d of the Duchess Dowager of York,
Treasurer of the Household, only a few days since in the highest favour.
He was arrested, tried, and sentenced in twenty-four hours, just a week
before. No voice pleads for poor Scrope,--a simple, single-minded man,
who never made an enemy till now. He dies to-day--"on suspicion of
being suspected" of high treason.

The block and the axe are wiped clean of Scrope's blood, and the
headsman stands waiting for the Sheriff to bring the second victim.

He comes forward calmly, with quiet dignity; a stately, fair-haired
man,--ready to die, because ready to meet God. And we know the face of
Richard of Conisborough, the finest and purest character of the royal
line, the fairest bud of the White Rose. He has little wish to live
longer. Life was stripped of its flowers for him four years ago, when
he heard the earth cast on the coffin of his pale desert flower. She is
in Heaven; and Christ is in Heaven; and Heaven is better than earth. So
what matter, though the passage be low and dark which leads up to the
gate of the Garden of God? Yet this is no easy nor honourable death to
die. No easy death to a man of high sense of chivalrous honour; no
light burden, thus to be led forth before the multitude, to a death of
shame,--on his part undeserved. Perhaps men will know some day how
little he deserved it. At any rate, God knows. And whatever shameful
end be decreed for the servant, it can never surpass that of the Master.
The utmost that any child of God can suffer for Christ, can never equal
what Christ has suffered for him.

And so, calm in mien, willing in heart, Richard of Conisborough went
through the dark passage, to the Garden of God. But if ever a judicial
murder were committed in this world, it was done that day on Southampton
Green, when the blood of the Lollard Prince dyed the dust of the
scaffold.

The accusation brought against the victims was high treason. The
indictment bore falsehood on its face by going too far. It asserted,
not only that they had conspired to raise March to the throne--which
might perhaps have been believed; but also that they had plotted the
assassination of King Henry--which no one who knew them could believe;
that March, taken into their counsels, had asked for an hour to consider
the matter, and had then gone straight to the King and revealed the
plot--which no one who knew March could believe. The whole accusation
was a tissue of improbabilit