You Are There… Graphic History Series.
On the morning of Friday, May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn—Queen of England for just three years—faced execution on charges of adultery, incest, and high treason. Arrested on May 2nd and imprisoned in the very royal apartments where she had awaited her coronation, Anne had watched as her brother George and four other men were beheaded two days prior on Tower Hill. King Henry VIII, eager to marry his new love Jane Seymour, had summoned an expert swordsman from Saint-Omer near Calais—a rare mercy that spared the Queen the brutality of an English axe. The execution, originally scheduled for the 18th, had been delayed by the swordsman’s late arrival. Now, on this overcast spring morning, approximately two hundred witnesses—nobles, Tower officials, foreign dignitaries, and a small number of permitted citizens—gathered within the fortress walls. For the first time in English history, a crowned Queen would be publicly executed by order of her own husband.
Thomas Wythe is a nineteen-year-old apprentice clerk in the household of Sir Edmund Walsingham, Lieutenant of the Tower. He carries a leather satchel containing writing materials.
May 19, 1536 — 4:47 AM — Lieutenant’s Lodgings, Tower of London
Thomas wakes on his straw pallet in the servants’ quarters. Gray pre-dawn light filters through an oiled linen window covering. He hears the Thames lapping against the wharf below, the distant cry of gulls, and the shuffle of guards changing watch. The room smells of tallow, damp wool, and the acrid human odor of the four other servants sleeping nearby. His breath fogs faintly. He rises, pulls on his clothes, and splashes his face with cold water from a clay basin. His stomach tightens—today the Queen dies.
May 19, 1536 — 5:32 AM — Tower Wharf, Along the Thames
