Martineau (Harriet, English author, and translator of "The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte"), 1802-1876. "I have had a noble share of life, and I do not ask for any other life. I see no reason why the existence of Harriet Martineau should be perpetuated."
During the last one-and-twenty years of her life, death was the idea most familiar and most welcome. It was spoken of and provided for with an easy freedom that I never saw approached in any other home, yet she never expressed a wish respecting a place of burial. But a few days before her death, when asked if she would be laid in the burial-place of her family, she assented; and she lies with her kindred, in the old cemetery at Birmingham.[31]
Maria Weston Chapman.
Mary (Queen of Scots), 1542-1587. "O Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
The first blow of the executioner inflicted a ghastly wound on the lower part of the skull. Not a scream nor groan, not a sigh escaped her, but the convulsion of her features showed the horrible suffering caused by the wound. The eye-witness of the execution, whose account is published, thus relates this incident: "Thereupon the headsman brought down his axe, but missing the proper place, gave her a horrible blow upon the upper extremity of the neck; but, with unexampled fortitude, she remained perfectly still, and did not even heave a sigh. At the second stroke the neck was severed and the head held up to the gaze of bystanders with 'God save Queen Elizabeth!'"—Meline's "Mary Queen of Scots."
When the psalm was finished she felt for the block, and laying down her head muttered: "In manus, Domine, tuas commendo animam meam." The hard wood seemed to hurt her, for she placed her hands under her neck. The executioners gently removed them lest they should deaden the blow, and then one of them, holding her slightly, the other raised the axe and struck. The scene had been too trying even for the practised headsman of the Tower. His arm wandered. The blow fell on the knot of the handkerchief and scarcely broke the skin. She neither spoke nor moved. He struck again, this time effectively. The head hung by a shred of skin, which he divided without withdrawing the axe, and at once a metamorphosis was witnessed strange as was ever wrought by wand of fabled enchanter. The coif fell off and the false plaits; the labored illusion vanished; the lady who had knelt before the block was in the maturity of grace and loveliness. The executioner, when he raised the head as usual to show it to the crowd, exposed the withered features of a grizzled, wrinkled old woman.
Froude's "History of England."
Mary (Countess of Warwick),—1678. "Well, ladies, if I were one hour in heaven, I would not be again with you, as much as I love you."
She is the author of the famous question: "Why are we so fond of that life which begins with a cry, and ends with a groan?"
Mary I. (Queen of England, commonly called "Bloody Queen Mary" on account of her violent and cruel persecution of the Protestants), 1517-1558. "After I am dead, you will find Calais written upon my heart."