Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/268

248 affection; to him, therefore, the honey had been poison, and he warned all men how they followed his ill example; God's holy mysteries were no safe things to toy or play with. Gates, in dying, had three strokes of an axe;—'Whether,' says an eye-witness, 'it was by his own request or no was doubtful'—remarkable words as if the everlasting fate of the soul depended on its latest emotion, and repentance could be intensified by the conscious realization of death.

Last came Sir Thomas Palmer, in whom, to judge by his method of taking leave of life, there was some kind of nobleness. It was he who led the cavalry forlorn hope, at Haddington, when the supplies were thrown in for the garrison.

He leapt upon the scaffold, red with the blood of his companions. 'Good morning to you all, good people,' he said, looking round him with a smile; 'ye come hither to see me die, and to see what news I have; marry, I will tell you: I have seen more in yonder terrible place [he pointed towards the Tower] than ever I saw before throughout all the realms that ever I wandered in; for there I have seen God, I have seen the world, and I have seen myself; and when I beheld my life, I saw nothing but slime and clay, full of corruption; I saw the world nothing else but vanity, and all the pleasures and treasures thereof nought worth; I saw God omnipotent, his power infinite, his mercy incomprehensible; and when I saw this, I most humbly