" Nothing can be a stronger proof of
the fury of the times, than that Lord Russel, notwithstanding the virtue
and humanity of his character, seconded in the house this barbarous
scruple of the Sheriffs.
In the interval between the sentence and execution, many efforts were
made to shake the resolution of the infirm and aged prisoner, and to
bring him to some confession of the treason for which he was condemned.
It was even rumored that he had confessed; and the zealous partymen,
who, no doubt, had secretly, notwithstanding their credulity,
entertained some doubts with regard to the reality of the Popish
conspiracy, expressed great triumph on the occasion. But Stafford, when
again called before the house of peers, discovered many schemes, which
had been laid by himself and others, for procuring a toleration to the
Catholics, at least a mitigation of the penal laws enacted against them:
and he protested, that this was the sole treason of which he had ever
been guilty.
Stafford now prepared himself for death with the intrepidity which
became his birth and station, and which was the natural result of the
innocence and integrity which, during the course of a long life, he
had ever maintained: his mind seemed even to collect new force from the
violence and oppression under which he labored.
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