At an early hour on the following morning the four miserable persons intended for death, namely, Sir Everard Digby, the elder Winter, John Grant, and Bates, were conducted to the Beauchamp Tower. Bates would have stood aloof from his superiors; but Sir Everard Digby took him kindly by the hand, and drew him towards them.
“No distinctions must be observed now,” he said. “We ought to beg pardon of thee, my poor fellow, for bringing thee into this strait.”
“Think not of me, worshipful sir,” replied Bates. “I loved Mr. Catesby so well, that I would have laid down my life for him at any time; and I now die cheerfully in his cause.”
“Mr. Lieutenant,” said Robert Winter to Sir William Waad, who stood near them with Forsett and Ipgreve, “I pray you commend me to my brother. Tell him I die in entire love of him, and if it is possible for the departed to watch over the living, I will be with him at his last hour.”
At this moment, a trampling of horses was heard on the green, and the lieutenant proceeding to the grated window, saw four mounted troopers, each having a sledge and hurdle attached by ropes to his steed, drawn up before the door. While he was gazing at them, an officer entered the room, and informed him that all was in readiness. Sir William Waad then motioned the prisoners to follow him, and they descended the spiral staircase.
The green was thronged with horse and foot soldiers, and as the conspirators issued from the arched door of the fortification, the bell of Saint Peter's chapel began to toll. Sir Everard Digby was first bound to a hurdle, with his face towards the horse, and the others were quickly secured in the same manner. The melancholy cavalcade was then put in motion. A troop of horse-soldiers in their full accoutrements, and with calivers upon their shoulders, rode first; then came a band of halberdiers on foot; then the masked executioner mounted on a led horse, then the four prisoners on the hurdles, one after the other; then the lieutenant on horseback; while another band of horse-soldiers, equipped like the first, brought up the rear. They were met by the Recorder of London, Sir Henry Montague, and the sheriffs, at the gate of the Middle Tower, to the latter of whom the lieutenant, according to custom, delivered up the bodies of the prisoners. After a short delay, the train again set forward, and emerging from the Bulwark Gate, proceeded through an enormous concourse of spectators towards Tower-street.
Aware that a vast crowd would be assembled in the city, and apprehensive of some popular tumult, the Lord Mayor had issued precepts to the aldermen of every ward, commanding them “to cause one able and sufficient person, with a halbert in his hand, to stand at the door of every dwelling-house in the open street in the way that the traitors were to be drawn towards the place of execution, there to remain from seven in the morning until the return of the sheriffs.” But these were not the whole of the arrangements made to preserve order. The cavalcade, it was fixed, was to proceed along Tower-street, Gracechurch street, Lombard-street, Cheapside, and so on to the west end of Saint Paul's cathedral, where the scaffold was erected. Along the whole road, on either side, a line of halberdiers was drawn up, while barriers were erected against the cross streets. Nor were these precautions needless. Such a vast concourse was collected, that nothing but the presence of a strong armed force could have prevented confusion and disorder. The roofs of all the houses, the towers of the churches, the steps of the crosses were covered with spectators, who groaned and hooted as the conspirators passed by.
The scaffold, as has just been stated, was erected in front of the great western entrance of the cathedral. The mighty valves of the sacred structure were thrown open, and disclosed its columned aisles crowded with spectators, as was its roof and central tower. The great bell, which had begun to toll when the melancholy procession came in sight, continued to pour forth its lugubrious sounds during the whole of the ceremonial. The rolling of muffled drums was likewise heard above the tumultuous murmurs of the impatient multitude. The whole area from the cathedral to Ludgate-hill was filled with spectators, but an open space was kept clear in front of the scaffold, in which the prisoners were one by one unbound from the hurdles.
During this awful pause, they had sufficient time to note the whole of the dreadful preparations. At a little distance from them was a large fire, on which boiled a caldron of pitch, destined to receive their dismembered limbs. A tall gallows, approached by a double ladder, sprung from the scaffold, on which the hangman was already mounted with the rope in his hand. At the foot of the ladder was the quartering-block, near which stood the masked executioner with a chopper in his hand, and two large sharp knives in his girdle. His arms were bared to the shoulder; and a leathern apron, soiled by gory stains, and tied round his waist, completed his butcherly appearance. Straw was scattered upon the scaffold near the block.
Sir Everard Digby was the first to receive the fatal summons. He mounted with a firm footstep, and his youth, his noble aspect, and undaunted demeanour, awakened, as before, the sympathy of the beholders. Looking round, he thus addressed the assemblage:—