By John Davis

Perhaps the best rebuttal to those pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians in Washington and the statehouses who argue it is their duty to represent all their constituents and not vote or act on legislation based on their own personal beliefs — which reportedly mirror Church doctrine condemning the killing of the unborn — are the words uttered by the 16th century English statesman, St. Thomas More.

As a Knight and member of the King's Council in 1527, More faced his own moral dilemma. King Henry VIII desperately wanted the highly regarded Sir Thomas's support for his appeal to the Pope to grant him a divorce from Katherine of Aragon so he could marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. A fervent Catholic, More refused to give his support based on the Church's teaching of the indissolubility of marriage.

As the 1966 movie, "A Man For All Seasons," depicts, two years before ascending to the position of Lord Chancellor (as the first layman to hold the post), More, played by Paul Scofield, is drilled by his predecessor, Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles) regarding his lack of support for the King's divorce: "Explain how you as a councilor of England can obstruct these measures for the sake of your own private conscience?"

More responds point blank to Wolsey: "I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

Who today could argue America has not been descending that very road to chaos ever since the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion in all 50 states? Now Republican and Democratic politicians alike are beholden to the abortion lobby in order to win election or reelection. Republican governors Pataki in New York and Schwarzenegger in California defend a woman's right to an abortion despite their Catholic faith. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, an avowed Catholic, is among the Senate elite who voted to maintain the legality of partial birth abortion despite his church's condemnation of infanticide.

Clearly these Catholic politicians have elevated the goal of getting elected above their solemn duty to defend the Faith and the most vulnerable in society. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes."

Hopeful signs, though, amid this moral chaos are the recent proclamations of a handful of Catholic bishops warning Catholic politicians who support legalized abortion not to present themselves for Holy Communion. Indeed, these clergy are simply complying with their church's own Canon Law, which mandates the denial of Communion to all "manifest, obstinate, persistent sinners." These few stalwart shepherds are finally realizing that by not speaking out, they are imperiling the immortal souls of their flocks — as well as their own.

After being found guilty of treason, Sir Thomas More was beheaded on July 6, 1535. His crime was his refusal to recognize the King as the self-proclaimed supreme head of the church in England. Reportedly, among More's few final words on the scaffold were that he died "the King's good servant, but God's first."

In 1886 Pope Leo XIII beatified Thomas More with 53 other martyrs. In 1935 Pius XI canonized him on the fourth centenary of his martyrdom. In 1929, G.K. Chesterton remarked in an address that, "Blessed Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about a hundred years' time."

On October 31, 2000, Pope John Paul II proclaimed St. Thomas More the "patron saint of government officials and politicians." In his apostolic letter, Pope John remarked on the need for such a patron saint at a time when "scientific achievements in the area of biotechnology underline the need to defend human life at all its different stages." St. Thomas More provides such a role model, as the papal epistle proclaims: "Whenever men or women heed the call of truth, their conscience then guides their actions reliably towards good. Precisely because of the witness he bore, even at the price of his life, to the primacy of truth over power, Saint Thomas More is venerated as an imperishable example of moral integrity. And even outside the Church, among those with responsibility for the destinies of peoples, he is acknowledged as a source of inspiration for a political system which has as its supreme goal the service of the human person."

If only more of today's Catholic politicians would pay heed to the sterling example set by their patron saint.

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The Story of Thomas More, by John Farrow, Chapter 17

FISHER HAD BEEN tricked into denying the royal supremacy, but it was not so easy with lawyer More. Different tactics, employed by different men, all acting under the command of Henry, were tried. To his cell, at various times, came the great men of the realm, each with his own way of argument or persuasion; the present Lord Chancellor, Cromwell, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, various members of the Privy Council. But always the response was the same. He had nothing to say save: "that the statute was like a two-edged sword: if he should speak against it, he should procure the death of his body; and if he should consent unto it, he should procure the death of his soul.[1]

Failure of others acted as a spur to the contemptible mind of the odious Rich. As an added harassment and humiliation it had been decided that More should not be allowed his pleasure of reading. Sir Richard Southwell and a Master Palmer were ordered to remove all books from his cell. Rich accompanied them, and while they were about their work he, adopting the sympathetic manner he had so successfully employed with Fisher, made conversation with More. He asked him: "Admit that there were, Sir, an Act of Parliament that all the realm should take me for King. Would not you Master More, take me for King?"

"Yes, Sir," said Sir Thomas, "that would I."

"I put the case further," said Rich, happy in the belief that More was falling into his trap, "that there were an Act of Parliament that all the realm should take me for Pope, would not you then take me for Pope?"

"For answer," said Sir Thomas, "to your first case, the Parliament may meddle with the state of temporal princes, but to make answer to your other case . . . suppose the Parliament would make a law that God should not be God. Would you then, Mr. Rich, say that God were not God?"

