the ring and the Queen's
promise; he had been rebellious and he was very proud, but now that he
was going to die in the full strength of his manhood it did not seem too
hard a thing to do to ask a favour from Elizabeth, who had been so kind
to him and was his Queen. After all, he had behaved very badly, and he
knew it, and it was right to ask pardon. Perhaps this was what he
thought, and he gave the ring to the Countess of Nottingham to take to
the Queen. But the Countess of Nottingham did not want the Earl to live;
she was jealous of his influence over Elizabeth, and she thought that if
she kept back the token Essex would surely die.

So the time slipped away, and Elizabeth in her palace and Essex in his
prison both thought bitterly of each other. The execution drew very
near, and at last one day in February Essex was brought out to die.
Perhaps he thought up to the last minute that a messenger would ride up
carrying a pardon from the Queen; but no, no one came, and at last he
laid his head on the block, and perished thinking hard things of his
Queen. Not long after the Countess of Nottingham herself fell ill, and
on her deathbed confessed to Elizabeth the wicked thing she had done.
The knowledge that Essex had died believing her to have been faithless
to her word so enraged the Queen that she said to the dying Countess:
'May God forgive you, for I never can!'

Many people spent most of their lives in the Tower. We have heard of Sir
Walter Raleigh, who was here for fourteen years; but there were others
imprisoned much longer. One man, a Duke of Orleans, afterwards King of
France, was here for twenty-five years; and Lord Courtenay, son of the
Earl of Exeter, who was of the Royal Family and descended from Edward
IV., was kept in the Tower almost his whole life for fear that he might
lay claim to the crown.

When the King or Queen of England used the Tower as a palace, the part
they occupied was quite distinct from the prison. This part is now the
Governor's house, and the Governor, who is called the Lieutenant of the
Tower, lives in it. Here there are many splendid rooms, including a
great council-room, where the King and his nobles used to meet for
consultation. Underneath the house is a room where Lord Nithsdale was
imprisoned, and the story of his escape from the Tower is one of the
most exciting in all history.

In the reign of George I. a nobleman called the Earl of Nithsdale had
joined in a plot to restore the