In 1662, a gentleman named Sir Henry Vane was executed by the then King of England, Charles the Second.

Vane was very much ahead of his time and believed in and advocated religious freedom and tolerance…and hence in the political and religious climate of his day was perceived as quite dangerous to authority and the crown; both the British parliament and the king wanted him dead.

He was imprisoned and subsequently executed on Tower Hill in London on June 14th of that year before a crowd of thousands…for refusing to submit to the king in this matter.

Charles had ordered that a loud and continuous tattoo of drumrolls be played to deliberately drown out Vane's last words…but they have passed into history, nonetheless.

“It is a bad cause which cannot bear the words of a dying man”, he said.