"No," replied Rich, "that I would not; since no Parliament may make any such law."[2]

More would not carry the argument any further. The books were packed, and the men, having performed their duty, departed. The cell door was shut and the incident seemed ended. But it was not so, for in the evil brain of Master Rich the words of More were tumbling and revolving and becoming material for one of the grossest perjuries ever to stain the annals of English justice.

It was on the first day of July that the ex-Chancellor was taken to trial. He was made to walk on foot the distance from the Tower to Westminster Hall.[3] Nor was his route direct. It was decided that he should be displayed as an example of one who had fought the King's wishes. So, dressed in a rough gown, he was taken through the most populous streets. The results were different than intended, for his appearance served only to excite the pity of the people. The effects of his imprisonment and long ordeal were very evident. His shoulders were bowed, he was terribly thin, and his uncertain and faltering gait showed that he was not used to exercise. But although his body was near broken, his spirit was not, and so it was he arrived in the Great Hall where he had so often worn the golden chain of high office and wielded the highest authority in the land.

The indictment which was read to him was a voluminous document, but from the morass of words emerged four main charges: that he had given a malicious opinion on the King's marriage; that, while in the Tower, he had written to Fisher and had encouraged him to resist the supremacy; that he, himself, had refused to acknowledge the King's supremacy; that, in fact, he had denied the supremacy, and in doing so had also denied Henry his royal authority.

Sir Christopher Hale, the Attorney General, read the long indictment. When he concluded, the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley, spoke: "You see now how grievously you have offended his majesty," he admonished the prisoner, yet he is so very merciful, that if you will lay aside your obstinacy, and change your opinion, we hope you may obtain pardon and favour in his sight."

"Most noble lords," was More's reply, "I have great reason to return thanks to your honours for this your great civility but I beseech Almighty God, that I may continue in the mind I am in, through his grace, unto death."[4]

The forms of a trial were to be followed, but there was not a man present--juryman, prosecutor, judge, the prisoner himself-who was in doubt of what the verdict and sentence would be.

More well knew his fate, but he was resolved to conduct his defence with every resource and knowledge of the law that was at his disposal. He voiced a fear that his memory and understanding, "which are both impaired, together with my bodily health, through a long indisposition contracted by my imprisonment, should now fail me so far as to make me incapable of making such ready answers in my defense, as otherwise I might have done."

These words and the very visible fact that he could not stand without leaning on a stick, induced the judges to allow him to sit while he spoke.

He began to discuss the indictment, and very soon his audience grew uneasy, for it was strikingly evident that here was a case of the mouse playing with the cats.

"As . . . to the King's second marriage," he said, "I confess, I always told his majesty my opinion, according to the dictates of my conscience, which I neither ever would, nor ought to have concealed: for which I am so far from thinking myself guilty of High Treason, that on the contrary, being required to give my opinion by so great a prince in an affair of so much importance, upon which the peace of the kingdom depended; I should have basely flattered him, and my own conscience, had not I spoke the truth as I thought: then indeed I might justly have been esteemed a most wicked subject, and a perfidious Traitor to God. If I have offended the king herein, if it can be an offence to tell one's mind freely when his sovereign puts the question to him; I suppose I have been sufficiently punished already . . ."[6]

The accusation that More had incited Fisher in various letters could not be substantiated by the Crown because the correspondence could not be produced. Fisher had destroyed his papers, but More told the court that he had remembered what he had written: "In one of them there was nothing in the world contained but certain familiar talk and recommendations, such as was seemly and agreeable to our long and old acquaintance. In the other was contained my answer that I made to the said bishop, demanding of me what thing I answered at my first examination in the Tower upon the said statute. Whereunto I answered nothing else but that I had informed and settled my conscience, and that he should inform and settle his. And other answer, upon the charge of my soul, made I none."

It was pointed out to him chat Fisher, when being examined, had in one instance used phraseology similar to More's. If this were true, explained More, "that . . . happened by reason of the conformity of our wits, learning and study . . ."[8]

He readily admitted that he had declined to give his opinion concerning the supremacy, but he explained that he could not transgress any law or incur any crime or treason by holding his speech, God only being Judge of our secret thoughts.

This statement brought an interruption from Sir Christopher Hale, who said: "Though we have not one word or deed of yours to object against you, yet we have your silence, which is an evident sign of the malice of your heart."[7]

More was quick with a learned answer, quoting a maxim that was familiar in the practice of law: "Qui facet consentire videtur," he that holds his peace, seems to give his consent.

