Note 564 — Chapter XVIII
Reading edition
Yet Bates, the physician, who says this, also says she often mentioned the blood her father spilt. How did he know this, if nobody was near enough to hear what was said? We cannot help thinking that imagination has been very busy with the latter part of Cromwell's life. Elizabeth Claypole has been represented as having pleaded with her father to spare Dr. Hewit's life. However that might be, certainly this very lady, in her own handwriting, within two months of her death, expressed her satisfaction at the discovery of the plot, as of one which, had it taken effect, would have ruined her family and the whole nation.—Thurloe, vii. 173.