granite, showing the site on which stood at rare intervals the scaffold
on which private executions took place. It has been specially paved by
the orders of Her late Majesty. The following persons are known to have
been executed on this spot:--

1. Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, 19th May, 1536.

2. Margaret Countess of Salisbury, the last of the old Angevin or
Plantagenet family, 27th May, 1541.

3. Queen Katharine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, 13th February,
1542.

4. Jane Viscountess Rochford, 13th February, 1542.

5. Lady Jane (Grey), wife of Lord Guildford Dudley, 12th February, 1554.

6. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, 25th February, 1601.

They were all beheaded with an axe except Queen Anne Boleyn, whose head
was cut off with a sword by the executioner of St. Omer, brought over
for the purpose. The executioner of the Earl of Essex was not able to do
his work with less than three strokes, and was mobbed and beaten by the
populace on his way home. The bodies of all six were buried in the
Chapel of St. Peter.

Lord Hastings was also beheaded on Tower Green by order of the Duke of
Gloucester in 1483.