There was no room for doubt in Lord Russell’s mind; he summed up the evidence against the prisoners, and reminded the jurymen that their own loyalty was on trial, a very forcible hint in those days, and one which few men dared disregard. They retired; returned with downcast looks, and gave a verdict in accordance with the evidence: theirs not to argue the point of law, the fact was sufficient. “Prisoners at the bar,” said the judge, “you have been convicted on the clearest evidence of an act of felony--of seeking to deprive the King of the property willed to him by the high estates of the realm, in trust for the nation. Into your motives I need not enquire, but no man can be a law unto himself; born within these realms you are subject to the authorities thereof, and for your disobedience to them you must now die. The only duty remaining to me is to pronounce upon you the awful sentence the law provides against your particular crime--that you be taken hence to the prison whence you came, and from thence be drawn on the morrow, upon a hurdle, to the summit of Glastonbury Tor, that all men far and wide may witness the royal justice, where you are to be hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead, for while you are still living, your bodies are to be taken down, your bowels torn out and burnt before your faces; your heads are then to be cut off, and your bodies divided, each into four quarters, to be at the King’s disposal, and may God have mercy upon your souls.”[18] A dead silence followed, broken at last by the Abbot’s voice. “We appeal from this judgment of guilty and time-serving men to the judgment of God, before Whose bar we shall at length meet again.” * * * * * It was late in the same evening, the curfew had already rung, the rain was still falling at intervals in the streets of Glastonbury, as if nature wept at the approaching dissolution of the venerable fane which had been the ornament of western England so long. In spite of the weather, many groups formed from time to time outside the gatehouse of the Abbey, for there the three prisoners had been brought from Wells, and there, in the chamber over the gateway, in strict ward, they were passing the last night the royal mercy permitted them to live. A youth, repulsed from the door which gives admittance to the upper chambers, retired with despairing gesture; his face bore marks of intense emotion, the tears had worn furrows therein, and from time to time a sob escaped him. A companion pressed up to his side. “Will they not let you in?” “No, Gregory, I have begged in vain these three times.” “Why not try the sheriff, he is said to be merciful?” “I can but try, I will go to his house at once.” As due to his office, the high sheriff of the county was charged with the details of the morrow’s tragedy; he liked the task but little, still he viewed it as a simple matter of duty, and could not flinch from it.