Let me return to the last days of Lord Derwentwater, who, perhaps (but of this I am not sure), never heard of his brother’s death.
The chief clergyman, or priest, of the Roman Catholic Church in London was then the Reverend Bonaventura Gifford, commonly called in their ecclesiastical manner the Vicar Apostolic. Immediately after sentence had been pronounced, this learned Father applied for permission to administer spiritual consolation and the offices of the Church to this man about to die. For some reason which I know not, this permission was refused, and Dr. Gifford denied admission to the prisoner. The Government, however, consented that a certain Father Pippard, a simple priest, should attend him during the fortnight between sentence and execution.
I have seen and have copied out with my own hand a letter in which this pious man set down all that he remembered concerning my lord’s last days upon the earth. From the beginning, though not without hope (even the meanest and vilest criminal never, I suppose, abandons hope till the cart moves from under his feet, much more this innocent victim), he resigned himself to the steady and fearless contemplation of death, and gave himself over altogether to those religious exercises that were ordered by his spiritual advisers, together with the reading of such books as were most proper for a man so soon about to be summoned before his Judge. Thus, each morning he read, as directed, a chapter or two of the New Testament, and especially those of our Lord’s Passion, with some portion of the ‘Following of Christ,’ ‘The Confessions of Saint Austin,’ and other good books chosen for him by his adviser. Methinks nothing in the world can so smooth a death-bed and console a dying man as the memory of having written a good book for the consolation of sorrowful and stricken souls and the strengthening of faith for those about to die. (Poor Frank had no such interval of meditation and prayer.) Chiefly my lord read with wonderful satisfaction, the good priest said, the edifying history of a certain Italian youth, who for some crime —— I know not of what nature, or perhaps unjustly, like Lord Derwentwater —— was condemned to death, but fell into so beautiful a repentance, and so heartily prayed, meditated, and fasted, that he made of the death which he could not avoid a voluntary sacrifice of himself, his life, and affections, before the throne of God, thereby imitating the blessed example of Him who, though it was ordained by His Heavenly Father that He should drink the chalice, yet did it voluntarily and of His own free will and consent. This example my lord proposed to follow.
Further, when they came —— not once, but several times —— to offer him his life if he would change his religion, which was a most wicked and a most diabolical temptation to lay before so young and so fortunate a man, with all earth’s pleasures before him, he refused without the least hesitation or doubt. ‘And this,’ said Father Pippard’s letter, ‘he told me with the greatest transport of joy, that having refused his life on such terms, he hoped it was not now making a virtue of necessity; that, had he a thousand lives, he would sooner part with them than renounce his faith; and, with tears of joy in his eyes, he humbly thanked God for giving him this opportunity of testifying his love for Him.’ Not once, but twice, they troubled him with this offer, which was as insulting to the honour of the Earl as it was disgraceful to the humanity of those who proposed this temptation. Whoever they were, they entreated him earnestly, even on the day before his execution, that he would make some sign, as it were, of doubt concerning the Articles of the Roman Catholic Faith, if only to borrow a book of Protestant controversy. But he steadfastly refused to beg his life on these terms. I have sometimes thought that possibly it was the Archbishop of Canterbury who was thus anxious to find an excuse for begging a reprieve. Everybody knows well that there were some, even among the Ministers and in the Privy Council, who would gladly have seen him pardoned, if only a show of reason could be arrived at with which to move the King. But without such excuse there was no possibility of further interference, and so the law must take its course.
One more chance remained, and it was the last. The Countess had appealed in person to the King, but without avail; she would now appeal to the Houses of Parliament. On Tuesday this noble and courageous woman, accompanied by a large number of ladies, her friends, went to the House of Lords with a petition, which was presented by the Duke of Richmond. The petition was supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and, which was thought a most remarkable thing, by the Earl of Nottingham, one of the Ministers. In the end, the House moved that an address be presented to the King, that he should reprieve such of the condemned lords as should deserve his mercy. A motion to the same effect was made in the House of Commons, but was rejected by a majority of seven, some of the speakers against it being very violent.
The interference of the lords did no good, except to anger and harden the King so far as Lord Derwentwater’s case was concerned; but on Wednesday, Lord Widdrington and Lord Carnwath were reprieved. Lord Nairn had already been reprieved through the instance of Lord Stanhope, who declared that he would resign his office if his old school-fellow at Eton was not pardoned. On Thursday, though he knew it not, and escaped on that same day, Lord Nithsdale was also reprieved. It is therefore clear that from the beginning it was resolved to make an example in the person of the youngest and the least guilty (supposing there is any guilt in taking up arms for your lawful Sovereign).
On Thursday, when three out of the seven lords were already reprieved, the Countess made another effort to see the King. She was, as before, accompanied by her friends. But the King this time obstinately refused to see her, and gave her to understand that her husband’s execution would take place the next morning.
Then at last she ceased her exertions, and went to the Tower for her last most sad and sorrowful parting with her husband, the thing dreaded by him far more than the executioner’s axe, insomuch that he had begged her, through Lord Widdrington, to take her last farewell a week before, in order that his last moments might be wholly given up to God. But this was too hard for her to bear, and he was overruled. Father Pippard wrote in that letter of his, ‘No man could have a greater regard and tenderness for his wife than he had for you, and I think there could not be a greater argument of it than this, that when he seemed to be raised above the sentiments of the world in everything else, he had not quite got the better of himself in regard to your ladyship, though even here he appeared wonderful to me. For the last morning your ladyship parted from him I was surprised to find him so composed; and, congratulating his lordship upon the victory he had gained over his affections, he answered that you had been, both of you, upon your knees begging that favour of God, for nigh a quarter of an hour before you took leave of each other.’
