The following account of the proceedings at the place of execution is given from Strype's Annals: He said that he was brought thither not to preach but to die; and to avow his own innocency, which he had declared at the bar after his judgment, and would there seal it with his blood. His offence he confessed was twofold. The one in being reconciled to the Church of Rome (whereof he was a member) both at Milan and Paris; contrary to a positive law only. The other in entering into conference with his kinsman and friend (as he took him) Mr Nevil, and in concealing what passed between them, which he did upon confidence of her Majesty, to whom he had before betrayed what he had been solicited to do.' Being charged with Cardinal Como's letter by Mr Topcliff (one employed in those days in discovering and prosecuting Papists), and that therein he had promised to destroy her Majesty; and was from him as from the Pope animated thereunto: 'O! Master Topcliff,' said he, 'you clean mistake it. I deny any such matter to be in the letter; and I wish it might be truly examined and considered of.' The Sheriff requiring him to cease to purge himself, since the law had passed against him; 'Ō! Mr Sheriff,' said he, ' give me leave to speak; for this is my last farewell to you all, I die a true servant to Queen Elizabeth; for any evil thought that ever I had to harm her, it never came into my mind; she knoweth it, and her own conscience can tell her so. God save Queen Elizabeth; for a more gracious Princess and Sovereign was never any. I avow it before you all, and seal it here with my blood. I die guiltless and free in mind from ever thinking hurt to her Majesty. And I know her to be the anointed of God; not lawful for any subject to touch her royal person. If I might have my life; nay, if I might be made Duke of Lancaster, and have all the possessions belonging thereunto, yet I could never consent to shed the least drop of blood out of the top of any of her fingers.' Mr Treasurer (Sir Francis Knollys) demanding of him, what he could say of the proceedings in law against him; he answered him, the same to be most just and honourable, pleading still his own innocence of mind; and charged Mr Treasurer to tell her Majesty, as he was a true counsellor, that he died her faithful servant;

and prayed for her safety. I know her,' said he, 'to be the anointed of God: and therefore not lawful for any man to lay violent hands on her. She is a most gracious lady, full of goodness, full of mercy. And therefore to you, Catholics, I speak it, serve her, obey her, honour her, and reverence her. She will never harm you. She hath said it, she hath vowed it; nay, she hath sworn it to myself, that while you continue her dutiful subjects, she will never trouble any of you for your conscience. It is true, it is true, I tell you all for your comfort.' His guiltiness being urged by Mr Treasurer, 'O' said he, I pray God, Queen Elizabeth do not find, that in taking away my life, she hath killed one of the best keepers in her park.' Being exhorted by a preacher standing by, to be sorry for his sins, to pray to God for his mercy: I will,' said he: and so said the Lord's Prayer in Latin, with other private prayers by himself. The people there cried,, 'Away with him; away with him!' the preacher again called on him to believe in the merits of Christ. Oh!' said he, 'I do acknowledge, there is no salvation but only in the free mercy of Christ.' After this, a pause being made of his execution, he said, 'he had written to the Queen and Council, who was lawful successor to the Crown of England, but that place was not fit to name the party. It sufficeth that her Majesty, and the Council know it; and their title, whom he had named to them, was just and lawful.' Some more time he spent in excuse of himself, to the effect aforesaid: and so was turned from the ladder, and after one swing was cut down; when his bowels were taken out, he gave a great groan.*

*

* Mr Justice Blackstone says (Commen. vol. iv, p. 377,) 'there are but few instances, and those accidental or by negligence, of persons being embowelled till previously deprived of sensation by strangling.' There are, however, several instances on record in which the sentence has been executed in all its literal rigour. The conspirators in Babington's plot in 1586 were all embowelled alive; some of them looking on while the horrible details of the execution took place upon their companions. (How. State Trials, vol. i, p. 1158.) In the case of General Harrison, the regicide, in 1660, Ludlow says that the sentence was so barbarously executed, that he

1

REMARKS.

