rovided, and my neck is very slender."

At the appointed hour she was led out into the court-yard where the
execution was to take place. There were about twenty persons present,
all officers of state or of the city of London. The bodily suffering
attendant upon the execution was very soon over, for the slender neck
was severed at a single blow, and probably all sensibility to pain
immediately ceased. Still, the lips and the eyes were observed to move
and quiver for a few seconds after the separation of the head from the
body. It was a relief, however, to the spectators when this strange and
unnatural prolongation of the mysterious functions of life came to an
end.

No coffin had been provided. They found, however, an old wooden chest,
made to contain arrows, lying in one of the apartments of the tower,
which they used instead. They first laid the decapitated trunk within
it, and then adjusted the dissevered head to its place, as if vainly
attempting to repair the irretrievable injury they had done. They
hurried the body, thus enshrined, to its burial in a chapel, which was
also within the tower, doing all with such dispatch that the whole was
finished before the clock struck twelve; and the next day the unfeeling
monster who was the author of this dreadful deed was publicly married to
his new favorite, Jane Seymour.

The king had not merely procured Anne's personal condemnation; he had
also obtained a decree annulling his marriage with her, on the ground of
her having been, as he attempted to prove, previously affianced to
another man. This was, obviously, a mere pretense. The object was to cut
off Elizabeth's rights to inherit the crown, by making his marriage with
her mother void. Thus was the little princess left motherless and
friendless when only three years old.

CHAPTER II.

THE CHILDHOOD OF A PRINCESS.

1536-1548

Elizabeth's condition at the death of her mother.--Her
residence.--Letter of Lady Bryan, Elizabeth's governess.--Conclusion of
letter.--Troubles and trials of infancy.--Birth of Edward.--The king
reconciled to his daughters.--Death of King Henry.--His children.--King
Henry's violence.--The order of succession.--Elizabeth's troubles.--The
two Seymours.--The queen dowager's marriage.--The Seymours
quarrel.--Somerset's power and influence.--Jealousies and
quarrels.--Mary Queen of Scots.--Marriage schemes.--Seymour's
promotion.--Jane Grey.--Family quarrels.--Death of the queen
dowager.--Sey