You can hold your breath for a long time without any horrible effects, or passing out. My friend (out of morbid curiosity) watched one of the Taliban beheading videos – supposedly the guy was concious for a LONG time. She said he looked as if he were trying to talk and kept looking around as if he were confused. I don't think there would be any pain however – at least I hope not – as the nervous system would be damaged and you would be in shock.

I think Alison Weir mentioned decapitations effects in Lady in the Tower  and how a level of consciousness can still be retained for up to a minute afterwards.  I hope Anne didn't suffer too much  

I've never really thought about any of this I must admit but now what I find scary is if Anne wasn't dead and somehow subconscious when they put her in that disgusting arrow chest, the thought is terrifying.

I would imagine though the utter shock to the system would completely knock your senses of any kind out but we'll never know will we.

The brain dies when it is starved of oxygen. As blood carries oxygen to the brain, as soon as the blood drained out it would start to die (quickly I hope!). The sudden drop in blood pressure might be enough to make a person 'faint' before the brain actually died.  I hope that was true in Anne's case. 

As for the reports of people looking round or looking confused after losing their head, they are probably thinking “why can I still see when I'm supposed to be dead?”  🙂

I wondered for years what they said about Anne's eyelashes blinkiing and mouth moving from I've read here and there from a few mintues to 20 (the same with Mary Queen of Scots), I was reading this book, “The Seven Mysteries of Life: An Exploration in Science and Philosophy, ” by Guy Murchie and on page 521 it reads, “…when a human head is chopped off there is evidence that the head is capable of consciousnes for at least several seconds more and it will almost surely feel itself hit the ground. Charlotte Corday's head is reported to have suddenly looked very annoyed a few seconds after she was guillotined at hte age of twenty-five during the French Revolution.”

I later learned that Corday had just been slapped across the face when the guillotine hit. But the brain generally has oxygen left in it even after the heart stops. This is where the ideas of brain death and hearth death first got into such debates years ago.

Just another tidbit for your next cocktail party!

I was really replying to Wendy's message, and should have said so. Please forgive me, it was only a short passage, and I thought it might shed light on the Anne and Mary Queen of Scots legends that have been written both at the time and since then. You're right though, it does sound like a horror movie after reading it again, but I think it's still a much better death (and for Anne, bless her heart, the punishment for a woman at that time who committed adultery was burning at the stake of which Anne was extremely afraid and begged Cramner to speak to the King), than burning at the stake. Beheading and burning were the punishments in England at that time. People considered them like we do perhaps concerts or the fair. So I also believe Anne was most courageous in her speech on the scaffold, and showed her class, and thus Elizabeth's, and restraint at such a most horrifying moment for her. This even after a swordsman was hired from Calais (which Mary I or Bloody Mary lost during her five year reign and it being the last English hold on the continent).

Anne, in her speech, also never admitted her guilt. I have to admire her as she in that she died the innocent woman that she was.

In addition, I've always wonder what her confession was to Cramner, but I suppose we'll never know.

Thank you!

I thought we knew what her confession to Cranmer was – didn't she ask Sir Kingston to stay and listen? And then she gave him permission to make her confession public. Going strictly by memory here (I know – yikes!), I thought that she swore to her innocence both before and after receiving the Host at Holy Communion. She swore on her immortal soul, which basically means “If I'm lying, let me burn in Hell forever.” For her to swear that just before her death makes me believe her. Well, that and lack of evidence against her combined with lots of exculpatory evidence to prove most of the charges false!

Impish_Impulse said:

I thought we knew what her confession to Cranmer was – didn't she ask Sir Kingston to stay and listen? And then she gave him permission to make her confession public. Going strictly by memory here (I know – yikes!), I thought that she swore to her innocence both before and after receiving the Host at Holy Communion. She swore on her immortal soul, which basically means “If I'm lying, let me burn in Hell forever.” For her to swear that just before her death makes me believe her. Well, that and lack of evidence against her combined with lots of exculpatory evidence to prove most of the charges false!

Yeah i thought that too. I read somewhere about her swearing on her immortal soul .

I don't think we know what passed between Cramner and Anne.  Cramner was with her on the 16th.  It seems to have been a private meeting.  Cramner returned to Lambeth.

Anne was closeted with her almoner the night of the 17th.  The confession in which Kingston was called to witness took place on Thursday, the 18th, at mass, the day Anne thought she was to die.  She swore her innocence before and after receiving the sacrament.