She was always following in Katherine's footsteps.
No matter how hard she tried to distinguish herself as someone else, someone new, she would always be labeled as Katherine's successor, her downfall.
Always Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife.
Courtiers believed she was a harlot and a witch, they despised her and hated her.
Even Henry, she felt, held hatred towards her in the end.
She felt as though everything she did was a disappointment to him, that she was a disappointment to him.
She had dissatisfied him by not producing a son, only a daughter, and with every passing day she could feel his anger and frustration with her grow tenfold.
But she was powerless to stop it, powerless to stop him. She had, along the way, lost her hold on him. Her charm and aura no longer had any power in swaying his mind.
She was good as dead to him. She was as good as dead to everyone she knew, her family, her courtiers, everyone who surrounded her.
Everyone had lost faith in her and they all watched as she slowly lost her grip on the position that she had fought so hard to get.
In truth it came as no surprise to her when Henry brought up charges against her. The verdict as well wasn't a surprise though she did put up a fight for her innocence.
What hit her the most was when he annulled their marriage, declared Elizabeth a bastard, and decided to do away with her.
He decided against burning her and choose the swifter path to death with an executioner's ax from France.
She supposed that she was lucky to get such a death. He had said that this was his act of mercy towards her.
She waited as the days till her execution passed for a pardon, hoping he would have mercy on her and send her away to a nunnery. She was in full denial that she was going to die. After all Henry loved her, and he would send a pardon for her to show it.
It never came.
Even still as she ascended to the scaffold, she clung to the hope for a pardon, prayed for it even though she had sworn to others that she had resigned to death.
She couldn't believe that he would kill her, just get rid of her and go onto the next girl, that damned Jane Seymour tart.
She said her prayers and looked to the sky before the executioner swung.
She guessed that this was where her story departed from the one of Katherine...
Truthfully, she was no great Katherine of Aragon, who would go live out her years confined in her house, no adored Spanish queen.
She was Anne Boleyn, the great and hated queen who would die at the scaffold surrounded by her enemies who clapped for her downfall, while Henry was away with his new fascination.
If she had to choose, she would have rather followed in Katherine's footsteps.
Since today's the 497th anniversary of Anne's death I felt compelled to write something for her. Hope you all like this.
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