Note 19 — SIR WALTER RALEIGH[1]
Reading edition
'Take heed of a preacher as Essex did.' Essex admitted his guilt at the end of his trial. Howell (State Trials, vol. i. p. 1358) says: 'On the 25th of February 1601, which was the day appointed for his execution, Thomas Mountford and William Barlow, doctors of divinity, with Ashton, the minister of the Church in the Tower, were sent unto him early to administer Christian consolation to his soul. In the presence of these men he gave thanks to Almighty God from the bottom of his heart, that his designs, which were so dangerous to the state, succeeded not. He told them he had now looked thoroughly and seriously into his sin, and was heartily sorry he had so obstinately defended an unjust cause at the bar.... He acknowledged how worthy he was to be spued out (these were his words) by the Commonwealth for the wickedness of his enterprize, which he likened to a leprosy spread far and near, and that he had infected many.'