Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/51

1537.] again. Of the many strange scenes which must have taken place on these occasions, one picture, but a striking one, is all which I have found. It occurred at the house of the lord chancellor, in the presence of the privy council and a crowded audience. Darcy was the subject of examination. Careless of life, and with the prophetic insight of dying men, he turned, when pressed with questions, to the lord privy seal:—

'Cromwell,' he said, 'it is thou that art the very special and chief causer of all this rebellion and mischief, and art likewise causer of the apprehension of us that be, and dost daily earnestly travel to bring us to our ends, and to strike off our heads. I trust that ere thou die, though thou wouldest procure all the noblemen's heads within the realm to be stricken off, yet shall there one head remain that shall strike off thy head.'

Of Aske, too, we catch glimpses which show that he was something more than a remarkable insurgent leader: a short entry tells us that six or seven days after his arrest, 'his servant, Robert Wall (let his name be remembered), did cast himself upon his bed and cried, 'Oh, my master! Oh, my master! they will draw him, and hang him, and quarter him;' and therewith he did die for sorrow.' Aske had lost a friend when friends were needed. In a letter which he wrote to Cromwell, he said that he had been sent up in haste without