If to escape his enemies Sir Walter had had recourse to artifices
unworthy the great hero that he was, now that all hope was lost
he conducted himself with a dignity and cheerfulness beyond
equal. So calm and self-possessed and masterly was his defence
from the charge of piracy preferred at the request of Spain, and
so shrewd in its inflaming appeal to public opinion, that his
judges were constrained to abandon that line of prosecution, and
could discover no way of giving his head to King James save by
falling back upon the thirteen-year old sentence of death against
him. Of this they now ordered execution.
Never a man who loved his life as dearly as Sir Walter loved it
met death as blithely. He dressed himself for the scaffold with
that elegance and richness which all his life he had observed. He
wore a ruff band and black velvet wrought nightgown over a
doublet of hair-coloured satin, a black wrought waistcoat, black
cut taffety breeches and ash-coloured silk stockings. Under his
plumed hat he covered his white locks with a wrought nightcap.
This last he bestowed on his way to the scaffold upon a bald-
headed old man who had come to take a last look of him, with the
observation that he was more in need of it than himself.
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