"My Lords, your justice does not make me cry, but your goodness." Then my Lord Nottingham stood up, and taking the staff of office that lay across his desk, he broke it in two halves. When I looked again, the prisoner was going out between his guards, and the axe before, with its edge turned towards him in token of death. * * * * * I was at Mr. Chiffinch's again that night to hear the news; but he was not there. When he came in at last, he appeared very excited. Then he told me the news. "They are at His Majesty already," he said, "that he cannot remit the penalty of High Treason. But the King swears that he will, law or no law, judges or no judges. I have never seen him so determined. He does not believe one word of the evidence." "Yet he will sign the warrant for the beheading?" I asked. "Why," said Mr. Chiffinch, "His Majesty does not wish to go upon his travels again." CHAPTER VII The night before I went down to Hare Street,--for I went on Christmas Eve--I was present for the first time at the high supper in Whitehall, which His Majesty gave to the Spanish Ambassador. I had never been at such a ceremony before; and went out of curiosity only, being given admission to one of the stands by the door, whence I might see it all. It would have appeared very strange to me that the King could be so merry, as he was that night, when so much innocent blood had been shed upon his own warrant, and when such a man, as my Lord Stafford was, lay in the Tower, expecting his death six days later;--had I not known the nature of His Majesty pretty well by now. For, beneath all the merriment, I think he was not very happy, though he never shewed a sign of it. I stood, as I said, upon a little scaffold to the right of the entrance; and I was glad of it; for there was a great pack of people crowded in, as the custom was, also to see the spectacle; and they were all about me and in front, as well as in the gallery where the music was.