Margaret didn't have lion's blood in her veins for nothing. She was firmly convinced of her innocence and resolved to fight to the end. She had vigorously defended herself at her trial. In her cell a poem was found with a defiant line, "I am no traitor, no not I!" Legend states that she had to be dragged kicking and screaming from her cell and refused to lay her head on the block, refused to remain still and forced the executioner to swing wildly, mutilating her. Other legends take it further, that at some point she tried to get up and run, as the executioner pursued her swinging the axe until he either knocked her unconscious and tried to behead her, or a soldier or someone from the crowd took over the job.
Did it happen?
Two contemporary sources survive of her execution, one by the French ambassador Marillac, and the other by Eustache Chapuys, Imperial Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire. The one thing both sources agree on was that Margaret's end wasn't clean or quick. Because of her noble birth, she wasn't executed on Tower Hill, but within the precincts of the Tower, somewhere on what is now Tower Green. This privacy insured a small number of onlookers. According to Marillac, there were so few onlookers that many Londoners doubted the execution happened. Chapuys later wrote that 150 people were present, including the Lord Mayor of London. There was no indication that either Marillac or Chapuys themselves were present. Both were Catholics representing Catholic monarchies. Margaret was Catholic. Her son Reginald was a Cardinal. As a born Plantagenet and cousin to the Tudor family, Henry would've considered her execution a private matter. Foreign ambassadors wouldn't have been invited or welcomed. Marillac's account gives few details, but Chapuys, writing two weeks after the fact, indicated that the official execution had been sent North to deal with rebels there and a young substitute was assigned to do the execution. He noted that, when informed of her death, Margaret, "found the thing very strange, not knowing of what crime she was accused, or how she'd been sentenced." Chapuys also wrote that the executioner was a "young and blundering youth, who literally hacked her head and shoulders to pieces in the most pitiful manner." No one mentions Margaret's resistance until centuries later, when Burke's Peerage described Margaret refusing to put her head on the block, writhing around and putting up a fight.
So, did she? Although she probably wasn't the most compliant defendant who'd ever been beheaded, chances are Margaret didn't quite go kicking and screaming to her end. A traitor's death for women was already prescribed in Edward III's Statute of Treasons, burning at the stake. Beheading was a commuted sentence, given by Henry in light of her royal birth, her age and most likely the idea that he wanted to draw as least attention to the situation as possible. While there wasn't a written code for how to behave at one's own execution, there were a few basic notions that Margaret, who'd lived through the Wars of the Roses, Richard III's downfall, and two tumultuous Tudor reigns would've been aware of. Henry VIII wasn't a man to be trifled with. If he wanted to and was angry enough, he could've ordered her burned at any time. Further, in that day and age, showing fear and putting a fight wouldn't have signaled her innocence to onlookers, but would have been evidence of her guilt and, possibly, that her soul wasn't saved. Margaret was a pious woman who'd been a Lady in Waiting to Katherine of Aragon, loyal to her and Henry's daughter Mary, and was partly killed because she'd refused to betray her sons to Henry. She would have wanted to send the opposite signal. She was a mother defending her sons. She was a martyr dying for her faith. She was a defenseless old woman dying at the hands of a tyrant who'd already murdered one wife and was about to strike again at another. She was the last of the Plantagenets. No matter how young and inept her executioner was, she would've gone out, not a writhing, sniveling ninny, but strong, courageous and unafraid.
So, why the legend? Beheadings happened frequently in Tudor England, but they were, in the grand scheme of things, rare. Most headsmen were experienced hangmen, and would've known how to conduct a branding, flogging or even a burning, but few were ever called upon to perform a beheading. It was an assignment as daunting to those assigned to do the deed, as to the defendant on the receiving end of the blade. For that reason, defendants would pay their executioners and try to remain as compliant as possible to avoid making the matter worse. When things went awry, as they sometimes did, the results were horrifying and it was the defendant who was blamed. Had they lain down to the block a certain way, put their heads a certain way, refrained from moving, they wouldn't have been mutilated. Over time, it was the executioner's reputation that mattered, not Margaret's. At some point, someone put dramatic license on her defiant poem and colored the story with an uncooperative defendant, rather than a bumbling executioner. Burke's Peerage picked it up and the rest was history.
Still, one has to give Margaret her due. In the name of her family and her faith she'd defied the most dangerous king of his time, and dared anyone to call her traitor. Whether she wrote this poem or not, it befits a Plantagenet lioness, so here it is:
For traitors on the block should die,
I am no traitor, no-not I!
My faithfulness stands fast and so,
Towards the block I shall not go!
Nor make one step, as you shall see,
Christ, in thy mercy, save thou me!
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