Part 23 (1/2)

Ralegh was confined in the Gate-house of the old monastery of St Peter

It was a s at the western entrance to Tothill-street The structure eates, with rooms which had been turned into prison cells By the side of the gate leading northwards froe-court, was the Bishop of London's prison for convicted clerks and Roate ards was connected the gaol of the Liberty of Westh had been coh its barred s Ben Jonson had been confined in it Eliot, Ha there to stone walls

Esh had been afraid the Kingheard 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 Cheshi+re, to be there 'But,' he said, 'I do not knohat you may do for a place For my part, I a the to Sir Williah 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 his content He had striven manfully for a life which for hiy 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 e it to rave enough'

[Sidenote: _Fearless of Death_]

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 Isham: 'He was the most fearless of death that ever was known; and the most resolute and confident, yet with reverence and conscience When I began to encourage hiht of it that I wondered at hiave God thanks, he never feared death; and the rievous, 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, caround If it were out of a hulory, 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 Hie, except he were assured of the love and favour of God unto hiht 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 Thoment on him for his scepticism

He did not allude, wrote Tounson, to 'his former treason' As to more recent imputations, he could not conceive hoas 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'

[Sidenote: _A last Farewell to his Wife_]

Later arrived his wife She had spent the earlier hours in trying to induce the Council toBefore she ca the life, but authorized her to dispose of the corpse At the Gate-house first she heard he was to be beheaded on Friday , 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 pageanthi 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 uish, she told him she had leave to bury his body 'It is well, dear Bess,' said he with a smile, 'that thou mayst dispose of that dead, which thou hadst not always the disposing of when alive' On her return ho, she wrote to 'ton: 'I desire, good brother, that you will be pleased to let me bury the worthy body of h, in your church at Beddington, where I desire to be buried The Lords have given ht he shall be brought you with two or three of my men

Let h, 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 hiave to Dean Tounson the famous lines:

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 frorave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust

[Sidenote: _'Innocent in the Fact'_]

Early in the ain, and administered the Sacrament

Tounson wrote in the letter to Sir John Ishah 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 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 hih perhaps in that particular for which he was condeht 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 hienerally reported that he was a great instrued hiiveness 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

[Sidenote: _His Good-humour_]

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 'I will answer you,' said Ralegh, 'as did the felloho drank of St Giles's bowl as he went to Tyburn: ”It is good drink if a ht but tarry by it”'

Now arrived the Sheriffs They conducted hie scaffold had been erected in front of the Parliah the space had been narrowed by barriers, a greatto John Eliot, as present, eneht velvet nightgown over a hair-coloured satin doublet, a ruff band, and a black-wrought waistcoat, black cut taffeta breeches, and ash-coloured silk stockings On account of his ague he wore under his hat a wrought nightcap Seeing in the crowd an old man with a very bald head, he inquired why he had ventured forth on such a ,' was the answer, 'but to see hirieved that he had no better return to ood will than 'this,' said he, as he threw him his lace cap, 'which you need,pressed on by the crowd, he was breathless and faint when he mounted the scaffold; but he saluted with a cheerful countenance those of his acquaintance whom he saw Lords Arundel, Doncaster, Northampton, formerly Compton, and Oxford--son of Sir Walter's enemy--stood in Sir Randolph Carew's, or Crues's, balcony Other Lords, Sheffield and Percy, sat on horseback near Sir Edward Sackville, Colonel Cecil, Sir Henry Rich, were ae is said to have included ladies of rank The hted beside the scaffold for the Sheriffs, while they waited before going to the Gate-house They invited hiue would soon be upon hian before he had played his part, that he quaked with fear

[Sidenote: _Rejoices to 'die in the Light'_]

Procla been made by the Sheriffs, he addressed his audience Tounson's, and another account prepared, it would appear from a statement of the Dean's, for the Government by one Crawford, do not materially differ They see, not co, that he had the day before been taken froht recur thatTherefore, he hoped they would ascribe any disability of voice or dejection of look to that, and not to disain to speak he fancied they in the balcony did not hear So he said he would raise his voice Arundel replied that the company would rather come down to the scaffold

Northampton, Doncaster, and himself descended, h Then he resuht, and not in darkness, before such an assembly of honourable witnesses, and not obscurely in the Tohere, for the space of thirteen years together, I have been oppressed with many miseries I thank Him, too, that my fever hath not taken me at this time' He proceeded to excuse his counterfeit sickness at Salisbury: 'It was only to prolong the time till his Majesty came, in hopes of some commiseration from him' He dwelt more seriously on two or three ainst him They, he believed, had specially hastened his dooues with France He gave an indignant denial to this charge of practices with foreigners, at any rate without the qualification expressed in the testa to the King' The thened by his projects of flight from Plymouth and London Those luckless schehts of pern service Simply he had reckoned that he could more easily make his peace at home while he was safe at a distance

Another cause of odiu That he declared : 'It is,' he said, 'no time for me to flatter, or to fear, princes, I who am subject only unto death; yet, if ever I spake disloyally or dishonestly of the King, the Lord blot me out of the book of life'

[Sidenote: _Denial of Stukely's Calumnies_]