approach to it were thronged with spectators, pressing on all sides against the circle of armed men.
A little before eight o'clock the Tower guard brought up their prisoner. Somerset's countenance was singularly handsome, and both his features and his person were marked with an habitual expression of noble melancholy. Amidst his many faults he was every inch a gentleman. He was dressed in the splendid costume which he had worn in receptions of state. As he stepped upon the scaffold, he knelt and said a short prayer; he then rose, and, bowing to the people, spoke bareheaded.[1]
Masters and good fellows. I am come hither to die; but a true and faithful man as any was unto the King's Majesty and to his realm. But I am condemned by a law whereunto I am subject, as we all, and therefore to show obedience I am content to die; wherewith I am well content, being a thing most heartily welcome to me; for the which I do thank God, taking it for a singular benefit as ever might have come to me otherwise. For, as I am a man, I have deserved at God's hand many deaths; and it has pleased his goodness, whereas He might have taken me suddenly, that I should neither have known Him nor myself, thus now to visit me and call me with this present death as you do see,
- ↑ There are several reports of Somerset's last words. That in the text is from an MS. printed by Sir Henry Ellis, which is simpler and shorter than the version given by Foxe and Holinshed, and was most likely the nucleus out of which the latter accounts were expanded. I have added one sentence, that marked between brackets, from Burgoyne's letter to Calvin.
