Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/92

78 "being old, sickly, disgraced, and certain to go to death, life is wearisome to me." The time was, refused, but pen, ink, and paper were allowed him.

Instead of being taken back to the Tower, he was lodged in the gate-house in Westminster, and that evening his wife was allowed to take her last farewell of him, and on going away she told him that they had granted her the disposal of his body. Sir Walter smiled, saying, "It is well, Bess, that thou mayest dispose of that dead, that thou hadst not always the disposing of when alive."

Having made up his mind to meet death, Sir Walter no longer evinced any shrinking from it. He was calm, courageous, and even cheerful. Tounson, dean of Westminster, was sent to him in the morning to administer to him the sacrament, which he received reverently, and declared that he sincerely forgave all men, even Stukeley, who had so basely betrayed him. "He was," said Tounson, "the most fearless of death that was ever known, and the most resolute and confident, yet with reverence and conscience. When I began to encourage him against the fear of death, he made so slight of it that I wondered at him. When I told him that the dear servants of God, in better causes than his, had shrunk back and trembled a little, he denied not, but gave God thanks that he never feared death, and much less then; for it was but an opinion and an imagination; and the manner of death, though to others it might seem grievous, yet he had rather die so than of a burning fever." And this was the testimony of a clergyman sent to him by the crown, not the one whom he wished himself.



He then proceeded to take his breakfast, which he seemed to enjoy as if it were an ordinary morning of his life, did not omit to take his customary pipe after it in most perfect composure; and when they brought him a cup of sack, and asked how he liked it, he replied gaily, that it was good drink if a man might tarry by it.

At eight o'clock on the 29th of October, he was conducted to the scaffold in Old Palace Yard. There was such a crowd assembled, including numbers of the chief nobility, that it was difficult for the sheriffs to get him through. He saluted the lords, knights, and gentlemen whom he found upon the scaffold pleasantly; and perceiving the lords Arundel, Northampton, and Doncaster, at a window not far off, he said that he would strain his feeble voice so that they might hear what he had to say. But lord Arundel said they would come down to him, which they did; and after saluting them one after another, he proceeded with his address, speaking from notes which he held. He denied ever having any plot with France, or that he had spoken disloyally of his sovereign; and as to his going to Guiana, his sole object had been to benefit his majesty, his country, his associates, and himself, by the gold which he knew to exist there, and some of which he had actually handled. At that point he turned to the earl of Arundel, and reminded him that on his taking leave of him on board of his ship, the earl had made him pledge himself neither to turn pirate nor omit to return faithfully; and he appealed to him whether he had not kept his pledge. The earl admitted that he had.

Lastly, he addressed himself to what undoubtedly lay heaviest on his mind: the charge of his promotion of the death of Essex, and his rejoicing in it—the circumstance which had