Raleigh was still under the weight of the old sentence of death pronounced against him fifteen years previously, without which it would have been difficult to convict him this time of a crime involving capital punishment. "Your recent offences have roused the justice of his Majesty," declared the great judge Montague; "May God have mercy on your soul!" Weak and ill as he was, Raleigh defended himself with as much skill as complacency. He asked for a short delay, in order to put his affairs in order. "Not," he said, "that I desire to gain a minute of existence. Old, sick, and dishonored, and approaching my end, life has become wearisome to me." It was, indeed, the expression of supreme weariness in this man, who had always loved life more than he had dreaded death, even according to the statements of his enemies. The respite was refused. Lady Raleigh, on going to say farewell to her husband, announced to him that she had obtained the favor of receiving his body after the execution. The hideous punishment of traitors had been commuted. Raleigh was to be beheaded. "Well done, Bess," he said, smiling; "it is fortunate that you will be able to dispose in death of a husband whom you have not always had when alive at your disposal." He had cast aside, by an effort of his powerful will, all the ambitious projects, all the romantic, adventurous, strange ideas, which still crowded in his brain. The greatness of his soul, often darkened during lifetime by many faults and even vices, was freed from the dark mist at the hour of death. On the 29th of October he was calm, grave, pious. He received the sacrament before walking to the scaffold, erected at Westminster. An immense crowd surrounded it. He addressed the people and made a long speech, protesting his innocence. The morning was cold. {31} It was proposed to the condemned man that he should warm himself for an instant before the fatal moment. "No," said Raleigh, "it is the day of my ague; if I were to tremble presently, my enemies will say I quake for fear. It were better to have done with it." He knelt, uttering aloud a beautiful prayer. He touched the axe, "'Tis a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases," he said, and he laid his head upon the block. The executioner delayed. "What do you fear?" exclaimed Raleigh; "strike." His head fell immediately. The great soldier, the illustrious sailor, the statesman, the scholar, the incomparable adventurer, was not yet sixty-seven years of age. King James had truckled to Spain, and had added one more stain to his name.