After Lady Alexandra was told, that she should prepare herself and her children to die, her ladyship seemed not be in any terror, for her outward gesture and behavior remained unaltered. With a pleasing countenance she informed her four daughters of their impending fate; they had shared a small cell with their mother during their captivity, and upon the sad news all four sank into a great despair. The Lady bade them to stop, seeing her children in such a miserable state, and said:
Our deaths should be a welcome one, as it pains me to know my People were thus resolved to see us perish, that the stroke of an executioner's axe is but a gentle blessing of our Lord to deliver us from this undeserving world!
And that spoken, the queen too wept bitterly and became silent in their confinement.
A day before the appointed date of execution there was secretly a change of plan, when the rebels, long coveted the good looks of the queen and her daughters, decided to exercise their fiendish lust on these poor noble women afore taking their lives. As there were too many of them in the motley to divide the spoils evenly, a most shameful affair was arranged to have the five women publicly displayed in stocks in the town square, so that any man with a modest sum could take what he pleased, notwithstanding all the others present: such was the depth men had fallen into during these dark times!
Thus were Lady Alexandra and the princesses brought from their cell, unaware of the terrible change in place. They were bathed and dressed in humblest attires only, and willingly bended their steps towards the place of their destruction, whilst all kinds of coarse insults were thrown upon them. Disturbed by the newly erected wooden shackles that awaited them in the square, her Ladyship nonetheless maintained her majestic stature and waited for things to unfold with great patience.
The said queen in her years seven and forty was fair and tall, of body corpulent, her hair auburn and eyes hazel. Her daughters looked no less graceful, but all the more comely in their youth. The oldest of them, Isabella, being no older than three and twenty by that time, was among the finest specimen of her kind. Like her mother, she stood proud and unmoved by the grim fate assigned unto them. Natalia of years one and twenty was of hair dark like raven and of a most pale complexion. The young Sofia and Anastasia, both of year nineteen, being exact image of each other, with long angelic blonde curls, would arouse sorrow from the hearts of the worst cutthroats and brigands; yet such evil hands had they fallen into, that none was awarded the slightest pity from their tormenters, and their vey beauty only added to the latter's beastly appetite.
***
As the rebels and divers other onlookers were meeting the queen and the princesses, one of their leaders, a so-called Flynn, feigning compassion in a foulest manner, knelt on his knees before the family, wringing his hands and shedding tears of a fox, used these false words unto them:
Ah, my faire Queene, 'tis me, your unfaithful servant!
What man on earth had ever experienced so much woe and heaviness as I was,
when I heard that my good and gracious queen and mistress is condemned to death!
And not only her highness, but also her children, innocent and tame as they ever be?
What foul regicide is this, what disgrace have we fallen into?
Is there no justice, no courage, no fear of God?
This unhappy isle of ours shall weep as much as the rains do fall from the very heaven, and sink into the roars of the sea!
Not fooled by his deceitful speech, Lady Alexandra retorted:
My good servant, cease to lament,
For thou hast cause rather to joy than to mourn.
For all the world is but vanity, and
Subject still to more sorrow
Than a whole ocean of tears can bewail.