humility!' saying also to the divines, 'I beseech you brethren, pray for me, and join with me in prayer;' and often entreated those that went with him to pray for him. He requested the clergymen not to leave him, but begged them to observe him closely, and to speak to him, if either his eye, his countenance, or his speech, should betray anything unbecoming his situation. On a seat placed near the scaffold were the seven lords mentioned in the letter from the Council, as having been appointed by the Queen to attend the execution; these were the Earls of Cumberland and Hertford, Lord Viscount Bindon, Lord Thomas Howard, Lord Darcy, Lord Compton, and Lord Morley; several aldermen of London were also present, and other knights and gentlemen to the number of about a hundred. Sir Walter Raleigh, according to his own account, witnessed the execution from the armoury, without being seen by the Earl, and shed tears at the scene. Then, being come upon the scaffold, the Earl turned towards the noblemen and others, who sat before him beside the scaffold, and taking off his hat, spoke as follows : 'Right honourable Lords, and worshipful and Christian brethren, who are to be witnesses of this my just punishment, I confess to the glory of God that I am a most wretched sinner; and that my sins are more in number than the hairs of my head. I confess that I have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust, and uncleanness; that I have been puffed up with pride, vanity, and the love of this world's pleasures; and that, notwithstanding divers good motions inspired into me from the Spirit of God, the good which I would, I have not done; and the evil, which I would not, that have I done. For VOL. XVI. * How. State Trials, vol. ii, p. 44. all which I humbly beseech my Saviour Christ to be a Mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon; especially for this my last sin, this great, this bloody, this crying, this infectious sin, whereby so many have for love to me been drawn to offend God, to offend their Sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it us, and to forgive it me most wretched of all. I beseech her Majesty, and the state and ministers thereof to forgive us: and I beseech God to send her Majesty a prosperous reign, and a long one, if it be his will. O Lord! grant her a wise and understanding heart. O Lord! bless her, and the nobles, and the ministers of the church and state. And I beseech you all and the world, to hold a charitable opinion of me for my intention towards her Majesty, whose death I protest I never meant, nor violence to her person. I never was, I thank God, an atheist, nor a disbeliever of the Word and Scriptures of God; neither a papist, trusting to my own merits; but I hope for salvation from God only, by the mercy and merits of my Saviour Jesus Christ. This faith I was brought up in, and herein I am ready to die; beseeching you all to join with me in prayer, that my soul may be lifted up by faith above all earthly things; and now I will give myself to my private prayer.' As he was about to put off his gown, Dr Montford requested him to pray to God to forgive his enemies : To which he answered, 'I thank you for it; and then turning again to the spectators, he said, 'I desire all the world to forgive me even as I do freely and from my heart forgive all the world.' Then he called the executioner, and asked him how he must dispose himself on the block; and after having given him directions, the executioner kneeled before him, and besought him to forgive him. He turned him self and said, 'I forgive thee with all my heart, thou art the true executioner of justice.' : Then he called his servant, to whom he gave his gown, and put his shirt-band off, and laid it on the scaffold at his feet. Then presenting himself before the block, and kneeling down, Dr Barlow encouraged him against the fear of death he answered, 'That having been divers times in places of danger, where death was neither so present nor so certain, he had felt the weakness of the flesh, and, therefore, in this great conflict, desired God to assist and strengthen him.' He then laid his neck upon the block, saying, 'Lord Jesus, into thy hands I commit my spirit.' The executioner, staying the blow longer than the Earl expected, he said, 'O strike, strike !' And so his head was severed from his body at three blows, the first of which absolutely deprived him of all sense and motion. His body and head were placed in a coffin, previously prepared, and carried into the Tower church, where they were buried near to the remains of the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Arundel. * year 'Such,' says Camden, 'was the fatal, but withal pious and Christian end of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in the 34th of his age. He was a most accomplished person, and had all those good qualities in perfection that become a nobleman. Queen had a particular value for him, because he was a brave soldier, and indeed, was made for a camp. As soon as he got a secure and real interest in the C The * In treason,' says Lord Bacon, it has been an ancient use and favour from the Kings of this realm to pardon the execution of hanging, drawing, and quartering, and to make warrant for their beheading.' This, however, could only be done where the striking off the head was part of the sentence, in which case the King by his prerogative had the power of pardoning all the rest. By the stat. 54 Geo. III, c. 146, the cruel and disgusting part of the ordinary mode of execution for treason is removed. favour of his royal mistress, he made it his business to outstrip all persons, whether of his own or a superior rank; and this was a quarrel which the more politic courtiers had to him; especially when he took upon him to disparage all whose actions were not of his own square, and to browbeat those who had not the advantage of the royal ear or favour. Add to this, the pains and expense he was at to gain the caresses of the vulgar, which are always precarious and short-lived; and to recommend himself to the army, which is equally fatal and hazardous. Nor was he excusable in his deportment to the Queen herself, whom he treated with a sort of insolence, that seemed to proceed rather from a mind that wanted ballast, than any real pride in him ; though it looked the more ungrateful, because acted when he had more than once been restored to the Queen's favour, and received fresh instances of her bounty. However, this unhandsome carriage, and a way which he had of screwing (as it were) favours from her, joined with a coldness and disrespect towards her person, and backed by the sly management of some that wished him not well, failed not by degrees to lessen, and at the long run to extinguish entirely, the Queen's affection for him. Indeed, he was a person not rightly calculated for a Court, as being not easily brought to any mean compliances. He was of a temper that would readily kindle an injury, but would not so easily forget one; and so far was he from being capable of dissembling a resentment, that he carried his passions in his forehead, and the friend or the enemy were easily read in his face.' REMARKS. As the indictments in this case are not given, or even fully abstracted, in any of the reports of the trial, it is impossible to ascertain, with precision, the form in which the charge was made. It may be collected, however, from the introductory part of the speech of the Attorney-General, which, though faithfully taken from his original notes, is in many respects totally unintelligible, and also from Bacon's account of the trial, that the charge against the Earls of Essex and Southampton was not founded upon the statute of the 13th Elizabeth, c. 1, which made it high treason to intend the death of the Queen, or to levy war, or to incite others to levy war against her, but upon the old statute of treasons. As far as can be ascertained, it seems to have been intended to rest the charge on two propositions: first, that the design to restrain the Queen's person, and remove her councillors, amounted to treason, in the article of compassing the Queen's death, of which general treason, the consultation at Drury-house, the insurrection in London, the imprisonment of the Lord Keeper and his companions, and the refusal to dismiss the company upon the Queen's command, were overt acts; and, secondly, that the insurrection in the City was in itself a rebellion, and, consequently, a levying of war' against the Queen, within the statute of Edward III, of which the skirmish at Ludgate, the defence of Essex-house against the Queen's troops, and many other actions of the Earl's, on that day, were overt acts. Upon the law contained in these propositions, there can now, probably, be but little controversy, as it has been confirmed by a variety of cases, and the authority of our best modern writers on Criminal Law; though the reasoning upon which it is founded would establish almost any kind of constructive treason. 6 Every insurrection,' says Mr Justice Foster,* which, in judgment of law, is * Foster, p. 210. |