Among the incidents of the trial, one of the most memorable was when the prisoner asked for somebody to write, to help his memory.  “You may have a servant,” said the Attorney-General, Sir Robert Sawyer.  “Any of your servants,” added the Lord Chief Justice Pemberton, “shall assist you in writing for you anything you please.”  “My wife is here, my Lord, to do it.”  “If my Lady please to give herself the trouble,” was the civil reply of the Lord Chief Justice.  So the noble wife sat by his side throughout the trial to assist and support her husband.

After the condemnation she drew up and carried to the king a petition for a short reprieve of a few weeks; but this was rejected, though the king saw at his feet the daughter of the Earl of Southampton, the best friend he ever had.  His answer was, “Shall I grant that man a reprieve of six weeks, who, if it had been in his power, would not have granted me six hours?  Besides,” he said, “I must break with the Duke of York if I grant it.”  Seeking the king’s life had never been made a charge, far less attempted to be proved, though something had been said about attacking the king’s guards.  But Russell denied with his last breath any design against the person of the king.  All considerations were weak against the passion of revenge with which the king and the Duke of York were actuated.  The Duke of York descended so low in his personal animosity that he urged that the execution should take place before Russell’s own door in Bloomsbury Square, but the king would not consent to this.  An order was signed for his being beheaded in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a week after the trial.  It is said that at that time Southampton House, on the north side of Bloomsbury Square, was visible from the place where the scaffold was erected.

Lord Cavendish generously offered to manage his escape, and to stay in prison for him while he should go away in his clothes; but Russell would not entertain the proposal.  It was then planned that Cavendish, with a party of horse, should attack the guard on the way to the scaffold, and rescue the innocent victim; but this, too, was overruled, as Russell refused to allow any lives being endangered to save his own.  He prepared to receive the stroke with meekness, and with a dignity worthy of his name.

On the Tuesday before his execution, when his wife had left him, he expressed great joy in the magnanimity of spirit he saw in her, and said that parting with her was the worst part of his pain.  On Thursday, when she left him to try to gain a respite till Monday, he said he wished she would cease from seeking his preservation, but he did not forbid her trying, thinking that these efforts, though unavailing, might bring some mitigation of her sorrows.  On the evening before his death he suffered his young children to be brought by their mother for the final parting.  In this trying time he maintained his constancy of temper, though his heart was full of tenderness.