Gates followed, with few words. Sir Thomas Palmer, having witnessed the ghastly spectacle, came last. That morning, whilst preparations for the executions were being made, he had been walking in the Lieutenant’s garden, observed, says that “resident in the Tower” in whose diary so many incidents of this time have been preserved, to seem “more cheerful in countenance than when he was most at liberty in his lifetime”; and when the end was at hand, he met it, as some men did meet death in those days, with undaunted courage, and with a heroism not altogether unaffected by dramatic instinct.
Though apparently implicitly included amongst the prisoners who had made their peace with the Church, he is not recorded to have taken any prominent part in the affair, and his dying speech dealt with no controversial matters, but with eternal verities confessed alike by Catholic and Protestant. At his trial he had denied that he had ever borne arms against the Queen; though, charged with having been present when others did so, he acknowledged his guilt. He now passed that matter over, with a brief admission that his fate had been deserved at God’s hands: “For I know it to be His divine ordinance by this mean to call me to His mercy and to teach me to know myself, what I am, and whereto we are all subject. I thank His merciful goodness, for He has caused me to learn more in one little dark corner in yonder Tower than ever I learned by any travail in so many places as I have been.” For there he had seen God; he had seen himself; he had seen and known what the world was. “Finally, I have seen there what death is, how near hanging over every man’s head, and yet how uncertain the time, and how unknown to all men, and how little it is to be feared. And why should I fear death, or be sad therefore? Have I not seen two die before mine eyes, yea, and within the hearing of mine ears? No, neither the sprinkling of the blood, or the shedding thereof, nor the bloody axe itself, shall not make me afraid.”
Taking leave of all present, he begged their prayers, forgave the executioner, and, master of himself to the last, kneeling, laid his head upon the block.
“I will see how meet the block is for my neck,” he said, “I pray thee, strike me not yet, for I have a few prayers to say. And that done, strike in God’s name. Good leave have thou.”