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The start which the Earl gave showed how much his nerves had become affected by his years of custody. Up the long avenue they came, with all the state with which the Earl had conducted Queen Mary to the lodge before she was absolutely termed a prisoner. Halberdiers led the procession, horse and foot seemed to form it. The home party stood on the top of the steps watching with much anxiety.
After this tumblers danced upon a rope and performed feats of agility on horseback. The constable and his attendants were lighted home by half an hundred halberdiers with torches, and, after the fatigues of the day, supped in private. We are not surprised to read that on Monday, the 30th, the constable awoke with a slight attack of lumbago.
Cuevas followed them so closely and persisted so long, that he needed reenforcement. The scouts in the trees gave information of what was being done, whereupon Captains Don Rodrigo de Mendoca, Alarcon, Cervantes, and Vergara reenforced him with their light-armed pikemen and halberdiers. They pursued the enemy with so great rapidity and resolution that they entered the walls behind them.
The duke was carried out of the gate of the Vatican: he lay on a bed covered with a scarlet canopy, supported by twelve halberdiers, leaning forward on his cushions so that no one might see his face with its purple lips and bloodshot eyes: beside him was his naked sword, to show that, feeble as he was, he could use it at need: his finest charger, caparisoned in black velvet embroidered with his arms, walked beside the bed, led by a page, so that Caesar could mount in case of surprise or attack: before him and behind, both right and left, marched his army, their arms in rest, but without beating of drums or blowing of trumpets: this gave a sombre, funereal air to the whole procession, which at the gate of the city met Prospero Colonna awaiting it with a considerable band of men.
'I see that you are familiar with the Scriptures, sir, observed the hunchback. 'I come by the knowledge honestly, answered the soldier. 'I did not steal it! My father, bless his soul, was killed in battle, and so my mother tried to make a priest of me. Eh? You see me as I am! This is the kind of priest my mother made! Neither more nor less than a poor sergeant of halberdiers.
A throng of the great nobles of Belgium with drawn swords and menacing aspect were assembled in the chief apartments, a detachment of the Archduke's mounted body-guard was stationed in the courtyard, and five hundred halberdiers of the burgher guilds kept watch and ward about the palace.
In the hostelries where the Wittenberg students lodged, such violent scenes occurred between them and their Leipzig brethren, that halberdiers had to be stationed at the tables to keep order. Duke George invited the heretic, together with Eck and Carlstadt, to his own table, and to a private audience as well.
The ancient advocate, with haggard eyes and features distorted by wrath, walking between the sheriff and a Franciscan monk, advanced through the long lane of halberdiers, in the grand hall of the Town House, and thence emerged upon the scaffold erected before the door.
The bulls, preceded by halberdiers and trumpeters, and surrounded by armed attendants, were led in state before the ducal palace, and the executioner, practised in his bloody work, struck off each head with a single stroke of his huge sword.
The murderer succeeded in making his escape through a side door, and sped swiftly towards the ramparts, where a horse was waiting for him at the moat, but was followed and captured by several pages and halberdiers. He made no effort to deny his identity, but boldly avowed himself and his deed. Afterwards he was subjected to excruciating tortures, and executed on July 14 with execrable barbarity.
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