read it and set it forth, I had not come hereto. Wherefore I beseech you all to be workers and live thereafter, and not to read it and live not thereafter. As for my offences, it cannot avail you to hear them that I die here for; but I beseech God that I may be an example to you all, and that all you may beware by me, and heartily I require you all to pray for me and to forgive me if I have offended you, and I forgive you all, and God save the king."[1]
Of the other four, Smeton and Brereton admitted the justice of their sentence, Brereton adding that, if he had to die a thousand deaths, he deserved them all. Norris was almost silent. Weston lamented in general terms the wickedness of his past life. From not one of the five came the indignant repudiation of a false accusation which might have been surely looked for from innocent men, and especially to be looked for when the Queen's honour was compromised along with theirs.
A Protestant spectator of the execution, a follower of Sir H. Norris, and a friend and schoolfellow of Brereton, said that at first he and all other friends of the Gospel had been unable to believe that the Queen had behaved so abominably. "As he might be saved before God, he could not believe it, till he heard them speak at their death; but in a manner all confessed but Mr. Norris, who said almost nothing at all."[2]
Dying men hesitate to leave the world with a lie on their lips. It appears to me, therefore, that these five gentlemen did not deny their guilt, because they knew that they were guilty. The unfortunate Anne was still alive; and while there was life there was hope.
