There was a belief that the loss of life at Tower Green was somehow a privilege. This questionable privilege was granted to, among others, Baron William Hastings, Countess Margaret Salisbury, Earl of Essex Robert Deveraux - the favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, as well as two wives of King Henry VIII - Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. All of them were executed with an axe, only Anne Boleyn was beheaded with the sword of a French executioner, who in his "graciousness" was brought from France by her distinguished husband.
