“I wis that, Master!” returned the poor executioner.
He was not the first man, nor the last, who has been required to pronounce officially what his conscience individually refused to sanction.
The severed head was sent to London, a ghastly gift to the usurper. It was set up on London Bridge, beside that of Exeter. The body was carried into the Castle, saved by the Mayor from insult; and a few days afterwards they bore it by slow stages to Tewkesbury Abbey, and laid him in his father’s grave.
Surrey and Exeter died for their King alone. But it was only half for King Richard that Salisbury and Le Despenser died; and the other half was for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. They were both hereditary Lollards and chiefs of the Lollard party; and they were both beheaded, not by Henry’s authority, but by a priest-ridden mob. And at that Bar where the cup of cold water shall in no wise lose its reward, surely such semi-martyrdom as that day beheld at Bristol will not be forgotten before God.
Note 1.
“Jesu, in Thy dear love behold,
And set this soul in Thy safe fold.”
These lines were spoken by the figure called “Pity,” in the painting termed the “Five Wells” or wounds of Christ.