Newes From The Dead

And lived a full life until 1665 when she died a mother. The story is set in the 1650's about a young servant girl in the house of Sir Thomas. One day his nephew Master Geoffrey come to visit and took a liking to the young Anne Green. He makes promises to her about giving her riches, jewels and marrying her once he inherits his uncle's fortune. So she lets him have his way with her.

But she loves the blacksmith, John Taylor. Once she finds out that she is with child she stops talking to John Taylor and waits until Master Geoffrey comes back so she can explain what happened with the baby. But when he comes back he comes with his soon to be wife. When she tells him about the baby, he wants nothing to do with her or the child. So she tries to get rid of it using potions. It does not work so she hides her stomach using a stomacher but when she gives birth it is months too early so the baby boy is a still born. When the household finds out Sir Thomas doesn't believe that the baby was Geoffrey's or doesn't want to believe that it is.

So he charges her with murder. She tells the truth to the judge and a midwife says that the baby was undeveloped so could not ever had lived but because of Sir Thomas's high status she is sentenced to death. On 14th December morning she is hung with her last words escaping her mouth "May God covey me swiftly to paradise".

The other half of the story is one of Robert Matthew, a scholar of New College, Oxford where Anne Greens body is for dissection. The man has a stutter from his childhood where a tragic death happened. He has insight of death from his mother's body and compares her to the body of Anne Green. These differences he spots the other scholars don't see. He spots the movement of her eyelids and the noises from her throat first and without him Anne Green would murder by the scholars, Manslaughter. But Anne Green helps Robert to overcome his stutter and is the first person which greats her when she wakes.

This story is one of the best stories I have read. I highly recommend it.