I am ready. I have to be ready. There is nothing more to write. I have written a description of my discussions with Brother Feckenham, I have written to the queen, to my father, to Katherine. Now, finally, I write a farewell and I have finished my work. I am in my black gown and I have my prayer book in my hands, open.

“I am ready,” I say, and I note the pitiful cringing that makes me want to say: “Wait! Just wait a moment! Something else I must do! One moment, one second, one heartbeat more...”

John Feckenham leads the way and I hold my prayer book—my English prayer book—before me, and I try to read from it as we go down the narrow stairs, through the little garden, out of the garden gate and slowly towards the scaffold on the green. Of course, I can’t really see the words as we walk down the stairs, or down the garden path: nobody could. But once again it shows everyone that I am walking to the scaffold with a prayer book before me. Kateryn Parr the queen wrote these prayers, translated them from the Latin. Here I am, going to the scaffold with this evidence of my righteousness in my hand. This is our work. I am prepared to die for it. I will die with it in my hands.

The ladies behind me sob and sob in strangled gulping weeping. I hope that everyone can see that I am not crying like them. I hope that everyone can see that I am praying as I walk, my book before me, my whole presence deeply devout, showing that I am certain of resurrection. We all climb the ladder to the scaffold and assemble on the platform. There are very few people come to watch me be martyred. I am surprised how few. I speak to them.

I was afraid my voice would tremble but I do not tremble. I pray for mercy and I tell everyone, clearly, that I will be saved by the mercy of God—not by prayers from a priest, not by paid Masses in a chantry. I ask people to pray for me while I am alive, I mean them to understand that I don’t need prayers after my death for I will go directly to heaven. “No purgatory,” I want to add, but everyone knows that is what I mean.