Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/71

 interest, in which, if I was mistaken, I hope that your displeasure will end with my life, and that no part of it shall fall on my wife and children, being the last petition that will ever be offered from your Majesty's most faithful, most dutiful, and most obedient servant,

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', July 19, 1683.'

He further drew up a long and detailed defence and explanation of his whole conduct, to be given by his own hands to the Sheriffs on the scaffold,—a precious record, preserved in letters of gold among the most cherished archives at Woburn, the scene of the noble writer's youth and childhood.

The evening before his death, after bidding adieu to some of his friends, his wife and children came to take a last farewell. He parted with them (tender father and devoted husband as he was) in composed silence, and Lady Russell had such control over herself that when she was gone he said, 'The bitterness of death is past.' 'He talked,' says Burnet, 'at much length about her. It had rather grieved him that she had run about so much beating every bush for his preservation, but that, perhaps, it would be a mitigation of her sorrow to feel she had done all in her power to save him.' 'Yet,' he said, 'what a blessing it was that she had that magnanimity of spirit joined to her tenderness as never to have desired him to do a base thing for the saving of his own life; there was a signal providence of God in giving him such a wife, with birth, fortune, understanding, religion, and great kindness to him. But her carriage in his extremity was above all! It was a comfort to leave his children in such a mother's hands, who had promised him to take care of herself for his sake.' Burnet further tells us that 'the prisoner received the Sacrament from Archbishop Tillotson with much devotion, and I preached two short sermons, which he heard with great affec