“It is truest wisdom,” he said. “I was not born to be quiet or else I might wish that I had found wisdom in my time.”
But he asked me nothing more of what I meant to do, although he placed the deeds in my hands to carry to the Lord Boyle. I think he had so done with this world that but for his lady’s sake he had been glad his doom was at hand. Think on it! He had been twelve years in that Tower, who could never abide the least shackle, however gentle.
While yet I was with him he writ this verse and gave it me with a smile:
Even such is He 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 from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
The next morning I helped to caparison him as for his wedding. Such gay trappings for death were never seen, such rose-pink silk, bediamonded, such white velvet, such white leathern shoes with rosettes of rubies. Then once again I saw my lord young and glad, and so full of jests that it grieved the good Dean of Westminster to hear him, for he thought it a light spirit in which to meet death.
Throngs of people crowded the palace-yard of Westminster to see him for the last time. He smiled upon them happily while he spoke his farewells to them.
“I thank God,” he said, “that He hath brought me into the light to die, and hath not suffered me to die in the dark prison of the Tower, where I have known a great deal of misery and sickness. And I thank God that my fever hath not taken me at this time, as I prayed Him it might not, that I might clear myself of some accusations laid to my charge unjustly, and leave behind me the testimony of a true heart both to my King and country.” Then he held the crowd spellbound while he spoke in his defence, and when he had finished, none moved, but they all pressed closer to him as though they could not bear to leave him.
At last he sent them away himself. “I have a long journey to go,” he said, “therefore must I take my leave of you.”
Afterwards he tried the temper of the axe, passing his finger along the edge. “’Tis a sharp medicine,” he said; “but one that will cure me of all my diseases.”
The sheriff asked him which way he would lay himself upon the block. “So as the heart be right,” he said, “it matters not which way the head lies.” Then he laid himself down; and since the headsman feared to strike, and well he might fear, my lord himself hurried him. “Strike, man, strike!” he cried; and in an instant the noblest head in England rolled upon the ground.