Katherine's Block

She asked the jailer to bring her the block, so that she might practise holding herself.  This she did for some time.  Then she knelt before the block, laid her elbows upon it and prayed not to God, but to her cousins.

'I know that you are in Heaven, dear George and Anne,' she said, 'and I know that you will be readier to hear me than God must be.  Perhaps you would put in a good for me, if you have that ability.

'I have been dreadfully silly.  No, indeed, I have been stupid.  Anne, I know you regretted your boldness towards the King, but being gentler could not have saved you.  You would not have borne him a son even if you had sat still for all of your nine months.  You died because he no longer wanted you, but I die because I am a stupid girl.  I think that is why he gave you the Frenchman with the sword, and I am to die of the axe like ordinary traitors.  Just think of it.  Little Katherine, to be beheaded on this very block tonight.  Doesn't that make you dreadfully sad?

'If you had borne him sons, Anne, the King would surely have stayed married to you until he died, as you and Uncle Thomas must have planned.  Then I should never have come here as the King's wife.  Oh, not that I blame you at all.  It is just that I regret simply everything, and I cannot help thinking of how it might all have been different.

'Do you know who I blame, George?  Well, Dereham, obviously.  And it would have been much better if Culpeper had waited for the King to die of old age before he seduced me.  But more than that, I blame your darling wife Jane.  She pushed me into it, George.  Once she'd started, I couldn't stop it.  I was just a child!  I think that perhaps she hates me because I am your cousin.  She didn't like you very much, did she?  She can't have, if what I hear is true, and she testified against you when you were accused of treason and incest and all sorts of things.  Well, it comforts me to know that she too will die tomorrow.  Commoners die before queens, don't they?  In which case, I believe I shall be able to see it.'

At this, Katherine leaned away from the block and looked at it.  Then she closed her eyes, and imagined Lady Rochester's head falling from it and into the basket standing ready.

'Oh, Anne,' she said, her voice breaking at last.  'Please help me to bear it.'