“First to have confession; and at a mass to receive my Maker, that I may depart like a Christian man out of this vale of misery.
“Second, that incontinent after my death my whole body may be buried with my late wife, the Lady Neville, in the Freers at Greenwich.
“Third, that the straitness of my judgment may be mitigated after the king’s mercy and pleasure.
“Fourth, that my debts may be paid according to a schedule enclosed.”[260]
Last petition of Aske.
Aske, in a few lines addressed also to Cromwell, spoke of his debts, and begged that some provision might be made for his family. “They,” he said, “never offended the King’s Grace, nor were with me in council in no act during all this time, but fled into woods and houses. Good my Lord, extend your pity herein. And I most humbly ask the King’s Highness, and all his council and lords, lowly forgiveness for any mine offences or words attempted or said against his Grace or any of them any time of my life; and that his Grace would save my life, if it be his pleasure, to be his bedesman—or else—to let me be full dead or that I be dismembered, that I may piously give my spirit to God without more pain; and that I desire for the honour of God and for charity.”[261]
Provision made for the families of the sufferers.
Properties not forfeited.
The requests relating to the manner of the executions, it is satisfactory to find, were granted; and not only in the case of the two petitioners, but so far as I can learn in that of all the other sufferers. Wherever the scaffold becomes visible, the rope and the axe are the sole discernible implements of death. With respect to the other petition, I find among loose memoranda of Cromwell an entry “for a book to be made of the wives and poor children of such as have suffered, to the intent his Grace may extend his mercy to them for their livings as to his Highness shall be thought convenient, and for payment of their debts.”[262] The “mercy” seems to have been liberal. The forfeited properties, on the whole, were allowed to descend without diminution, in their natural order.[263]