Parliament, which had not for a long time now ventured to offer any further opposition to the king’s will—Parliament had acquiesced in his decree. It had accused Earl Surrey of high treason; and, on the sole testimony of his mother and his sister, he had been declared guilty of lese majeste and high treason. A few words of discontent at his removal from office, some complaining remarks about the numerous executions that drenched England’s soil with blood—that was all that the Duchess of Richmond had been able to bring against him. That he, like his father, bore the arms of the Kings of England—that was the only evidence of high treason of which his mother the Duchess of Norfolk could charge him. [Footnote: Tytler, p. 402. Burnet, vol. i, p. 95.]
These accusations were of so trivial a character, that the Parliament well knew they were not the ground of his arrest, but only a pretext for it—only a pretext, by which the king said to his pliant and trembling Parliament: “This man is innocent; but I will that you condemn him, and therefore you will account the accusation sufficient.”
Parliament had not the courage to oppose the king’s will. These members of Parliament were nothing more than a flock of sheep, who, in trembling dread of the sharp teeth of the dog, go straight along the path which the dog shows them.
The king wanted them to condemn the Earl of Surrey, and they condemned him.
They summoned him before their judgment-seat, and it was in vain that he proved his innocence in a speech spirited and glowing with eloquence. These noble members of Parliament would not see that he was innocent.
It is true, indeed, there were a few who were ashamed to bow their heads so unreservedly beneath the king’s sceptre, which dripped with blood like a headsman’s axe. There were still a few to whom the accusation appeared insufficient; but they were outvoted; and in order to give Parliament a warning example, the king, on the very same day, had these obstinate ones arrested and accused of some pretended crime. For this people, enslaved by the king’s cruelty and savage barbarity, were already so degenerate and debased in self-consciousness, that men were always and without trouble found, who, in order to please the king and his bloodthirstiness and sanctimonious hypocrisy, degraded themselves to informers, and accused of crime those whom the king’s dark frown had indicated to them as offenders.
So Parliament had doomed the Earl of Surrey to die, and the king had signed his death-warrant.
Early next morning he was to be executed; and in the Tower-yard the workmen were already busy in erecting the scaffold on which the noble earl was to be beheaded.
Henry Howard was alone in his cell. He had done with life and earthly things. He had set his house in order and made his will; he had written to his mother and sister, and forgiven them for their treachery and accusation; he had addressed a letter to his father, in which he exhorted him, in words as noble as they were touching, to steadfastness and calmness, and bade him not to weep for him, for death was his desire, and the grave the only refuge for which he longed.
He had then, as we have said, done with life; and earthly things no longer disturbed him. He felt no regret and no fear. Life had left him nothing more to wish; and he almost thanked the king that he would so soon deliver him from the burden of existence.