Lord Cavendish had lived in the closest intimacy with Russel, and deserted not his friend in the present calamity.

He offered to manage his escape, by changing clothes with him, and remaining at al hazards in his place.

Russel refused to save his own life by an expedient which might expose his friend to so many hardships When the duke of Monmouth by message offered to surrender himself, if Russel thought that this measure would anywise contribute to his safety, "It will be no advantage to me," he said, "to have my friends die with me." Some of his expressions discover, not only composure, but good humor, in this melancholy extremity.

The day before his execution, he was seized with a bleeding at the nose.

"I shall not now let blood to divert this distemper," said he to Dr.Burnet, who attended him; "that will be done to-morrow." A little before the sheriffs conducted him to the scaffold, he wound up his watch: "Now I have done," said he, "with time, and hence forth must think solely of eternity." The scaffold was erected in Lincoln's Inn Fields, a place distant from the Tower; and it was probably intended, by conducting Russel through so many streets, to show the mutinous city their beloved leader, once the object of all their confidence, now exposed to the utmost rigors of the law.