As Mercy does.
But Shakespeare pleaded and suggested in vain.
THE CONDEMNED JACOBITES.
After sentence the Jacobite officers were heavily ironed, even by day. At night they were fastened to the floor by a staple. Colonel Towneley was speedily interviewed by a ‘good-natured friend,’ who, in the spirit of one of Job’s comforters, remarked: ‘I believe, Sir, you deceived yourself in imagining you should be able to clear up your innocence; ... and that you was not quite right in supposing that you could invalidate the credit of the king’s witnesses.’ Tears for the first and last time came into the colonel’s eyes. Towneley said simply, ‘I never thought it could have come to this.’ The remark may have referred to his weakness rather than to his fate. In the disorderly prison, when hopes of reprieve caused some to sing hysterically, and to drink in much the same spirit, Towneley never lost his grave and becoming dignity. His reserve when he, for an hour, came from his room into the yard was looked upon by the hilarious and untried Jacobite prisoners as insolent contempt. This did not affect the colonel, who communed only with himself, and passed on without remark. PAINFUL PARTINGS. In order, however, that he might die like a gentleman as well as a Christian, a tailor measured him for a suit of black velvet, in which he might appear with dignity on the day of his execution. Young Fletcher never lost his cheerfulness, except, perhaps, when he alluded to his ‘poor mother’ having offered him 1,000l. not to join the rebel army. ‘Here I am,’ said the young fellow, ‘for which I have nobody to thank but myself.’ Blood refused to trust, as his friends did, in a reprieve. ‘I can die but once,’ he replied to their remarks; ‘as well now as at any other time. I am ready.’ ‘My father,’ said the valiant barber, Syddal, ‘was put to death for joining the Stuarts in ’15. I am about to follow him for joining them in ’45. I have five children; may none of them fall in a worse cause!’ Two fathers had interviews on the eve of the execution, with their sons. ‘Jemmy Dawson’ and Chadwick had displayed the utmost unobtrusive fortitude. ‘You may put tons of iron on me,’ said the former young captain, when he was being heavily fettered after judgment: ‘it will not in the least damp my resolution.’ Chadwick had manifested a similar spirit; but when the two lads were held for the last time each in his weeping father’s arms, resolution temporarily gave way. The parting scene was of a most painful nature. Poor Syddal, the Jacobite barber, behaved with as much propriety as any of higher rank. Morgan, the lawyer, was irritable, and on the very eve of being hanged quarrelled with the charges made by the prison cook for indifferent fare.
WITHIN PRISON-WALLS.
Among the untried prisoners there was one Bradshaw, in whom there seems to have been a touch of the insanity which was afterwards pleaded in his defence. This gay, thoughtless fellow hated Towneley, with whom he had quarrelled at Carlisle, ‘on account,’ say the newspapers, ‘of a young lady whom they had severally addressed at a ball which was kept at the Bull’s Head Inn, Manchester, for the neighbouring gentry.’ This trifle seems to show what feather-brained gallants some of the Jacobite officers were. The quarrel about a pretty girl was never made up. On the day before the sentence was carried out, Bradshaw shuffled up in his fetters to Colonel Towneley in the yard, and saluted his former superior officer with, ‘I find, sir, you must shortly march into other quarters.’ Towneley looked at him in silent surprise, but Berwick, who was at the colonel’s side, spiritedly remarked: ‘Jemmy, you should not triumph at our misfortunes. You may depend upon it, mocking is catching;’ and turning to Chadwick, who had not yet been summoned to meet his fate, Berwick rejoined: ‘Bradshaw has no pity in him.’ Chadwick looked at the pitiless scoffer, who had been drinking freely (prison rules set no limit to tippling), and said: ‘What could be expected of such a fellow? He is a disgrace to our army.’ At length on their last evening came the hour for locking up. As the doomed Jacobites were being stapled to the floor, some of them ordered that they should be called at six in the morning, and that coffee should be ready for them when they descended to the yard. They were wide awake, however, at that hour; but when the fastidious Morgan heard that the coffee was ready before he was released from the staple, he flew into a furious passion, and, within an hour or two of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, this irascible Jacobite made a heavy grievance of having to drink his coffee half cold!
THE LAST MORNING.
Before they descended to the yard the three sledges were drawn up there, in which the nine Jacobites were to be drawn, by threes, to the gallows, the quartering block, and the fire, at the place of sacrifice. Prisoners whose hour had not yet come were curiously inspecting these gloomy vehicles. Bradshaw, with his morning brandy in his brains, affected much curiosity in the matter, and his doings were watched, like the performance of a mime, by idle gentlemen who had walked in, without let or hindrance, to the spectacle. It was raining heavily, but that was no obstacle to the acting. Bradshaw inspected the sledges, and pronounced them very proper for the purposes for which they were designed. Then he raked about the straw, declared there was too little of it, and bade the warders to procure more, or ‘the lads’ would get their feet wet.
The ‘lads’ took their last coffee in a room off the yard, generally in silence. Chadwick alone made a remark to Berwick: ‘Ah, Duke,’ he said, ‘our time draws near, but I feel in good heart.’ ‘I, too,’ answered Berwick; ‘death does not shock me in the least. My friends forgive me, and have done their best to save me. May God be merciful to us all!’ And then appeared the governor with, ‘Now, gentlemen, if you please!’
VIA DOLOROSA.