There is no scene in history that “goes more directly to the heart,” says Fox, “than the story of the last days of this excellent man.” The night before his death it rained hard, and he said, “Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show,” which was a dull thing on a rainy day. He thought a violent death only the pain of a minute, not equal to that of drawing a tooth; and he was still of opinion _that the king was limited by law, and that when he broke through those limits, his subjects might defend themselves and restrain him_.[706] He then received the sacrament from Tillotson with much devotion, and parted from his wife with a composed silence; as soon as she was gone he exclaimed, “The bitterness of death is past,” saying what a blessing she had been to him, and what a misery it had been if she had tried to induce him to turn an informer. He slept soundly that night and rose in a few hours, but would take no care in dressing. He prayed six or seven times by himself, and drank a little tea and some sherry. He then wound up his watch, and said, “Now I have done with time and shall go into eternity.” When told that he should give the executioner ten guineas, he said, with a smile, that it was a pretty thing to give a fee to have his head cut off. When the sheriffs came at ten o’clock, Lord Russell embraced Lord Cavendish, who had offered to change clothes with him and stay in his place in prison, or to attack the coach with a troop of horse and carry off his friend; but the noble man would not listen to either proposal. In the street some in the crowd wept, while others insulted him. He said, “I hope I shall quickly see a better assembly.” He then sang, half to himself, the beginning of the 149th Psalm. As the coach turned into Little Queen Street, he said, looking at his own house, “I have often turned to the one hand with great comfort, but now I turn to this with greater,” and then a tear or two fell from his eyes. As they entered Lincoln’s Inn Fields he said, “This has been to me a place of sinning, and God now makes it the place of my punishment.” When he came to the scaffold, he walked about it four or five times: then he prayed by himself, and also with Tillotson; then he partly undressed himself, laid his head down without any change of countenance, and it was cut off in two strokes. Lord William’s walking-stick and a cotemporary account of his death are kept at Woburn Abbey.