Yes, Madam.’ She turned to those watching. The party climbed the scaffold and Jane said to Thomas Brydges. Jane’s death was little more than an exercise in refuse disposal. How many people watched her we do not know certainly not the thousand who saw Anne Boleyn die at the same spot. Dressed as for her trial, all in black, she carried her prayer book which she read from all the way: perhaps ‘the prayer of Queen Esther for help against her enemies’, ‘the Lord’s Prayer and holy ejaculations suitable to the condition of a person in tribulation’, the ‘prayer for strength of mind to bear the cross’, certainly the prayer ‘for grace to believe and trust in Christ Jesus’. The diminutive former queen was in total command of her emotions, unlike her two ladies who ‘wonderfully wept’.
February 12th, 1554 “The lieutenant led Jane out followed by Feckenham and the others.
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