and had forgotten that the ordinary road led past her window. But
the delicate girl of seventeen was as {p.113} masculine in her heart
as in her intellect. When her own turn arrived, Sir John Brydges led
her down to the green; her attendants were in an agony of tears, but
her own eyes were dry. She prayed quietly till she reached the foot of
the scaffold, when she turned to Feckenham, who still clung to her
side. "Go now," she said; "God grant you all your desires, and accept
my own warm thanks for your attentions to me; although, indeed, those
attentions have tried me more than death can now terrify me."[255] She
sprung up the steps, and said briefly that she had broken the law in
accepting the crown; but as to any guilt of intention, she wrung her
hands, and said she washed them clean of it in innocency before God
and man. She entreated her hearers to bear her witness that she died a
true Christian woman; that she looked to be saved only by the mercy of
God and the merits of his Son: and she begged for their prayers as
long as she was alive. Feckenham had still followed her,
notwithstanding his dismissal. "Shall I say the _Miserere_ psalm?" she
said to him.[256] When it was done, she let down her hair with her
attendants' help, and uncovered her neck. The rest may be told in the
words of the chronicler:--

[Footnote 255: Andate: che nostro Signore Dio vi
contenti d'ogni vostro desiderio, e siate sempre
infinitamente ringratiato della compagnia che
m'havete fatta avenga che da quella sia stata molto
piu noiata che hora non mi spaventa la
morte.--Baoardo.]

[Footnote 256: The 51st: "Have mercy on me, oh
Lord, after thy goodness."]

"The hangman kneeled down and asked her forgiveness, whom she forgave
most willingly. Then he willed her to stand upon the straw, which
doing, she saw the block. Then she said, I pray you despatch me
quickly. Then she kneeled down, saying, Will you take it off before I
lay me down? and the hangman answered No, Madam. She tied a kerchief
about her eyes; then, feeling for the block, she said, What shall I
do; where is it? One of the bystanders guiding her thereunto, she laid
her head down upon the block, and stretched forth her body, and said,
Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And so ended."[257]

[Footnote 257: _C