“Sharp medicine,” quoth he, “but a sound cure for all diseases.”
When presently the executioner bade him turn his head to the East:
“It is no great matter which way a man’s head stands, so that his heart lies right,” he said.
Thus passed one of England’s greatest heroes, indeed one of the very makers of this England, and than his death there is no more shameful blot upon the shameful reign of that pusillanimous James, unclean of body and of soul, who sacrificed him to the King of Spain.
A spectator of his death, who suffered for his words—as men must ever suffer for the regardless utterance of Truth—declared that England had not such another head to cut off.
As for Stukeley, the acquisitiveness which had made a Judas of him was destined, by a poetic justice, ever desired but rarely forthcoming for knaves, soon to be his ruin. He was caught diminishing the gold coin of the realm by the operation known to-day as “clipping,” and with him was taken his creature Manourie, who, to save himself, turned chief witness against Stukeley. Sir Lewis was sentenced to death, but saved himself by purchasing his pardon at the cost of every ill-gotten shilling he possessed, and he lived thereafter as bankrupt of means as he was of honour.
Yet before all this happened, Sir Lewis had for his part in Sir Walter Ralegh’s death come to be an object of execration throughout the land, and to be commonly known as “Sir Judas.” At Whitehall he suffered rebuffs and insults that found a climax in the words addressed to him by the Lord Admiral, to whom he went to give an account of his office.
“Base fellow, darest thou who art the contempt and scorn of men offer thyself in my presence?”
For a man of honour there was but one course. Sir Judas was not a man of honour. He carried his grievance to the King. James leered at him.
“What wouldst thou have me do? Wouldst thou have me hang him? On my soul, if I should hang all that speak ill of thee, all the trees of the country would not suffice, so great is the number.”