Note 1 — PREFACE.
Reading edition
In judging these and other great historical criminals, we must bear in mind the age in which they lived. To borrow the language of Mr. Hepworth Dixon in his eloquent vindication of Lord Bacon: “The cry of pain, the gasp of death, were no such shocks to the gentle heart as they would be in a softer time. Men had been hardened in the [martyrs’] fire. Minds were infected by the atrocities of [Huguenot] plots. The ballads sung in the streets were steeped in blood.” In such times of frenzy even the merciful become cruel.