CHAPTER XVI.
Sir Everard Digby was only allowed two clear days between his trial and his execution to prepare for death. He was not permitted to see his young wife or his little sons, nor was he granted the consolation of the services of a priest. Short as was the time he had yet to live, it must have hung heavily on his hands. Fortunately he had lived much with Jesuits, who would doubtless have instructed him in their admirable system of meditation; but “the exercise of the memory,” which it includes, can hardly have afforded him much consolation under the circumstances. To add to his depression, it was at the time of year when there are but few hours of daylight, and the artificial light permitted in a prisoner’s room in the Tower would certainly be very meagre, and little more than sufficient to render the ghastly gloom of the dungeon-walls more manifest. Very early, too, all prisoners’ lights would be put out, and terrible then must have been the dreariness of the long nights and the dark mornings, until the sun rose at about a quarter to eight o’clock. It is easy to imagine him dreaming of his happy home at Gothurst, and fancying himself walking with his wife in its garden, or playing with his little children by its great hall fireside, or entertaining his guests at its long banquetting-table, and suddenly waking with a start, to find himself in darkness, on a hard bed, with a rough, cold wall beside him, and to remember that he was a condemned traitor in the Tower of London; and then, perhaps, lying awake to reflect upon the brilliant opportunities of happiness, prosperity, and usefulness with which he had started in his short life, and the misery in which he was about to end it. Nor does it require any great effort of the imagination to see him falling, from sheer weariness, into a fitful, feverish sleep, and, as he turned and tossed, frequently dreaming of the horrors of his impending execution, as they had been so lately described in his presence by the Attorney-General.
When, in the morning, he rose to obtain consolation from devotion, how likely that the heavy drowsiness or headache resulting from a wretched night would make him feel utterly helpless as he tried to pray or meditate; or that, distracted by the memories of his misfortunes, and the terrible thought of the destitution to which his wife and family might be exposed—for he seems to have died in doubt whether Gothurst, as well as his estates inherited from his father, would not be confiscated—he would be unable to fix his attention upon spiritual matters.
During the interval preceding his death Sir Everard wrote the following lines. Criticise them as you please; call them doggrel if you will; but at least respect them as the words of a broken-hearted and dying man.
JESUS MARIA.
Who’s that which knocks? Oh stay, my Lord, I come: I know that call, since first it made me know My self, which makes me now with joy to run, Lest He be gone that can my duty show. Jesu, my Lord, I know Thee by the Cross Thou offer’st me, but not unto my loss.
Come in, my Lord, whose presence most I crave, And shew Thy will unto my longing mind; From punishments of sin Thy servant save, Though he hath been to Thy deserts unkind. Jesu forgive, and strengthen so my mind, That rooted virtues thou in me maist find.
Stay still, my Lord, else will they fade away, As Marigold that mourns for absent Sun: Thou know’st thou plantest in a barren clay That choaks in Winter all that up is come; I do not fear thy Summers wished for heat My tears shall water where thy shine doth threat.
However deeply Sir Everard Digby may have sinned, he knew how to make his peace with God when death approached him. He had a definite religion to depend on, he had no need to consider which of many widely divergent views held by the professors of one nominal church was the most probable. It is true that he was deprived of those consoling rites which the Catholic Church provides for her children when on the threshold of death; he had none of the “soothing charm” of “the words of peace and blessing”[405] uttered by the confessor in absolution; he was not strengthened for the perilous journey from this life to the next by the sacred viaticum, but he knew that, where these privileges could not be obtained, a hearty desire for them, with a good act of contrition, might obtain many of their blessings and all that was necessary for salvation.