Note 278 — Chapter XVIII · THE LAST DAYS OF NORTHUMBERLAND

A very quaint account of the Duke of Northumberland’s execution, published in Paris in 1558 by a French priest named Stephen Perlin, contains, though full of inaccuracies, some details not to be found in other contemporary reports. “The afore-mentioned prisoners,” says he, “were taken to the Tower. The mob called the milor Notumbellant [sic] vile traitor, and he eyed them furiously with looks of resentment. Two days afterwards [an error; he entered the Tower on 25th July, and was tried on 18th August] he was taken by water in a little bark to Ousemestre [Westminster], a Royal palace, principally to indict and try him; his trial was not long, for it did not last more than fourteen days at most [there is no reason to suppose it lasted so long]; and he, the Duke of Suphor [Suffolk], and the milor Arondelle were condemned by an arrest of the Council to be beheaded in an open space before the castle of the Tower; and they had all three [they were really executed at widely different periods; see the text] the pain of seeing one under the hands of a hangman, before whom a whole kingdom had trembled, which, reader, was a lamentable spectacle. This hangman was lame of a leg, for I was present at the execution, and he wore a white apron like a butcher. This great lord made great lamentations and complaints at his death, and said this prayer in English, throwing himself on his knees, looking up to Heaven, and exclaiming tenderly, ‘Lorde God mi fatre prie fort ous poore siners nond vand in the hoore of our teath,’ [so in the original: it seems to be a ludicrous mixture of the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary] which is to say, in French, ‘Lord God my Father, pray for us men and poor sinners, and principally in the hour of our death.’ After the execution you might see little children gathering up the blood which had fallen through the slits in the scaffold on which he had been beheaded. In this country the head is put upon a pole, and all their goods confiscated to the Queen.”