The Executioner He Made, the Axe That Took Him

In 1596, Robert Devereux — the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth I’s favourite — was commanding an expedition against Cádiz when one of his sailors was convicted of rape and sentenced to death.

No one would volunteer to carry out the execution. Essex pardoned the man, Thomas Derrick, on one condition: he would kill his 23 condemned shipmates himself, then become London’s permanent executioner at Tyburn.

Derrick agreed. Essex went home a hero.

The Horror

Five years later, Essex led a failed coup against Elizabeth’s Privy Council, was tried for treason, and was condemned to die. Elizabeth, knowing the crowds adored him, denied him a public execution on Tower Hill. He was brought instead to Tower Green — a private execution inside the Tower walls, witnessed by roughly 150 selected observers. The last private beheading ever held there.

On the scaffold, Essex confessed that his sins were “more in number than the hairs on my head,” prayed two verses of Psalm 51, then cried out: “Executioner, strike home!”

The executioner was Thomas Derrick. He swung the axe three times before Essex’s head finally came free. Then he held it up and shouted “God save the Queen.”

The messenger who rode to Elizabeth with the news found her at the palace, playing the virginals. She died two years later, weary and in silence.

The Modern Relic

Essex was the last person ever beheaded on Tower Green. The execution site memorial is still there — a small paved square inside the Tower of London. His name is the last on the plaque. Walk past it and you’re standing on the ground where the man who built Thomas Derrick’s career finally met him at the end of it.

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