[1]. Mozley.
He busied himself with his religious duties, with the settlement of his worldly affairs, and in writing wise, tender, and pathetic letters to his relatives, particularly to his eldest son. He petitioned to be allowed an interview with his well-loved friend and fellow-prisoner, Archbishop Laud, but was cruelly refused, and only permitted to send him a message, asking his prayers, and entreating that he would wave him a blessing as he passed to execution.
Accordingly on the 12th of May 1641, Strafford, on his way to the scaffold, raised his eyes to the window of the cell where Laud was confined, and perceived the Prelate’s aged and trembling hands extended through the bars, in token of a solemn farewell.
So overcome was Laud by grief and emotion, that he fell backwards on the floor of his dungeon in a swoon.
The avenues to the Tower were lined with thousands of eager spectators, and the lieutenant hurried his prisoner into the carriage lest he should be torn in pieces. Strafford smiled, and said ‘it mattered little to him whether he died by the hands of the executioner or by those of the people.’ He had ‘faced death too often to fear it in any shape.’
The mob glared on him as he passed, but offered him no indignity, for he marched, says a spectator, ‘like a general at the head of his army, bowing with lofty courtesy to the gazing crowd.’ His friend Archbishop Usher and his brother Sir George Wentworth were already on the platform when he came, as he said, ‘to pay his last debt to sin, which was death.’ He submitted to the judgment with a contented mind. He affirmed that his whole aim through life had been the joint and individual prosperity of the King, and the people, although it had been his misfortune to be misconstrued: ‘righteous judgment,’ he said, ‘shall be hereafter.’
He stoutly denied the charges of upholding despotism and Popery, asked forgiveness of all men whom he had offended, and prayed that ‘we may all live to meet eternally in heaven, where all tears shall be wiped from our eyes, and sad thoughts from our hearts.’ Then he prayed for some time, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer; bade farewell to those near him, and embracing his brother, delivered the most pathetic messages to different members of his family, to his sister, his wife, with admonitions to his eldest son ‘to fear God, be a good subject to the King, and faithful to the Church of England,’ etc. etc.; forbidding him to harbour any feelings of revenge. ‘Give my blessings also to my daughters, Anne, (‘the sweet little Mistress Nan, his loved companion, the image of her dead mother,’) to Arabella, named after the dear saint, to the little infant who cannot speak for itself—God speak for it. One stroke,’ he said, ‘will make my wife husbandless, my children fatherless, my servants masterless, and separate me from my dear brother and all my friends. But let God be to you, and to them, all in all.’ About to take off his doublet, he thanked God he could do so as cheerfully as ever he did when going to bed. And then he looked round and forgave the executioner and all the world. It was indeed an imposing scene: Strafford apparently restored on that momentous day to all the energy of health and vigour; his tall and symmetrical figure, his regular features, with a complexion ‘pallid, but manly, black, like polished armour that had received many a hack and bruise in the battle of life.’
Once more he knelt in prayer, between the Archbishop of Armagh and the minister, tried the block, and finally having warned the executioner that such would be the sign, he stretched forth his white and beautifully formed hands, those hands which Vandyck has immortalised, which Henrietta Maria, his sworn enemy, had pronounced ‘the finest in the world,’ and one stroke from the cruel axe ended the mortal career of Thomas Earl of Strafford. Yet his name still continues a firebrand, between contending parties, in religion and politics. His faithful and devoted friend, Sir George Radcliffe, pays a most touching tribute to his memory in a well-sketched mental portraiture, and among many noble traits he mentions ‘that my Lord was not angry when told of his weaknesses, though let it be remembered that by nature he was of a hot and hasty spirit, for he was a man and not an angel, yet such a man as made conscience of his ways, and did endeavour to grow in virtue and victory over himself.’
He was thrice married, first, as we have already said, to Lady Margaret Clifford, who died childless; next to the Lady Arabella Holles, daughter to the Earl of Clare, by whom he had one son, his successor; Anne, married to Lord Rockingham, and Arabella, married to the son of my Lord Clancarty.
Of Lord Strafford’s second and best loved wife, Radcliffe writes: ‘She was a lady exceeding comely and beautiful, and yet more lovely in the endowments of her mind.’