Seaton had been conveyed to the Tower, with his wife, under pretence of there waiting till his wounds were cured, to abide his trial, and in that awful hour Sir Nigel stood alone.  Yet he was undaunted, for he feared not death even at the hangman’s hand; his spirit was at peace, for he was innocent of sin; unbowed, for he was no traitor—­he was a patriot warrior still.  Pale he was, indeed, ashy pale, but it told a tale of intense bodily anguish.  They had put him to the torture, to force from his lips the place of his brother’s retreat, that being the only pretence on which the rage of Edward and the malice of Berwick could rest for the infliction of their cruelty.  They could drag naught from his lips; they could not crush that exalted soul, or compel it to utter more than a faint, scarcely articulate groan, as proof that he suffered, that the beautiful frame was well-nigh shattered unto death.  And now he stood upright, unshrinking; and there were hearts amid those peers inwardly grieving at their fell task, gazing on him with unfeigned admiration; while others gloried that another obstacle to their sovereign’s schemes of ambition would be removed, finding, perchance, in his youth, beauty, and noble bearing, from their contrast with themselves, but fresh incentives to the doom of death, and determining, even as they sate and scowled on him, to aggravate the bitterness of that doom with all the ignominy that cruelty could devise.

He had listened in stern silence to the indictment, and evinced no sign of emotion even when, in the virulence of some witnesses against him, the most degrading epithets were lavished on himself, his family, and friends.  Only once had his eye flashed fire and his cheek burned, and his right hand unconsciously sought where his weapon should have hung, when his noble brother was termed a ribald assassin, an excommunicated murderer; but quickly he checked that natural emotion, and remained collected as before.  He was silent till the usual question was asked, “If he had any thing to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon him?” and then he made a step forward, looked boldly and sternly around him, and spoke, in a rich, musical voice, the following brief, though emphatic words: 

“Ye ask me if I could say aught why sentence of death should not be pronounced.  Nobles of England, in denying the charge of treason with which ye have indicted me, I have said enough.  Before ye, aye, before your sovereign, I have done nothing to merit death, save that death which a conqueror bestows on his captive, when he deems him too powerful to live.  The death of a traitor I protest against; for to the King of England I am no subject, and in consequence no traitor!  I have but done that which every true and honorable man must justify, and in justifying respect.  I have sought with my whole heart the liberty of my country, the interest of my lawful sovereign, and will die asserting the honor and justice of my cause, even as I have lived.