"Money," says Burnet, "was offered to the Lady Portsmouth, and to all that had credit, and that without measure. He was pressed to send petitions and submissions to the King and to the Duke; but he left it to his friends to consider how far these might go, and how they were to be worded. All that he was brought to was, to offer to live beyond sea, in any place that the King should name; and never to meddle any more in English affairs. But all was in vain. Both King and Duke were fixed in their resolutions; but with this difference, as Lord Rochester afterwards told me, that the Duke suffered some, among whom he was one, to argue the point with him, but the King could not bear the discourse. Some said, that the Duke moved that he might be executed in Southampton Square before his own house, but that the King rejected that as indecent. So Lincoln's Inn Fields was appointed for the place of his execution."[208] As a last resource Lord Cavendish offered to attack the coach on either side with a troop of horse, and take his friend out of it; but Russell would not consent to bring any one into jeopardy on his behalf. It has been said that Lincoln's Inn Fields was chosen, in order that the people might witness the triumph of the Court, in seeing him led through the city; but others have reasonably observed upon this, that as he was to be taken from Newgate, the desire of making him a spectacle to the citizens would have been better gratified by his being carried to the old place of execution, the Tower. It is most probable, that Lincoln's Inn Fields was selected, as being the nearest feasible spot to the great town property of the Bedford family; Bloomsbury lying opposite, and Covent garden on one side. The following is the letter addressed to the King by Russell's father, followed by that of Russell himself, which Burnet has mentioned as being drawn from him by his friends. "To the King's most Excellent Majesty. "The humble petition of William, Earl of Bedford: "Humbly sheweth; "That could your petitioner have been admitted into your presence, he would have laid himself at your royal feet, in behalf of his unfortunate son, himself, and his distressed and disconsolate family, to implore your royal mercy, which he never had the presumption to think could be obtained by any indirect means. But shall think himself, wife, and children, much happier to be left but with bread and water, than to lose his dear son for so foul a crime as treason against the best of princes; for whose life he ever did, and ever shall pray, more than for his own. "May God incline your Majesty's heart to the prayers of an afflicted old father, and not bring grey hairs with sorrow to my grave. "BEDFORD."