Conradin was seventeen. He had embarked early upon that desperate game, of which the prize was a throne, and the forfeit, life. He had missed his throw, and earned his penalty. But he was the grandson of an emperor, the heir of an imperial crown, and the last of a proud race. There was a pathetic boyishness in the sudden defiance with which he hurled his glove into the throng, and in the low murmur of his mother's name. The headsman had a bitter part to play that day, for Conradin's death is one of the world's tragedies; but there are other scaffolds upon which we still glance back with a pity fresh enough for pain. When Count Egmont and Admiral Horn were beheaded in the great square of Brussels, the executioner wisely hid beneath the black draperies until it was time for him to do his work. He had no wish to parade himself as part of that sad show.
In England the rules of etiquette were never more binding than upon those who were about to be beheaded. When the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and Lord Capel went to the block together, they were
