The pleadings had taken three hours; the jury deliberated, or seemed to do so, for an hour or more. Public opinion in the Hall, as at the Tower conferences, was overwhelmingly in favour of Campion. But “the poor twelve,” as Allen calls them, came back, fearful to be found “no friend of Cæsar,” bringing in a verdict against the whole company as “guilty of the said treasons and conspiracies.” The Lord Chief Justice spoke: “Campion, and the rest, what can you say why you should not die?” Then Campion broke out into a brief appeal to the future and the past, a lyric strain such as was not often heard beneath those ancient rafters, so sadly used to the spectacle of noble hearts in jeopardy. “It was not our death that ever we feared! But we knew that we were not lords of our own lives, and therefore for want of answer would not be guilty of our own deaths. The only thing that we have now to say is, that if our religion do make us traitors we are worthy to be condemned; but otherwise we are and have been as true subjects as ever the Queen had. In condemning us you condemn all your own ancestors, all the ancient priests, Bishops and Kings: all that was once the glory of England, the Island of Saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter. For what have we taught (however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason), that they did not uniformly teach? To be condemned with these old lights, not of England only, but of the world, by their degenerate descendants, is both gladness and glory to us! God lives. Posterity will live. Their judgment is not so liable to corruption as that of those who are now going to sentence us to death.” After which the Lord Chief Justice pronounced the formula in use for all prisoners condemned to capital punishment. “Ye must go to the place whence ye came, there to remain until ye shall be drawn through the open city of London upon hurdles to the place of execution, and there be hanged and let down alive ... and your entrails taken out and burnt in your sight; then your heads to be cut off, and your bodies to be divided in four parts, to be disposed of at her Majesty’s pleasure. And may God have mercy on your souls!” Some of the company raised a storm of protest, but Campion’s voice rose above theirs, crying: “We praise Thee, O God!” Sherwin seconded him with the shouted anthem of Eastertide: “This is the day that the Lord hath made: let us rejoice and be glad therein!” Like expressions of triumph were presently taken up, to the amazement of bystanders. Then the doomed men were parted, and were all taken away, Edmund Campion being put in a barge on the Thames, and rowed back to the Tower, where he was heavily shackled with irons, and left alone. XIII VICTORY: DECEMBER 1, 1581