It was the involuntary, instinctive touch of the headsman, who examines the neck of his victim, and searches on it for the place where he will make the stroke.

Thus had Anne Boleyn once put her tender white hands about her slender neck, and said to the headsman, brought over from Calais specially for her execution: "I pray you strike me well and surely! I have, indeed, but a slim little neck." [Footnote: Tytler, p.

382] Thus had the king clutched his hand about the neck of Catharine Howard, his fifth wife when certain of her infidelity, he had thrust her from himself with fierce execrations, when she would have clung to him.

The dark marks of that grip were still visible upon her neck when she laid it on the block.
[Footnote: Leti, vol.i, p.

193] And this dreadful twining of his fingers Catharine must now endure as a caress; at which she must smile, which she must receive with all the appearance of delight.
While he spanned her neck, he whispered in her ear words of tenderness, and bent his face close to her cheeks.
But Catharine heeded not his passionate whispers.