pirit had 'quenched its thirst at those clear wells
where sweetness dwells.' It was bound in quiet palmer's fresh apparel--

to Heaven's bribeless hall,
Where no corrupted voices brawl;
No conscience molten into gold,
No forged accuser bought or sold,
No cause deferred, no vain-spent journey;
For there Christ is the King's Attorney.
And when the grand twelve-million jury
Of our sins, with direful fury,
Against our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.

[Sidenote: _Royal Intervention._]

At ten in the morning of December 10 Sir Griffin Markham was conducted
to the scaffold, which had been erected in the Castle yard. He had said
adieu to his friends, prayed, and was awaiting the axe. Suddenly the
spectators in the Castle yard saw the Sheriff, Sir Benjamin Tichborne,
stay the executioner. John Gibb, a Scotch groom of the royal bedchamber,
had arrived, almost too late, at the edge of the crowd. He was the
bearer of a reprieve. James himself, on December 7, had drawn it, with a
preamble: 'The two prestis and George Brooke vaire the principall
plotteris and intisairs of all the rest to the embracing of the saiddis
treasonabill machinations.' He had kept it back to the last, as well to
multiply the chances of eliciting confessions of guilt, as for the sake
of the vividness of the stage play. He admired greatly his own
ingenuity, and his courtiers applauded enthusiastically. Of the
detestable feline cruelty he and they had no shame. Ralegh's window in
the Castle overlooked the scaffold. He would be sensible of the
interruption of the proceedings. He could not have seen Gibb. He must,
says Carleton, 'have had hammers working in his head to beat out the
meaning of the stratagem.' Beaumont, the French ambassador, was told by
an imaginative reporter that he 'etait a la fenetre, regardant la
comedie de ses compagnons avec un visage riant.'

[Sidenote: _Scenes on the Scaffold._]

The Sheriff performed his part with a ready gravity which secured the
King's approval. He was already a favourite for having proclaimed James
on the first news of the death of Elizabeth, before the Council had
declared him her successor. For his deserts both now and then the
custody of the Castle soon afterwards was bestowed upon him and his
heirs. He said to Markham, 'You say you are ill-prepared to die; you
shall have two hours' respite.' Then he led him away, and loc