After bidding farewell to his friends about him, Somerset gave himself over to the executioner, “and kneling downe agayne in the straw untyed his shirtstrings, and the executioner coming to him, turned downe his collar rounde about his necke, and all other things which did let or hinder him. Then he, covering his face with his own handkerchiefe, lifting up his eyes unto heaven, where his only hope remained, laid himself downe alone, and there suffered the heavie stroke of the axe, which dispersed the head from his bodye, to the lamentable sight and griefe of thousands that heartily prayed God for him and entirely loved him.” Burnet declares that the people were generally “much affected by the execution,” which was somewhat strange, seeing how deeply unpopular the Protector had been, “and many threw handkerchiefs into the Duke’s blood, to preserve it in remembrance of him. One lady that met the Duke of Northumberland when he was led through the city in Queen Mary’s reign, shaking one of these bloody handkerchiefs, said, ‘Behold the blood of that worthy man, that good uncle of that excellent King, which was shed by thy malicious practice, it doth now begin apparently to revenge itself upon thee.’” In Edward’s diary is this laconic entry on 22nd January (1551–52): “The Duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Towre hill between eight and nine a cloke in the morning.” The boy-king was certainly not much “concerned,” as Bishop Burnet remarked, for the fate of his uncle. The Protector, like his brother the Admiral, was a singularly handsome man even in that age of handsome men, and according to Sir John Hayward, one of his contemporaries, was “courteous and affable.” A French writer of the period is not so complimentary in his appreciation of the Duke of Somerset, writing that he was a “homme de quelque entendement, couvert et simulé en ses actions, de la nature commune des Anglois, douce apparence, gracieuses paroles, et maligne volonté.”