Nothing focuses the mind more starkly than impending death. Its
inevitable spectre greets us all; from princes to paupers and nobility
to the needy. Prepare to mount the scaffold and share in the final
utterings of the condemned; join the stricken in their death beds and
witness unburdened tongues wag their closing, and often remarkable
confessions as deeply entrenched secrets are finally unshackled in the
wake of imminent death.
'Fates and Final Words' collects a fascinating selection of destinies
culminating in their often flamboyant yet always captivating, final
utterances before shuffling off this mortal coil.
Revealed inside are tales of sangfroid bravery, astonishing ironies and
overdue confessions often betraying grave miscarriages of justice,
throughout British history.
Revealed inside are tales of sangfroid bravery, astonishing ironies and
overdue confessions often betraying grave miscarriages of justice
throughout British history.
Writer and poet Sir Walter Raleigh had some typically forthright and
urging words for his executioner as the hesitant axeman displayed fear
and reluctance to perform his stately duties. Having felt the sharp edge
of the tool that would presently be rained down upon him, rather than
fearing his impending doom, Raleigh would offer goading encouragement to
his maker.
Were the final words of convicted murderer Ernest Brown a candid
confession to another killing he had committed deep in the
Northumberland Moors some two years previously which had lay unsolved?
And what of Britain's first actor to have had a knighthood bestowed upon
him? Learn of the staggering irony that saw his final words on stage
prophetically turn out to be his last in life...