Nothing more sorrowful can be thought of than the picture of that unhappy pair kneeling side by side to pray that they might so gain the victory over their affections as to part with each other with resignation. It cannot be a part of religion —— I cannot bring myself to think that it is —— for a man thus on the point of death to tear his wife out of his heart, or for her to let him go out of hers. Rather should they thank Heaven for the earthly love they have enjoyed together, and pray that it may be continued and glorified in the heavenly world, so that they may together experience the joys of that blessed abode, and be the more happy in knowing of each other’s bliss. But perhaps Catholics think differently, and although they have made marriage into a sacrament (without Scriptural warrant), they have ever been harsh as regards their opinion of women.
Every year, once, on the day of my lord’s execution, I read this letter of Father Pippard with tears, and I make no doubt that his widow did the same; for she never smiled after her husband’s death, but slowly wasted away, and some years later died, being then not yet thirty, poor soul! (It was in Louvain that she died, and lies buried in the English convent there, having been a most pious woman, and strict in the practice of all the duties enjoined by her Church.)
During that last fortnight the Earl talked continually, while the Countess was with him (this she told me herself), of his early days and the few events of his short life, just as old men soon about to die love to think of the days when they were young and strong. He spoke of his education at St. Germain’s, of his return to his native country and the greetings of his friends and cousins, of the summer he spent chiefly in my society, speaking of me, even at such a time, in words of kindness which I can never forget, and recall with a kind of pride that so great and noble a heart should deceive himself into imagining that I possessed those great qualities which he ascribed to me. It is only a good heart which thinks others good. He even sent me a last gift in token of his regard and affection for me, and in memory of our former friendship. ‘Give Dorothy for me,’ he said, ‘with my love and prayer for her welfare —— something —— whatever thou wilt. But let it be something which I have given to thee, sweetheart, since we married. This she will value most.’
Surely never was there a more loyal and generous man. He wished me to feel that he had never forgotten me; but, withal, I must learn that he loved me with an affection pure and free from earthly passion, as he desired my affection to be towards him; and this he would show by giving me something which he had given to his wife; this I need not be ashamed as a virtuous woman to receive, nor he as a Christian man to offer; nor she, as one who wholly possessed his heart, to give.
In this spirit I accepted the ring of topaz and amethyst which the Countess drew from her finger and put upon mine, kissing me with abundance of tears, and saying:
‘Did you ever hear the like, Dorothy, that one woman should give to another a gift from her husband and yet not be jealous! Yet dear Dorothy, I have known all along how much he continued to love you and esteem you, and that without the least suspicion or touch of jealousy, so true he was, and open in all that he did and said, and so sure was I that I owned all his heart.’
She did indeed, and I could now think of it without bitterness, though there was once a time when I wondered how men could so change their heart as to be all for one woman in the spring, so to speak, and all for another in the summer. For sure and certain my lord had no eyes for any other woman, save in the way of honest and friendly affection, after he was married; and to him she was a good and loyal wife, though (because she was human) not wholly free from certain small imperfections which sometimes caused rubs, due to quickness of temper and the like, of which we know.
But oh! to think that in this, his last mortal agony, being at the very threshold of death, in the anteroom of the Great Judgment Hall, a soul trembling in the presence of his Maker, engaged in earnest repentance, and anxiously seeking assurance of forgiveness, he should have thought of me! I have desired in my will that this ring, with one other thing, be buried with me in my coffin.
I asked the Countess how he looked on this his last day. She told me that for want of the fresh air and riding exercises, to which he was accustomed, he was pale of cheek; but that, owing to the fasting diet which he thought becoming to one in his position, he was grown thin, and his eyes were brighter than of ordinary. For the rest, he was grave, and smiled no longer (could one ever forget the sweet smile that always played upon his lips and the kind light that lay in his eyes?). He shed few tears (save that at parting with his wife he gave one sob), because he was so brave and resolute by nature, and because, by special grace of Heaven, he was enabled to look upon the separation as for a brief space only. But he wept bitterly when he parted from his infant children, praying Heaven to protect his boy —— then two years old, and like an angel for beauty —— and his infant daughter. (The boy is since dead, being killed by an accident at nineteen years; but the girl, Lady Anna, is not long since married to a Catholic Peer, the Lord Petre, whose uncle married her aunt, my lord’s sister. May she be blessed with a long life and many children!)
On Thursday morning my lord received a letter from the Vicar Apostolic, which afforded him great consolation, although, to hear some men talk and to read some things written, there is nothing in all that religion but hypocrisy and deceits. As if we are not all men and women —— that is to say, mortal and doomed to die, and after death the next world; wherefore, though I doubt not the exceeding wickedness and cruelty of many Popes, Inquisitors, and Cardinals, needs must that they, as well as we ourselves, sometimes contemplate soberly and with prayer the condition of their souls, and especially at the awful time when death is appointed and now nigh at hand. The Vicar’s............