These three, Fathers Campion, Sherwin, and Briant, were led forth on a bitter morning, and bound to their hurdles, in the rain, outside the Tower gates. Campion’s life for the past week had been nothing but fasting, watching and prayer, and he was never in more gallant spirits. “God save you all, gentlemen!” so he saluted the crowd, on first coming out: “God bless you all, and make you all good Catholics!” The two younger men were strapped down on one hurdle side by side, Campion alone on the other. The mud was thick in the unpaved streets of London, and the double span of horses, each flat hurdle being tied to two tails, went at a great pace through Cheapside, Newgate Street, and Holborn. There were intervals, however, when the jolted and bemired prisoners were able to speak with their sympathizers, who surged in upon them, and thus saved them for the moment from the incessant annoyance of Charke and other accompanying fanatics. Some asked Fr. Campion’s blessing; some spoke in his ear matters of conscience; one gentleman courteously bent down and wiped the priest’s bespattered face: “for which charity, or haply some sudden-moved affection, may God reward him!” says one annalist who saw the kind deed done. The New Gate spanned the street where the prison named after it stood until yesterday; and in a niche of the New Gate was still a statue of Our Lady: this Fr. Campion reverenced, raising his head and his bound body, as best he could, as he passed under. The three martyrs were seen to be smiling, nay, laughing, and the people commented with wonder on their light-heartedness. A mile or so of sheer country at the end of the road, and Tyburn was at hand, stark against a cloudy sky, with a vast crowd waiting to see the sacrifice: “more than three thousand horse,” says Serrano, in the contemporary letter already quoted, “and an infinite number of souls.” And he goes on, in the truest Catholic temper, speaking for himself, the Ambassador, and their little circle, to say, “there was no one of us who had not envy of their death.” Just as the hurdles halted, the sudden sun shone out and lit up the gallows with its hanging halters. Fr. Campion was set upon his feet, put into the hangman’s cart, driven under the triangular beams, and told to put his head into the noose. This the first martyr of the English Jesuits did with all meekness. Then, “with grave countenance and sweet voice,” he began to speak, as he supposed he was to be allowed to do, according to custom. He took the text of St. Paul: “We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men: we are fools for Christ’s sake.” Sir Francis Knowles and other officials promptly interrupted him, and reminded him to confess his treason. So once more he must needs say: “I desire you all to bear witness with me that I am thereof altogether innocent.... I am a Catholic man and a priest: in that faith have I lived, and in that faith do I intend to die. If you esteem my