ANNE (aside. Working the audience). Do you want to see it? Who wants to see it? Do you? You? I’ll show then. (Opens the bag.) No, I won’t. (Closes the bag.) I won’t! I cannot see the advantage in it, and that was what I was taught, by Margaret of Burgundy, when I was thirteen, ‘Know the advantage of everything, Anne.’ And you won’t like me for showing you, you’ll say it’s boastful, they said I was boastful, overweening. And why should I want you to love me? Did anyone around me ever love me, but for the King? So you can’t see! You can’t! (Stamps her foot. Then laughs.) Or would it be fun? Would it be a scandal? Better: would it make you laugh? Oh, that’s all right then… here… (Puts her hand in the bag.) Ready? Look! (Takes a Bible out of the bag.) It’s my Bible! Why? Don’t you realise? This killed me! This book! This put me in the Tower, this made the sword, the sword, the sword… they played a trick. As I was kneeling. They made me look one way. And from the other way the sword… sang. In the air. For a second. I heard it sing, and… (Pauses, then kisses the Bible and puts it back into the bag.) What you think I was going to show you? This? (Takes out her severed head.) This? This? Funny, a head’s smaller than you think. Heavy little cabbage, that’s all. Let me show you something. Eyes closed, see? (Pulls the eyelids up with her fingers.) For a moment I saw my body lying in the straw. And I closed my eyes. It was I, closing them.

She closes the eyes on the head. She stands, the head under her arm.

And now I’m with Jesus. I am! I’ll bring you all to Jesus.

Enter KING JAMES I followed by LORD ROBERT CECIL.

ANNE points at JAMES.

He won’t. James the Sixth of Scotland, sixty-seven years after my – (Gestures.) come to rule you all. James the Sixth of Scotland. Now James the First of England. But he won’t bring you to Jesus.

She skips away and exits.

Scene Two

JAMES and CECIL. CECIL’s man PARROT lurks.

Listening COURTIERS edge as close as they dare to try to overhear.

JAMES. Two thousand dresses!

CECIL. Yes, Your Majesty.

JAMES. Elizabeth had two thousand dresses?

CECIL. Her late Majesty knew the importance of the pomp of princes.

JAMES. The pimp of princes.

CECIL. Pomp, Your Majesty.

JAMES. The pomping and pimping of princes. (Laughs.) Two thousand dresses. We have come out of Scotland to a world of marvels.