Then she turns her head and I know that she cannot speak to me. I cannot listen for her. I have lost her to heaven, I have lost her to history. She is a queen through and through; she will not spoil this, her greatest moment, with any hint of scandal. She is playing her part here in her beheading as she played her part in her two great coronations. She has gestures to make and words to say. She will never speak to me again.

I should have thought of this when I went to her chamber to tell her that her sentence had come, that she was to die the next day. I did not realize it. So I did not say goodbye to her then. Now I have lost my chance. Lost it forever. I may not say goodbye to her. Or only in a whisper.

She turns her head and says a word to the dean. He starts the prayers in English and I see that characteristic irritable shrug of the shoulders and the petulant turn of the head that means that she has not had her own way, that someone has refused her something. Her impatience, her wilfulness, even here on the scaffold, fill me with delight in her. Even at the very doorway of death she is irritated at not getting her own way. She demands that her will is done as a queen, and God knows it has been my joy to serve her, to serve her for years—many, many years, for sixteen years she has been my prisoner, and my beloved.

She turns to the block and she kneels before it. Her maid steps forward and binds her eyes with a white scarf. I feel a sharp pain in my palms and I find I am clenching my fists and driving my fingernails into my own flesh. I cannot bear this. I must have seen a dozen executions in my time but never a queen, never the woman I love. Never this. I can hear a low groan like an animal in pain and I realize it is my voice. I clench my teeth and say nothing while she finishes her prayer and puts her head gently down, her blanched cheek against the wood.

The headsman lifts his axe and at that moment... I wake. The tears are wet on my cheeks. I have been crying in my sleep. I have been crying like a child for her. I touch my pillow and it is damp with my tears and I feel ashamed. I am unmanned by the reality of Howard’s execution, and my fears for the Scots queen. I must be very tired and very overwhelmed at what we are going to do today that I should cry like a child in my sleep.