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On 2 May 1536 after barely three years of marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn was arrested on charges of adultery, incest and treason. There was little evidence to speak off other than the testimony of those put to the torture but then her real crime was in not having provided the King with a son and heir. 
Found guilty two weeks later by a jury of her peers including her own uncle and former fiancé she was sentenced to death. In the days prior to her own execution having likely witnessed the death of her co-accused from the window of her cell in the Tower of London, Anne Boleyn wrote a last poem: 
O Death Rock Me Asleep 
 
O death! rock me asleep, 
Bring me the quiet rest; 
Let pass my weary guiltless ghost 
Out of my careful breast: 
Toll on the passing bell, 
Ring out the doleful knell, 
Let thy sound my death tell, 
Death doth draw nigh; 
There is no remedy. 
 
My pains who can express? 
Alas! they are so strong, 
My dolour will not suffer strength 
My life for to prolong: 
Toll on, thou passing bell, 
Ring out my doleful knell, 
Let thy sound my death tell, 
Death doth draw nigh; 
There is no remedy. 
 
Alone in prison strong, 
I wait my destiny, 
Woe worth this cruel hap that I 
Should taste this misery? 
Toll on, thou passing bell, 
Let thy sound my death tell, 
Death doth draw nigh, 
There is no remedy. 
 
Farewell my pleasures past, 
Welcome my present pain! 
I feel my torments so increase 
That life cannot remain. 
Cease now,thou passing bell; 
Rung is my doleful knell, 
For the sound my death doth tell, 
Death doth draw nigh, 
There is no remedy. 
 
Anne Boleyn was beheaded with the single stroke of a sword within the precincts of the Tower of London on 19 May 1536. She had, it was said, displayed a devilish spirit as if unconcerned by the fate that awaited her, though her voice was weak when she spoke and there were tears in her eyes. 
Tagged as: Poetry, Tudor & Stuart, Women
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