laughing heartily: "I hear the executioner is • very good, and I have a little neck." She wrote some verses, of which the following is a sample:

"Oh death rock me asleep,

Bring on my quiet rest,

Let pass my very guiltless ghost,
Out of my careful breast.

Ring out the doleful knell,

Let its sound my death tell;
For I must die,

There is no remedy,
For now I die!"

Henry chose that Anne should be beheaded, and sent to Calais for a French executioner of good repute. The crownless queen was informed of this circumstance. All strangers were driven from the Tower, Henry being well aware that the execution was an awful outrage upon justice or even common decency. To the last Anne asserted her entire innocence of the crimes imputed to her. Her message to the king will ever be remembered for its sarcastic bitterness: "Commend me to his majesty," said she, "and tell him he hath been ever constant in his career of advancing me; from a private gentlewoman he made me a marchioness, from a marchioness a queen, and now he hath left no higher degree of

honor, he gives my innocency the crown of martyrdom."

Anne Boleyn was beheaded at twelve o'clock, the noon of the 19th day of May. She was dressed in black damask, with a large white cape round her neck, and on her head a velvet hood. Her eye was bright, and a flush was in her cheeks, and she looked, it is said, fearfully beautiful. Scattered about the scaffold were some of the poor woman's enemies, but upon seeing them, she simply remarked: "I am come here to die; not to accuse my enemies." She asked the lieutenant to wait the signal of death until she could speak a few words to those around her, after which with her own hands she took off her hat and collar and lay down to the block. Her last words were, "O Lord God, have pity on my soul." She refused to have her eyes bandaged, and, it is said, after her head was severed from the body, the eyes and lips were seen to Thus ended the life of this woman, who from an humble station rose to be Queen of England-but to mount still higher-to the scaffold.

move.

The relation which the history of Katharine and Anne bears to the fortunes of Lady Jane Grey will in the course of our narrative become

very evident to the reader; it will not be amiss to notice here that already King Henry by pronouncing his marriage with Katharine incestuous, of course, rendered the offspring, the Princess Mary, illegitimate; and by the decision of Cranmer that the marriage with Anne Boleyn was "always" null and void, in consequence of her engagement to Percy, of course the Princess Elizabeth was placed in the same unpleasant position. At this time, therefore, provided Henry's unjust decisions were acquiesced in, the legitimate heir to the English crown must have been found in the person of Henry's sisters, or one of their descendants.

The Reformation at this time was gaining ground with considerable rapidity; not that there was as yet a pure Protestantism in England, for such was not the case till Henry was laid in his tomb; but the royal example of disrespect to the Pope was almost universally followed, and the people examined the religious disputes for themselves. Parliament, at the instigation of the king, suppressed all religious houses having an income of less than £200 a year; the lands, buildings, rents and all appurtenances falling into the king's exchequer, and

amounting to over a million of pounds sterling. Still later, the larger monasteries and the colleges likewise fell into the hands of Henry, who seemed never to be satisfied with his income.

The most momentous act of the century, perhaps, occurred about this time—the translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English tongue for the use of the people. Isolated copies of the Bible had for several years been very carefully circulated among the curious and learned, or those who favored the principles of the German reformers; but until now it was reckoned an offence for a layman to peruse so dangerous a book. It is said that Anne Boleyn, in Wolsey's time, possessed a copy which the prelate took away from the hands of a friend, to whom she had lent it, but which Anne coaxed Henry to oblige the cardinal to return to its owner. But now copies of the new translation were printed in Paris, and were attached by a chain to the reading-desk of every church in England, so that every man who knew how to read, could peruse the holy book.

CHAPTER III.

BIRTH OF LADY JANE GREY.-HER FATHER. HIS COUNTRY SEAT.LADY JANE'S EARLY HISTORY.-CUSTOMS OF THE AGE-HER AP PEARANCE AT COURT AS MAID TO KATHARINE PARR.-JANE SEYMOUR.-KING'S MARRIAGE-BIRTH OF PRINCE EDWARD.-DEATH OF THE QUEEN.-HENRY MARRIES ANNE OF CLEVES.-DESERTS HER.-MARRIES KATHARINE HOWARD.--HER DISGRACE AND EXE

CUTION.

HAVING hastily sketched the history of Henry VIII., previous to the times of Lady Jane Grey, we now come to the event of her birth, which occurred in the year 1537. Henry, Marquis of Dorset, the father of our heroine, we have before remarked, was not a man whose character in all its shades can command our admiration; yet if we may rely upon the statements of contemporary writers, he was possessed of remarkable personal courage, and was generally quite generous, though he was troubled with fits of meanness, in one of which he treated his mother disgracefully. He was a man of some ambition, yet was much fonder of retirement and the quiet joys to be