midnight
But this was no ordinary occasion ; and , as if to emphasize the fact , a great throng had assembled at Westminster even before the sun arose , on the day set apart for the beheading of the remaining three conspirators . At an early hour companies of halberdiers were forced to exercise their authority in keeping the crowd at proper distance from the ominous structure erected in the middle of the square . The object about which this innumerable concourse of people gathered was a high platform covered with black cloth , in the center of which stood the block . The condemned men had been brought from the Tower shortly after midnight , and were now lodged in the space beneath the scaffold , which had been converted into a kind of closed pen . The hour for the execution was eleven , and as the time approached the multitude gradually swelled , being increased by thousands ; as though some pitiless monster were fattening itself upon thoughts of the blood so soon to be shed . Again and again the pikemen were forced to thrust back the surging mass , and at last the soldiers did not hesitate to use their weapons as the throng forced its way up to the very ropes surrounding the scaffold . But now above the babel of tongues the great bell of the Cathedral boomed out the hour of eleven .