“I am able now to give you this advice, having such remembrances of the vanities of my own life that my soul is full of grief.... Love the Archdeacon well; he will give you good counsel. Obey your mother cheerfully, and do not be troublesome to her. She is your example, your guardian, your counsellor, your all after God. There never has been, and never will be, one to surpass her worth. I am called, and this is the last letter that I shall write you. May the Lord my God bless you, and keep you from all ill; that is what your father asks in a moment when his pain is so great at leaving Mall, Neddy, and Billy. Think of me.
Derby.”
He spent the rest of that day with his two other daughters, and his son, Lord Strange, who had returned from his fruitless journey to London to obtain his father’s pardon. It was refused by the members of the House leaving one by one, so that not enough were left to vote. In the morning before his execution they started for Bolton. When he came to the castle gate, four Royalist gentlemen, who were also condemned, came out of the dungeon (by the Earl’s request to the marshal) and kissed his hand, and wept on taking their leave. Giving them his blessing, and a few brave farewell and comforting words, the Earl passed on, not on his own horse, for it was feared the people might rescue him, but upon a little nag.
“After we were out of the town,” continues Mr Bagalay, “people weeping, my lord, with an humble behaviour and noble courage, about half a mile off, took leave of them, then of my Lady Catherine and Amelia, and there prayed for them and saluted them, and so parted. This was the saddest hour I ever saw, so much tenderness and affection on both sides.”
“Once,” said the Earl, on that last night of lying down to rest on earth, “the thought of dying sword in hand in the fight would not have troubled me; it would something have startled me, tamely to submit to a blow on the scaffold; but now I can as willingly lay down my head upon a block, as ever I did upon a pillow.”
The clean shirt he put on next morning, he gave orders was to be his winding-sheet. “I will be buried in it,” he said to Morceau.
Then he called for Lord Strange to put on his order, telling him that he should receive it again, and so “return it to my gracious sovereign, ... and say I sent it in all humility and gratitude, as I received it spotless and free from any stain.”
The scaffold—which by one of the delicate refinements of Puritanism was fashioned of the old wood from Lathom House—was not ready till three in the afternoon, for the people, with tears and protestations, refused to drive a nail into it.
At last, when it was ready, the Earl ascended the ladder, and, standing at the east end, addressed the people. It was a long address, and full of noble and just and eloquent thoughts. Still, when he had done, the block was not ready.
The delay now began to fret him. At last the executioner seemed to be prepared, and, turning once more to the people, Lord Derby said: “Good people, I thank you for your prayers and for your tears. I have heard the one, and seen the other, and our God sees and hears both. Now the God of Heaven bless you all. Amen.”