It must have been the queen’s scornful,
haughty bearing that offended Lord De La Warr. When Percy led her aboard the Discovery, she had refused to bow before
the governor, or even to acknowledge his presence. She . . . . had seen her
husband slain by the Englishmen, she had been forced to watch as English soldiers
murdered her children, but she did not weep. She only stared, her dark eyes
full of grief and rage, her face set as if chiseled in stone. When the killing
of her two sons and daughter was over, she had ripped the beads from around her
neck and taken the feather ornament from her hair and dropped them overboard.
The necklace sank; the blue and white feather headdress floated over the spot
where her children’s bodies had disappeared.
--Virginia Bernhard, Jamesown: The Novel (2014).
My Lord generall . . .seamed to be Discontented becawse the
quene was Spared as Capteyne Davis towlde me, and thatt itt was my Lords
pleasure thatt we sholde see her dispatched The way he thowghte beste to Burne
her. To the firste I replyed thatt haveinge seene so mutche Blood shedd thatt
day, now in my Cowld bloode I desyred to see noe more, and for to Burne her I
did nott howlde itt fitteinge butt either by shott or Sworde to geve her a
quicker dispatche. So . . .
Capteyne Davis he did take the quene with towe sowldiers a shoare and in the
woods putt her to the Sworde . . .
--George Percy, “Trewe Relacyon” (1625).
With
the killing of a king’s wife, vengeance was set in motion.
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