A cry of amazement burst from Anne's lips, and her eyes flashed with
anger, as she dashed the queen's hand away from her.

"I retract!" exclaimed she, with a contemptuous smile. "Never, my
lady, never! No! as sure as I hope for God to be gracious to me in
my last hour, I retract not! It is true, it was agony and horror
that made me speak; but what I have spoken is yet, nevertheless, the
truth. Horror caused me to speak, and forced me to show my soul
undisguised. No, I retract not! I tell you, they who have been
executed over yonder are holy martyrs, who have ascended to God,
there to enter an accusation against their royal hangman. Ay, they
are holy, for eternal truth had illumined their souls, and it beamed
about their faces bright as the flames of the fagots into which the
murderous hand of an unrighteous judge had cast them. Ah, I must
retract! I, forsooth, am to do as did Shaxton, the miserable and
unfaithful servant of his God, who, from fear of earthly death,
denied the eternal truth, and in blaspheming pusillanimity perjured
himself concerning the holy doctrine. [Footnote: Burnet, vol. i, p.
341] King Henry, I say unto you, beware of dissemblers and
perjurers; beware of your own haughty and arrogant thoughts. The
blood of martyrs cries to Heaven against you, and the time will come
when God will be as merciless to you as you have been to the noblest
of your subjects! You deliver them over to the murderous flames,
because they will not believe what the priests of Baal preach;
because they will not believe in the real transubstantiation of the
chalice; because they deny that the natural body of Christ is, after
the sacrament, contained in the sacrament, no matter whether the
priest be a good or a bad man. [Footnote: Ibid.] You give them over
to the executioner, because they serve the truth, and are faithful
followers of the Lord their God!"