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it is my wish. I do most humbly recommend this to every one, who hears me; and desire they would lay their hands upon their hearts, and consider seriously, whether the beginning of the happiness and reformation of a kingdom should be written in letters of blood. Consider this, when you are at your homes; and let me be never so unhappy, as that the least drop of my blood should rise up in judgement against any one of you; but I fear you are in a wrong way.

"My Lords, I have but one word more, and with that I shall end. I profess, that I die a true and obedient son to the Church of England, wherein I was born, and in which I was bred. Peace and prosperity be ever to it!

"It hath been objected (if it were an objection worth the answering) that I have been inclined to Popery;' but I say truly from my heart, that from the time that I was one and twenty years of age to this present, going now upon forty nine, I never had in my heart to doubt of this religion of the Church of England; nor ever had any man the boldness to suggest any such thing to me, to the best of my remembrance and so being reconciled by the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, into whose bosom I hope I shall shortly be gathered to those eternal happinesses which shall never have end, I desire heartily the forgiveness of every man for any rash or unadvised words, or any thing done amiss: and so, my Lords and gentlemen, farewell; farewell, all things of this world.

"I desire that you would be silent, and join with me in prayer: and I trust in God, we shall all meet and live eternally in Heaven, there to receive the

accomplishment of all happiness; where every tear shall be wiped away from our eyes, and every sad thought from our hearts: and so God bless this kingdom, and Jesus have mercy on my soul!"

Then turning himself about, he saluted all the noblemen, and took a solemn leave of all considerable persons upon the scaffold (among the rest, Archbishop Usher, who had been a witness against him) giving them his hand. After which he added, " Gentlemen, I would say my prayers, and entreat you all to pray with me, and for me." His chaplain then laid the book of Common Prayer upon the chair before him as he kneeled down, on which he prayed almost a quarter of an hour, and afterward as long or longer without the book, concluding with the Lord's Prayer.

When he rose up, he called to him his brother Sir George Wentworth, saying, "Brother, we must part; remember me to my sister, and to my wife; and carry my blessing to my son, and charge him that he fear God and continue an obedient son to the Church of England, and warn him that he bear no private grudge or revenge toward any man concerning me; and bid him beware, that he meddle not with churchlivings, for that will prove a moth and a canker to him in his estate; and wish him to content himself to be a servant to his country, not aiming at high preferments. Carry my blessing also to my daughters, Anne and Arabella: charge them to serve and fear God, and he will bless them; not forgetting my little infant, who yet knows neither good nor evil, and cannot speak for itself; God speak for it, and bless it! Now," said he, "I have nigh done; one stroke will make my wife husbandless, my dear children fatherless, and my poor servants masterless, and

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will separate me from my dear brother and all my friends; but let God be to you and them, all in all!"

After this, proceeding to take off his doublet and to make himself ready, he said, "I thank God, I am not afraid of death, nor daunted with any discouragement arising from any fears; but do as cheerfully put off my doublet at this time, as ever I did when I went to bed." He then bound up his hair with his hands, and put on a white cap.

After this, he asked, "Where is the man that is to do this last office? Call him to me." Upon his craving forgiveness, he told him, he forgave him and all the world.' Then kneeling down by the block, he went to prayer again himself, Archbishop Usher kneeling on one side, and his chaplain on the other; to whom after prayer he turned himself, and spake some few words softly, having his hands lifted up and closed within his chaplain's hands. Then bowing himself to lay his head upon the block, he told the executioner, that he would first lay down his head to try the fitness of the block, and take it up again, before he submitted it to the blow; adding, that he would give him warning when to strike, by stretching forth his hands :' and presently laying down his neck upon the block, and stretching forth his hands, the executioner struck off his head at one blow; and taking it up in his hand, showed it to all the people, crying out, "God save the King!

His body was afterward embalmed, and carried into Yorkshire, to be buried among his ancestors.

Great rejoicings were made in London upon his death; and several persons, who had come from different parts of the kingdom to see the execution, re

turned back in a kind of triumph, waving their hats on passing through every town, as if some national victory had been obtained, and exclaiming, His head is off! His head is off!'

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A few weeks however after his death, the parliament mitigated to his children the most severe consequences of their father's sentence; and in a succeeding reign the attainder was reversed, the proceedings obliterated from the public records, and his only son William restored to his fortune and his honours.

The Earl of Strafford was in figure tall and stately; his features were grave and dignified, and he possessed many personal accomplishments; but he was ambitious, haughty, and passionate. He was assiduous in his application to public business, and in private life, a sincere, strenuous, and generous friend.

He may rank in the list of Noble Authors, on account of his Letters, which were published in two volumes folio, in 1739, by Dr. William Knowler; but as the stile is liable to considerable exceptions, and the subjects are chiefly political, in which branch of knowledge he certainly did not excel, his reputation as an author scarcely merits our notice.

“He was a man of great parts," says Lord Clarendon, "and extraordinary endowments of nature; not unadorned with some addition of art and learning, though that again was more improved and illustrated by the other: for he had a readiness of conception, and sharpness of expression, which made his learning thought more than in truth it was. His first inclinations and addresses to the court were only to establish his greatness in the country; where he apprehended

some acts of power from the Lord Savile,* who had been his rival always there, and of late had strengthened himself by being made a Privy-Councillor and officer at court. But his first attempts were so prosperous, that he contented not himself with being secure from that Lord's power in the country, but rested not till he had bereaved his adversary of all power and place in court; and so sent him down, a most abject dis consolate old man, to his country, where he was to have the superintendency over him too, by getting himself at that time made Lord President of the North. These successes, applied to a nature too elate and haughty of itself, and a quicker progress into the greatest employments and trust, made him more transported with disdain of other men, and more contemning the forms of business, than happily he would have been, if he had met with some interruptions in the beginning, and had passed in a more leisurely gradation to the office of a statesman.

"He was, no doubt, of great observation and a piercing judgement, both in things and persons; but his too good skill in persons made him judge the worse of things: for it was his misfortune, to be in a time wherein very few wise men were equally employed with him; and scarce any (but the Lord Coventry, whose trust was more confined) whose faculties and abilities were equal to his. So that, upon the matter, he relied wholly upon himself: and, discerning

"Sir Thomas Wentworth," says Howell, their contempo rary, "and Mr. Wansford are grown great courtiers lately, and come from Westminster-Hall to White-Hall (Sir John Savile, their countryman, having shown them the way with his white staff). The Lord Weston tampered with the one, and my Lord

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