Tower writing letters to his wife and his sons, urging the two brothers to avoid the examples set by figures such as Cain and Abel. He also wrote poetry: Who's that which knocks? Oh stay, my Lord, I come: I know that call, since first it made me know Myself, which makes me now with joy to run Lest he be gone that can my duty show. Jesu, my Lord, I know thee by the Cross Thou offer'st me, but not unto my loss. Digby was hanged, drawn and quartered early on Thursday 30 January. Throngs of spectators lined the streets as he was strapped to a wattled hurdle, and alongside Robert Wintour and John Grant was dragged by horse to the western end of Old St Paul's Cathedral churchyard. Thomas Bates was delivered in a similar fashion, but from the Gatehouse Prison. Armed guards interspersed along the route were there to defend against any possible rescue, but did not keep the miscreants' families from witnessing the fate of the four men. Cold and grubby, Digby was the first of the four to face the executioner. He mounted the scaffold and addressed the audience, telling them that he knew he had broken the law, but that morally, and in the eyes of his religion, he had committed no offence. He asked for God's forgiveness, and the country's, and protested the Jesuits' and Father Gerard's innocence. He refused the attentions of a Protestant clergyman, speaking to himself in Latin, before saying goodbye to his friends. Digby was then stripped of his clothing, except for his shirt. Murmuring "O Jesus, Jesus, save me and keep me", he climbed the ladder and was hanged for a short period. The executioner cut the rope, and Digby fell back to the scaffold, wounding his forehead. Fully conscious, he was taken to the block and castrated, disembowelled, and quartered. Wintour, Grant and Bates followed. The remaining four conspirators suffered similar fates the following day, at the Old Palace Yard in Westminster. References Notes Footnotes Bibliography 1570s births 1606 deaths Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism English criminals English Roman Catholics Executed Gunpowder Plotters People executed by Stuart England by hanging, drawing and quartering 16th-century English people 17th-century English criminals 16th-century Roman Catholics 17th-century Roman Catholics Executed English people Prisoners in the Tower of London Knights Bachelor