“Preparing to kneel down, he asked for the executioner, who on his knees also asked his pardon, to whom he said, ‘Thou art welcome to me; I forgive thee; thou art the minister of true justice.’ And then, with eyes fixed up to Heaven, he began his prayers, ‘O God, creator of all things and judge of all men, thou hast let me know by warrant of thy word, that Satan is then most busy when our end is nearest, and that Satan being resisted, will fly, I humbly beseech thee to assist me in this my last combat, and since thou acceptest even of our desires as of our acts, accept of my desires to resist him as with true resistance and perfect grace; what thou seest of my flesh to be frail [strengthen?] and give me patience to be as becometh me, in this just punishment inflicted upon me by so honourable a trial. Grant me the inward comfort of thy Spirit; let the Spirit seal unto my soul an assurance of thy mercies; lift my soul above all earthly cogitations, and when my life and body shall part, send thy blessed angels to be near unto me, which may convey it to the joys in Heaven,’ then saying the Lord’s Prayer, he iterated this petition, ‘As we forgive them that trespass against us,’ saying, ‘As we forgive all them that trespass against us.’
“Then one of the divines put him in mind to say over his belief, which he did, the doctor saying it softly before him, and added these words, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my soul; into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.’ He was likewise remembered by the divines to forgive and pray for his enemies. Whereupon he beseeched God to forgive them as freely as he did, ‘because,’ said he, ‘they bear the image of God as well as myself.’
“Asking what was fit for him to do for disposing himself to the block, and his doublet being taken off, after he had asked the executioner whether he would hinder him or no in a scarlet waistcoat, he bowed himself towards the block, and said, ‘O God, give me true humility and patience to endure to the end, and I pray you all to pray with me and for me, that when you shall see me stretch out my arms and my neck on the block, and the stroke ready to be given, it would please the everlasting God to send down his angels to carry my soul before his mercy seat,’ and then lifting up his eyes devotedly towards Heaven, he said, ‘Lord God, as unto thine altar I do come, offering up my body and my soul for a sacrifice, in humility and obedience to thy commandment, to thy ordinance, and to thy good pleasure, O God, I prostrate myself to my deserved punishment.’ Lying flat along the boards, his hand stretched out, he said, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me, thy prostrate servant,’ and therewithal fitting his head to the block, he was willed by one of the doctors to say the beginning of the 51st Psalm, Have mercy upon me, O God, etc., whereof he said two verses; the executioner being prepared he uttered these words, ‘Executioner, strike home. Come, Lord Jesus, come, Lord Jesus, and receive my soul; O Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’ In the midst of which sentence his head was severed by the axe from the corpse at three blows, but the first deadly, and depriving all sense and motion.
“The noblemen present at his death were the Earls of Cumberland and Hertford, Lords Bindon, Darcy, Compton, and Thomas Howard, Constable of the Tower, Sir John Peyton, lieutenant with fifteen or sixteen partizans of the guard, and three divines, Messrs Montfort, Barlow, and Ashe Ashton.”
Writing of Essex’s death, Stowe says, “The body and the head were removed into the Tower, put into a coffin ready prepared, and buried by the Earl of Arundel and Duke of Norfolk in the Church of St Peter.” The above reads as if Essex’s remains had been buried by Arundel and Norfolk, but it is of course intended to convey the fact that the body of the Earl was placed alongside their graves.
There is a ghastly story told by G. S. Brandés in his work on Shakespeare, in which the Duke de Biron, Henry III. of France’s envoy to Elizabeth, relates a conversation he held with Elizabeth about Essex, in which she jested over her departed favourite; the Queen opened a box and took out of it Essex’s skull which she showed to Biron. This story has no shadow of proof or foundation, for had Essex’s head been taken out of the historic soil in which it mouldered in St Peter’s Chapel, and been given to the Queen, such an extraordinary proceeding would have been recorded; besides Elizabeth was not a monster, as such conduct with which Biron here credits her, would proclaim her to be.
Raleigh, at his own execution and speaking on the edge of the grave, solemnly denied that he had rejoiced over the death of Essex. He had, he acknowledged, watched the execution of his rival from the windows of the Armoury, those at the north end of the White Tower, which commanded a view of the scaffold—“where I saw him,” Sir Walter said, “but he saw not me, and my soul hath been many times grieved that I was not near to him when he died because I understood afterwards that he asked for me at his death, to be reconciled to me.” Thus at the early age of thirty-three ended the noble and gifted Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and Eu, Viscount Hereford and Bourchier, Baron Ferrers of Chartley, Bourchier and Louvain.
When quite a youth Essex had married Frances, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, and his son Robert, born in 1592, lived to lead the army of the Parliament against Charles the First.
Contemporary writers have extolled Essex’s charm of character and beauty of person. Sir Robert Naunton, in his “Fragmenta Regalia,” writes that “there was in this young lord, together with a most goodly person, a kind of urbanity or innate courtesy.” So popular was Essex with the Londoners that he scarcely ever quitted the capital without a poem or song being sung and sold in the streets. After Essex’s death Raleigh, who, probably owing to his arrogance, was never a favourite with the citizens, was hooted by the mob, as were also Bacon and the other judges who had condemned the Earl. Even Elizabeth’s own popularity paled after Essex’s death, and she was ever after coldly received whenever she appeared amongst her lieges.
Southampton was kept a prisoner in the Tower until released by the order of James I. in the month of April 1603. During his imprisonment, a favourite cat of his appeared suddenly in his room, having come to his master by way of the chimney, and after his deliverance Southampton had his portrait painted with his faithful friend beside him. At Welbeck Abbey there are two portraits of this nobleman, and in one of them the cat appears by its master’s side.