“As you are the greatest traitor of all, your execution will be reserved to the last,” pursued Waad. “No part of the sentence will be omitted. You will be dragged to Old Palace Yard, over against the scene of your intended bloody and damnable action, at a horse's tail, and will be there turned off the gallows, and hanged, but not till you are dead. You will then be embowelled; your vile heart, which conceived this atrocious design, will be torn beating from your breast; and your quarters will be placed on the palace gates as an abhorrent spectacle in the eyes of men, and a terrible proof of the King's just vengeance.”
Guy Fawkes heard the recapitulation of his dreadful sentence unmoved.
“The sole mercy I would have craved of his Majesty would have been permission to die first!” he said. “But Heaven's will be done! I deserve my doom.”
“What! is your stubborn nature at length subdued?” cried the lieutenant in surprise. “Do you repent of your offence?”
“Deeply and heartily,” returned Fawkes.
“Make the sole amends in your power for it, then, and disclose the names of all who have been connected with the atrocious design,” rejoined Waad.
“I confess myself guilty,” replied Fawkes, humbly. “But I accuse no others.”
“Then you die impenitent,” rejoined the lieutenant, “and cannot hope for mercy hereafter.”
Guy Fawkes made no answer, but bowed his head upon his breast, and the lieutenant, darting a malignant look at him, quitted the cell.
On the following day, the whole of the conspirators were taken to St. John's chapel, in the White Tower, where a discourse was pronounced to them by Doctor Overall, Dean of St. Paul's, who enlarged upon the enormity of their offence, and exhorted them to repentance. The discourse over, they were about to be removed, when two ladies, clad in mourning habits, entered the chapel. These were Lady Digby and Mrs. Rookwood, and they immediately flew to their husbands. The rest of the conspirators walked away, and averted their gaze from the painful scene. After an ineffectual attempt to speak, Lady Digby swooned away, and was committed by her husband, while in a state of insensibility, to the care of an attendant. Mrs. Rookwood, however, who was a woman of high spirit, and great personal attractions, though the latter were now wasted by affliction, maintained her composure, and encouraging her husband to bear up manfully against his situation, tenderly embraced him, and withdrew. The conspirators were then taken back to their cells.