The worst half of the tragedy was his; he never forgot nor shook his conscience free of what he had done. When he came to his own agony and bent his sad head to the block he looked at Juxon, that same bishop who had been advocate for Strafford, and said, “Remember,” and it was believed that the terrible whisper referred to the forsaken friend who had died the same death eight years before. At the moment he fell into a kind of apathy in the midst of the rejoicing faction who had their way at last. Lord Strafford prepared for death; he was in the full vigour of life, of a worldly temper, proud and ambitious; the warm days were full of the keen joy of life. He tasted to the utmost the sharpness of the struggle between flesh and spirit. When he heard from the written paper the actual words of the King formally condemning him he was for a moment broken with emotion and overcome at thought of the friendship that had failed so miserably; he, beloved of the King, was to die an attainted man, a death humiliating and shameful, branded as a traitor. He struggled to control his haughty spirit, to subdue the flesh that clung to lovely life, but always before his eyes were the ripening green, the sweet early weather, the sounds from the river, and it was not easy. The execution was hurried on; on the 12th of May he went to his death in black satins like the great gentleman he was; as he left the gate Archbishop Laud, his one-time coadjutor, now his fellow-prisoner, met him, and he went on his knee to receive the blessing of one who was to so quickly follow him to the scaffold, then on between his guards silent and scornful like the leader of them all, while on his face were the low-breathed air and the early sunshine, and in his ears the calls of the birds and the swish of the river rippling hurriedly under the fortress walls. Many men have died for England in many ways, none under circumstances more difficult and bitter than this proud man who sank to rest upon the block that May day while his sick, haunted King waited in the great palace for the awful news of the irrecoverable. A POOR SPANISH LODGING PHILIP WHARTON, DUKE OF WHARTON “The scorn and wonder of his age.”–_Alexander Pope._ A young man sat at a wooden table in a small, mean room. His hands were in his pockets and his head sunk on his breast, his legs outstretched before him. A miserable bed, covered with a dirty blanket, occupied one corner of the room, above it being a gaunt and poorly carved crucifix. The floor, walls and ceiling were lath, plaster and worn wood, all soiled, smoked and crumbling. The one small window was covered with a thick pane of discoloured glass that could not open; some portmanteaux stood beneath and a broken chair. On the table was a coarse glass stained with lees of wine, a loaf of bread, an hour-glass and a knife. The flies turned in and out of the glass, clustered round the loaf and hung in clouds about the window.