CH. XXIX. tions on the Lord's Prayer, and dedicating them to Villiers. The warrant, though he was then in Hertfordshire, was dated the day of the scene in the King's Bench. It was directed to the Chancellor. It dispensed with 'the manner of execution according to his former judgment, and released Sir Walter Ralegh of the same to be drawn, hanged, and quartered.' The royal pleasure instead thereof was to have the head only of the said Sir Walter Ralegh cut off at or within the Palace of Westminster.

street.

CHAPTER XXX.

RALEGH'S TRIUMPH (October 28-29, 1618).

house.

RALEGH was confined in the Gate-house of the old monas- CH. XXX. tery of St. Peter. It was a small two-storied building of the age of Edward III, standing at the western entrance to TothillThe structure embraced two adjoining gates, with rooms which had been turned into prison cells. By the side of the gate leading northwards from the College-court, was the Bishop of London's prison for convicted clerks and Romish The Gaterecusants. With the other gate westwards was connected the gaol of the Liberty of Westminster, to which Ralegh had been committed. The Abbey was visible through its barred windows. Ben Jonson had been confined in it. Eliot, Hampden, and Selden were to be. Lovelace sang there to stone walls. Esmond's name may be added to the list of its glories. Ralegh had been afraid the King might prevent him from speaking, or from being heard. He feared that the space for his friends would be narrow. As he crossed Palace Yard to the Gate-house he had asked Sir Hugh Beeston, of Cheshire, to be there. But,' he said, 'I do not know what you may do for a place. For my part, I am sure of one.' Many came to the prison to bid farewell. Among them, according to Sir William Sanderson, was his father, the ex-deputy Licenser. Ralegh was lively and cheerful. To those who grieved he said: 'The world itself is but a larger prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.' There is no reason for doubting the sincerity of

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CH. XXX. his content. He had striven manfully for a life which for him meant the exercise of fruitful energy. He rejoiced in death, when, from no remissness of his, it closed his labours. His kinsman, Francis Thynne, advised him: 'Do not carry it with too much bravery. Your enemies will take exception, if you do.' His friends were afraid of the 'pride' which had provoked Henry Howard. 'It is my last mirth in this world,' replied he; 'do not grudge it to me. When I come to the sad parting, you will see me grave enough.'

By desire of the Lords of the Council, Dr. Robert Tounson, Dean of Westminster, and afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, attended him. Tounson wrote on November 9 to Sir John Fearless of Isham: 'He was the most fearless of death that ever was Death. known; and the most resolute and confident, yet with reverence and conscience. When I began to encourage him against the fear of death, he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him. He gave God thanks, he never feared death; and the manner of death, though to others it might seem grievous, yet he had rather die so than of a burning fever. I wished him not to flatter himself, for this extraordinary boldness, I was afraid, came from some false ground. If it were out of a humour of vain glory, or carelessness of death, or senselessness of his own state, he were much to be lamented. He answered that he was persuaded that no man that knew God and feared Him could die with cheerfulness and courage, except he were assured of the love and favour of God unto him; that other men might make shows outwardly, but they felt no joy within; with much more to that effect, very Christianly; so that he satisfied me then, as I think he did all his spectators at his death.' A reputation for free thinking once established is tenacious. Though Ralegh satisfied a Chief Justice, a Dean of Westminster, and men like Pym, Eliot, Hampden, of his orthodoxy, he did not satisfy all. Archbishop Abbot three or four months later wrote to Sir Thomas Roe that his execution was a judgment on him for his scepticism.

He did not allude, wrote Tounson, to 'his former treason.' CH. XXX. As to more recent imputations, he could not conceive how it was possible to break peace with Spain, which 'within these four years took divers of his men, and bound them back to back and drowned them.'

Later arrived his wife. She had spent the earlier hours in trying to induce the Council to mediate with the King. Before she came she had learnt from a friend that it refused to beg the life, but authorized her to dispose of the corpse. At the Gatehouse first she heard he was to be beheaded on Friday morning, October 29. That was Lord Mayor's Day, the morrow of St. Simon and St. Jude. It appears to have been selected, that the City pageant might draw away the crowd from hearing him, and seeing him die. As he and she were consulting how she was to vindicate his fame, if he should be hindered from speech on the scaffold, the Abbey clock struck twelve. She rose to go, that he might rest. Then, with a burst of anguish, she told him she had leave to bury his body. 'It is A last Farewell, dear Bess,' said he with a smile, 'that thou mayst dispose wife. of that dead, which thou hadst not always the disposing of when alive.' On her return home, between night and morning, she wrote to my best brother,' Sir Nicholas Carew, of Beddington: 'I desire, good brother, that you will be pleased to let me bury the worthy body of my noble husband, Sir Walter Ralegh, in your church at Beddington, where I desire to be buried. The Lords have given me his dead body, though they denied me. his life. This night he shall be brought you with two or three of my men. Let me hear presently. God hold me and my wits.'

Ralegh, when his wife left him, wrote his last testamentary note. It was a rehearsal of the topics on which he meant to speak on the scaffold. If his mouth were closed it was intended to be a substitute. He repeated in it his constant affirmation of his loyalty: 'If,' he said, 'I had not loved and honoured the King truly, and trusted in his goodness somewhat too much, I had not suffered death.' Then the poet awoke in him. He

well to his

CH. XXX. wrote in the Bible which he gave to Dean Tounson the

the Fact.'

Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.

Early in the morning came Tounson again, and administered the Sacrament. Tounson wrote in the letter to Sir John Isham, from which I have already quoted, that Ralegh hoped to persuade the world he died an innocent man. The Dean objected that his assertions of innocence obliquely denied the justice of the Realm upon him. In reply he confessed justice had been done; that was to say, that by course of law he must Innocent in die; but he claimed leave, he said, to stand upon his innocency in the fact; and he thought both the King, and all who heard his answers, believed verily he was innocent for that matter. Tounson then pressed him to call to mind what he had done formerly. Though perhaps in that particular for which he was condemned he was clear, yet for some other matter, it might be, he was guilty, and therefore he should acknowledge the justice of God in it, though at the hands of men he had but hard measure. Here Tounson says he put him in mind of the death of my Lord of Essex; how it was generally reported that he was a great instrument of Essex's death. If his heart charged him with that, he should heartily repent, and ask God forgiveness. To this he made answer; and he said moreover that my Lord of Essex was fetched off by a trick, of which he privately told Tounson. He was, testifies Tounson, very cheerful, ate his breakfast heartily, and took tobacco, and made no more of his death than if it had been to take a journey.

Before he quitted the Gate-house a cup of sack was brought. After he had drunk it the bearer asked if it were to his liking.