Then Lord Salisbury spoke. He began by acknowledging his own connection, by marriage, with Sir Everard, and then he proceeded, with even greater zeal than Northampton, to imply that the prisoner's plea of broken promises to Catholics would be understood to mean bad faith on the part of the king; and it was thought by some that Sir Everard would have had his sentence commuted for beheading, had it not been for what Salisbury now said.[403] After defending the king from all imputation of faithlessness towards his Catholic subjects, Salisbury referred to Sir Everard's personal guilt, and dwelt upon Guy Fawkes's evidence that, at Gothurst, he had expressed a fear lest the gunpowder stored beneath the houses of Parliament, might, during the wet weather in October, have "grown dank." [403] _Narrative of the G. P._, Gerard, p. 216. When Salisbury had finished, Sergeant Philips got up and "prayed the judgment of the court upon the verdict of the Jury against the seven first prisoners, and against Sir Everard Digby upon his own confession." Each prisoner was then formally asked what he had to say why judgment of death should not be pronounced against him. Finally Lord Chief Justice Popham described and defended the laws made by Queen Elizabeth against priests, recusants, and receivers and harbourers of priests,[404] which seems to have been a little wide of the subject of the crime of the prisoners, and then he solemnly pronounced the usual sentence for high treason upon all the eight men who stood convicted before him. [404] _Criminal Trials_, Jardine, Vol. ii. p. 181. Then Sir Everard bowed towards the commissioners who had tried him and said:--"If I may but hear any of your Lordships say you forgive me, I shall go more cheerfully to the gallows." They all immediately replied:--"God forgive you, and we do." And thus, late in the evening, this memorable trial ended, and the prisoners were conveyed by torches to their barge; then they were rowed down the river to the Tower, and led through the dark "Traitor's Gate" to their cells. CHAPTER XVI.