you are fifteen years old.
you like to stay inside and read most of the time, as much as you can. you are pious and devoted. you are taught etiquette and all manner of languages. your parents are strict and harsh, but you make the most of what you can. and then you are sent away and betrothed. you marry a nobleman with a powerful and ambitious father. you love him.
all around you, men in high places are scheming for power. you are to be used in this however can bolster their own status as much as possible. you are a fifteen-year old girl who loves to read. with your father-in-law's influence heavy on his mind, your dying cousin, the king, names you as a potential successor.
and your father-in-law and the other men tell you you are the queen now.
you don't want this. you never wanted this. people are kneeling before you and you are panicking and you can't calm down until you have your family here with you. you pray and you weep. you don't want this. but you want to do the right thing. you agree to do your duty and are crowned within days. during the coronation, you don't want to wear the crown. you live like this for just over a week. sentiments are brewing against you; that your coronation was illegal. a coronation you never wanted and never asked for. people start opposing you. your own father abandons support for you as soon as it becomes unpopular. you are sixteen years old.
you are deposed and imprisoned, separated from your husband, and kept in the tower for months. you were queen for nine days. you are allowed walks outside sometimes. you don't know what's going to happen to you. you never wanted any of this. and then you are put on trial and sentenced to death. you are spared, at first- and then two months of imprisonment later you learn that your father was involved in a rebellion. you had no knowledge. no control. they sentence you to die anyway. you are seventeen years old.
on your execution day, they behead your husband first. you aren't there for it. you look out the window of your prison and you see his beheaded body brought back. you cry out. you cannot go to him.
it's your turn. they bring you in simple clothing up to the scaffold. they give you a blindfold. the executioner asks for your forgiveness. you give it to him. you tie the blindfold yourself. you can't find the block they tell you to lay your head down on. you don't know what to do. you can't find it and you can't see. someone helps you lay down your head. and then they kill you.
you were seventeen years old.
