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pass it to the Queen, but the vengeful Countess deliberately failed to do so. It was not until she lay dying that she confessed to Elizabeth what she had done – alas, too late for Essex.
     
    Consort of Henry VIII, Queen Katherine Howard was found guilty of treason because of her allegedly adulterous life, and sentenced to death. She was committed to the Tower and when, on 12 February 1542, she was informed that she was to be executed by the axe the next day ‘she asked that the block might be brought to her room and, this having been done and the executioner fetched, to the amazement of her attendants she knelt and laid her head in the horrible hollow, declaring, as she rose to her feet, that she “could now go through the ordeal with grace and propriety.”’
     
     
     
    Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots
    Executioner Simon Bull was definitely not looking forward to his next assignment, the execution of Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots who was accused of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth. Hanging was his usual line of work, but this was to be with the axe, with which he hadn’t had a great deal of practice. The execution was ordered to take place on 8 February 1587 in Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, one of the few times such an event had taken place indoors, but this was considered necessary by the Queen’s Commissioners, the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury, in order to avoid any public unrest should it have occurred in the open. Initially those two gentlemen objected to the doomed Queen being attended by her servants, the Earl of Kent saying that ‘they would seek to wipe their napkins in some of your blood [as holy relics], which were not convenient.’ Only when she had given her word that they would not do so, was she allowed to choose three or four attendants to accompany her.
    A contemporary historian described what happened next.
     
    ‘After this, escorted by the lords, knights, and gentlemen, the Sheriff leading, she passed into the great hall and stepped up on to the scaffold, this being two feet high and twelve feet broad, with rails about, hanged and covered with black. She sat down on a low stool and, being thus seated, the warrant for her execution was read out. She listened unto it with as small regard as if it had not concerned her at all, and with as cheerful a countenance as if it had been a pardon from her majesty for her life. That done, the Protestant Dean of Peterborough stood in front of her and pressed his administrations, but she rejected them. But the Dean began to pray aloud, whereat she took her beads and a crucifix and said divers Latin prayers.
    Her prayers ended, the executioner, kneeling, desired her to forgive him her death; she answered, ‘I forgive you with all my heart, for now I hope you will make an end to all my troubles.’ Then, with her two women helping her up, began to disrobe her of her apparel. All the time they were so doing, she had never changed her countenance, but with smiling cheer, uttered these words ‘that she never had such grooms to make her unready, and that she had never put off her clothes in such a company!’ Then being stripped of all her apparel saving her petticoat and kirtle, her two women beholding her made great lamentation and, crying and crossing themselves, prayed in Latin. Turning to them and embracing them, she said, ‘ Ne crie pas; j’ai promis pour vous .’ Then she bade them farewell, whereupon one of them, having a Corpus Christi cloth, lapped up three corner ways, kissed it and put it over the Queen of Scots’ face and pinned it fast to the caul of her head. Then she, kneeling down on the cushion resolutely and praying, groped for the block. Laying down her head and putting her chin over the block, she stretched out her arms and cried out ‘ In manus tuas Dominie ’ three or four times.’
     
    With his assistant holding her still with one hand on her back, Simon Bull brought down the axe, only to have his blow go