![]() ![]() ![]() One of her ladies, weeping, came forward to blindfold her with ‘a linen cloth’. The headsman, being still in front of her, said in French, “Madam, do not fear. Persons being beheaded by the sword were instructed to kneel upright and keep very still if they wanted to avoid being horrifically injured.Īfter making the traditional speech from the scaffold, Anne appeared dazed as she fell to her knees in the straw, ‘fastening her clothes about her feet’ to preserve her modesty. ![]() This was a much cleaner, kinder and more precise method of execution than death by the axe. It was probably in order to avoid a bungled decapitation, and a horrific scene on the scaffold, that the executioner of Calais, an expert swordsman, was sent for to despatch her in the continental manner. On 19th May, 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, was beheaded for treason, having been accused of adultery with five men, one her own brother, and with plotting the death of the King. ![]()
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