Treason > Guy Fawkes, or The history of the gunpowder plot

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.
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and upon all the sentence of death was passed.
The prisoners, after their condemnation and
judgment, were again removed to the Tower,
where they remained till the Thursday follow-
Iing, on which day four of them, viz. Sir Eve-
rard Digby, Robert Winter, John Grant, and
Thomas Bates, were drawn upon sledges and
hurdles to a scaffold erected at the western end
of St Paul’s Church-yard. Great pains were
taken to render the spectacle of the execution
as imposing as possible ; and, among other ar-
; rangements made in order to guard against
any popular tumult, a precept was issued by
Ithe Lord Mayor to the Aldermen of each ward
in the city, requiring him to provide an able
and sufficient man, armed with a halbert, to
stand at the door of every dwelling-house in
the streets through which the conspirators
were to be drawn to execution, from seven
o’clock in the morning until the return of the
Sheriff.
Sir Everard Digby was the first appointed
for execution, who ascended the scaffold with a
firm and manly bearing; and, in a speech
short but expressive, stated his conviction in
1 the justice of the cause he had been engaged
in in its religious aspect, but regretted it had
been against the legal authority, for which he
asked forgiveness of God, of the King, and the
whole kingdom. Having engaged in prayer,
he ascended the ladder, and was immediately
launched into the unseen world.
Winter and Grant expressed themselves in
nearly the same terms, who, after having prayed,
ascended the fatal drop.
Bates, who was the last executed, expressed
himself as sorry for his co-operation in the