The court consisted of fifteen officers, three from each of five grades. The members of each grade, after deliberating apart, handed their votes to a president, the aged Lieutenant-Colonel von Schulenburg, who summed up their verdicts and added a sixth vote of his own. With regard to the Crown Prince, all were unanimous. Declaring themselves incompetent to pronounce upon affairs of state and of the royal family, they commended the exalted penitent to His Majesty’s supreme and paternal mercy. Katte was condemned by three grades to death, by two to lifelong imprisonment. Von Schulenburg voted for the latter, which by military law carried the day, since it was less severe. The King denounced their criminal leniency and clamoured for “justice,” but von Schulenburg stood firm, appealing to a Higher Power. Thereupon Frederick William decreed “that Katte, although in conformity with the laws he has deserved to be torn with red-hot pincers and hanged for the crime of high-treason which he has committed, be removed from life to eternity by the sword, out of consideration for his family. In informing Katte of this sentence, the Council will tell him that it grieves His Majesty, but that it is better that he should die than that justice should entirely leave the world.” Under a sentence which no consensus of civilised opinion, no high-placed appeal, no murmur of disaffection could reduce, the doomed man journeyed slowly to Cüstrin. Frederick, who believed that all would go well with himself and his friend, was cheerful still. At five o’clock on the morning of November 6th he was awakened by two officers who told him that Katte was that morning to be put to death and that he must witness it. “What are these ill tidings that you bring me?” he is said to have exclaimed. “Lord Jesus! rather take my life.” Before his judges he had steadfastly declared that Katte’s guilt lay at his door. Now for two terrible hours he wailed, wrung his hands, burst into tears, sent to his friend to beg forgiveness, prayed for a respite while a courier should lay at the King’s feet whatever he might desire from his son—renunciation of the succession, consent to lifelong imprisonment, nay, his own life if Katte’s might be spared. His honourable clamour moves the heart of posterity, but it could vary no line upon the parchment on which the King had set down even the numbers of the soldiers who were to attend the execution. Seven o’clock struck, and the dismal procession filed into the courtyard which stretched from the fortress-wall to the Oder. As the King had commanded, Frederick was led to the window of his cell. He saw his friend, who had received the communion, standing calm and brave amid the soldiers and awaiting with bared head the recital of the sentence of death. The prince kissed his hand to him and cried aloud for his forgiveness. Katte laid his finger upon his lips, bowed respectfully, and answered that there was nothing to forgive.