Probably no man ever journeyed to the scaffold under such circumstances of pomp and splendour.  It might well, indeed, have been the bridal procession of a great nobleman that the black avenues of curious spectators in London’s streets had come to see, and not the last grim journey of a malefactor to the hangman’s rope.  His very dress was that of a bridegroom, consisting, as it did, to quote again from the Gentleman’s Magazine,

“of a suit of light-coloured clothes, embroidered with silver, said to have been his wedding-suit; and soon after the Sheriff entered the landau, he said, ’You may, perhaps, sir, think it strange to see me in this dress, but I have my particular reasons for it.’  The procession then began in the following order:  A very large body of constables of the county of Middlesex, preceded by one of the high constables; a party of horse grenadiers, and a party of foot; Mr Sheriff Errington, in his chariot, accompanied by his under-Sheriff, Mr Jackson; the landau escorted by two other parties of horse grenadiers and foot; Mr Sheriff Vaillant’s chariot, in which was Under-Sheriff Mr Nichols; a mourning-coach and six, with some of his lordship’s friends; and, lastly, a hearse and six, provided for the conveyance of his lordship’s corpse from the place of execution to Surgeons’ Hall.

“The procession moved so slowly that Lord Ferrers was two hours and three-quarters in his landau but during the whole time he appeared perfectly easy and composed, though he often expressed his desire to have it over, saying that the apparatus of death and the passing through such crowds of people was ten times worse than death itself.  He told the Sheriff that he had written to the King, begging that he might suffer where his ancestor, the Earl of Essex, had suffered—­namely, on Tower Hill; that ’he had been in the greater hope of obtaining this favour as he had the honour of quartering part of the same arms and of being allied to his Majesty; and that he thought it hard that he should have to die at the place appointed for the execution of common felons.’  As to his crime, he declared that he did it ’under particular circumstances, having met with so many crosses and vexations that he scarcely knew what he did.”

At the top of Drury Lane he paused to drink his last glass of wine, handing a guinea to the man who presented it.  On the scaffold not a muscle moved as he surveyed the black crowd of onlookers with a calm and amused eye.  To the chaplain he confessed his belief in God; and he exchanged a few pleasant words with the executioner as he placed a gold coin in his hand.

Thus, cold, calm, without rancour or regret, perished Laurence, Earl Ferrers, not even a struggle marking the moment when life left him.  After hanging for an hour, his body was taken down and removed to Surgeons’ Hall, where it was dissected; and, thus mutilated, it was exposed to public derision and malediction before it found a final resting-place, fourteen feet deep under the belfry of old St Pancras Church.