Notwithstanding the circumstantial confession made by Parry, there is some reason to doubt whether he ever entertained a serious intention of assassinating the Queen. In the course of his occupation in foreign countries as a spy upon the Roman Catholics, he had more than once revealed to Lord Burleigh and the Queen various plots arranged by Popish emigrants, to which he had become a privy and a party, merely with the object of discovering and circumventing them. It is possible, that the scheme of assassinating the Queen was mentioned by him to Nevill, for the purpose of sounding his real disposition; and it has been suggested, that he did so by the express permission of the Queen.* Camden relates, that he had some time before reported Nevill as a suspected and malcontented man, and that the Queen did not at first give implicit credit to Nevill's accusation, but commanded Walsingham to ask Parry, Whether he had dealt about this matter with any malcontented and suspected person, to feel his inclination in the business?' And he adds, "That Parry saw not the evasion which the Queen's lenity had. laid before him; for if he had but given the least inkling that he had dealt with Nevill to feel him, he had without doubt avoided the danger. Besides this, his own expressions upon his arraignment, and at the place of execution, are very remarkable. On his trial he says, 'I never intended

was cut down alive, and saw his bowels thrown into the fire.' (Memoirs, p. 402.) Other accounts say that, after his body was opened, he raised himself, and struck the executioner. (How. State Trials, vol. v, p. 1237.) No doubt there were many other instances; for one is at a loss to conceive on what principle the executioner could be justified in varying from the sentence. The disgusting and barbarous part of the judgment in high treason is abolished by stat. 54 Geo. III, c. 146. * Lingard, vol. viii, p. 226 (note).

to kill Queen Elizabeth; I appeal to her own knowledge, and to my Lord Treasurer's, and Master Secretary's.' On the scaffold he says, 'I die a true servant to Queen Elizabeth; for any evil thought that ever I had to harm her, it never came into my mind; she knoweth it, and her own conscience can' tell her so. I concealed what passed between Nevill and me in confidence of her Majesty, to whom I had before betrayed what I had been solicited to do.' He concludes his letter to the Queen with these mysterious words; Remember your unfortunate Parry, chiefly overthrown by your hand;' which words, however, were suppressed by the Government on the proof of the letter at the trial, and in the copies of it printed by authority after his execution. These reasons, however plausible, will hardly be thought to furnish sufficient evidence to convict Elizabeth, as well as Burleigh and Walsingham, of the deliberate wickedness of a legal murder, by executing a man upon a confession which they knew to be false. However that may be; no man can deny that for his former crimes, his complex and suspicious intrigues, and his base attempts to inveigle others into conspiracies, that he might have the merit of betraying them, Parry amply deserved the death which he suffered.'*

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But though the utter worthlessness of the individual may make it a matter of indifference with respect to him, whether he was guilty or innocent of this particular crime, the question becomes of importance, when his case is used as a justification of penal measures against the whole body of Catholics. The opponents of the Catholics contended, that Parry's case proves a scheme for the assassination of the Queen, sanctioned and encouraged by the Pope. It is obvious from the Proceedings, that the whole

* Lingard, vol. viii, p. 226.

question depends upon the contents of the letter sent by Parry to the Pope, when he applied for absolution. If, in that letter, the design of assassination was not mentioned, there is nothing whatever in the answer of Cardinal Como which points to such a design, and consequently there is no evidence whatever beyond Parry's statement, that either the Pope or the Cardinal was acquainted with it. Parry states, that in his letter to the Pope he required absolution, in consideration of so great an enterprise,' without declaring expressly that he explained what that enterprise was he also says, that the design was 'presented in general words to the Pope,' and that he found by the answer of the Cardinal that the enterprise was commended and allowed.' Upon the whole, it must be taken that Parry intended to represent that he had communicated to the Pope the design of assassination, and that the Pope had approved it. But his statement is really the whole and sole evidence of the fact; and the statement of so base a wretch, made under the fear of torture and death, and in the hope of averting both by what he said, and fully and positively retracted and contradicted by himself at his trial and on the scaffold, can hardly be entitled to much credit. On the other hand, Dr Lingard asserts, on the authority of Bartoli, that 'Parry, in his letter to the Pope, never alluded to the design of killing the Queen; he merely said, "that he was returning to England, and hoped to atone for his past misdeeds by his subsequent services to the Catholic church."' To such a letter the answer of the Cardinal would be natural and proper; but it is hardly probable that an answer would have been sent to a proposal for the assassination of the Queen (even admitting the Pope to have approved of it), which does not contain a single expression having the remotest allusion to such a design.