The great hall, packed with men of uneasy conscience,
listened with attention as, in measured tones, More spoke of conscience and of the necessity for the liberty of silence:

"In things touching conscience, every true and good subject is more bound to have respect to his said conscience and to his soul than to any other thing in all the world beside; namely when his conscience is in such sort as mine is, that is to say, where the person giveth no occasion of slander, of tumult and sedition against his Prince, as it is with me; for I assure you that I have not hitherto to this hour disclosed and opened my conscience and mind to any person living in all the world."[8]

The trial was not at all proceeding according to plan, and sympathy for the prisoner was so manifest that Rich dropped his official role of Solicitor General and suddenly admitted himself as a witness for the Crown. He was sworn and he repeated the conversation that he had held with More in the Tower on the day when More's books were removed.

He told how, in answer to More's question, he had agreed that no Parliament could make a law that God should not be God. Then came his terrible perjury. More, he said, had deliberately answered that Parliament could not make the King the Supreme Head of the Church.

The lie was spoken. The perjurer abandoned his role of witness and resumed his part as Counsel for the Crown.

More addressed the Court. "If I were a man, my lords, that did not regard an oath, I needed not, as it is well known at this time, and in this place, to stand here as an accused person." He paused for a moment, then turned and spoke directly to Rich.

"And if this oath of yours, Master Rich, be true, then I pray that I never see God in the face; which I would not say were it otherwise, to win the whole world."[9]

He gave his account of the conversation that had taken place in his cell, then once again he directly addressed the Solicitor General whom, as he pointed out, he had known and watched since adolescence: "In good faith, Master Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than for my own peril. And you
shall understand that neither I, nor any man else to my knowledge, ever took you to be a man of such credit as in any matter of importance I, or any other, would at any time vouchsafe to communicate with you. And I, as you know, of no small while have been acquainted with you and your manner of conversation, who have known you from your youth hitherto: for we long dwelt in one parish together; where as yourself can well tell (I am sorry you compel me so to say) you were esteemed very light of your tongue, a common liar, a great dicer, and of no commendable fame. And so in your house at the Temple where hath been your chief bringing up, were you likewise accounted. Can it therefore seem likely to your Honourable Lordships, that I would, in so weighty a case, so unadvisedly overshoot myself as to trust Master Rich (a man of me always reputed for one of so little trust, as your Lordships have heard) so far above my Sovereign Lord the King, or any of his noble counsellors, that I would unto him utter the secrets of my conscience touching the King's supremacy, the special point and only mark at my hands so long sought for; a thing which I never did, nor never would, after the statute thereof made, reveal either to the Kings Highness himself, or to any of his honourable Counsellors, as it is not unknown to your Honours, at sundry several times sent from his grace's own person unto the Tower to me for none other purpose? Can this in your judgments, my Lords, seem likely to be true?''[10]

It could not have been credible to any one there, and the feeling for the prisoner was so evident that the alarmed Rich, no doubt still smarting from the description of his character, took the rash step of calling Sir Richard Southwell and Master Palmer to the stand, hoping that they would be intimidated enough to become partners in his perjury. Both men disappointed him. They were, they stoutly swore, too busy packing books on that fateful day, and had not heard the conversation.

Rich could not produce any other witness or further proof. His statement was obvious and flagrant perjury, and the case against More had collapsed. No one could harbour the slightest doubt but that More was innocent of any of the charges that had been preferred against him. But the implacable will of one man was stronger than any and all who sat in Westminster Hall that day. Fear of Henry had dominated the entire proceedings, and the same apprehension drove the jury, after deliberation of only fifteen minutes, to deliver a verdict of guilty.

In unseemly haste to complete the sordid plan, Audley began to pronounce the solemn words of judgment. But he was interrupted by More who calmly corrected him on a point of procedure.

"My Lord," he said coolly, "when I was toward the law, the manner in such a case was to ask the prisoner, before judgment, why judgment should not be given against him."

The embarrassed Lord Chancellor admitted the correction and More was allowed to speak. And speak he did with clarity and eloquence. The time had passed when he had need be silent.

"Seeing that I see," he answered, "ye are determined to condemn me (God knoweth how) I will now in discharge of my conscience speak my mind plainly and freely touching my indictment and your statute withal. And forasmuch as this indictment is grounded upon an Act of Parliament directly repugnant to the laws of God and his Holy Church, the supreme government of which, or of any part whereof, may no temporal prince presume by any law to take upon him, as rightly belonging to the See of Rome, a spiritual pre-eminence by the mouth of our Saviour himself, personally present upon earth, only to St. Peter and his Successors, bishops of the same See, by special prerogative granted; it is therefore in law, amongst Christian men, insufficient to charge any Christian man.''[ll]

The Lord Chancellor asked him if he deemed his opinion to stand better than the bishops, universities, and the best learned of the realm. He received the reply that, on the contrary, the majority of Christendom was of More's thinking.

"For I nothing doubt but that," he told Audley, "though not in this realm, yet in Christendom about, of these well
learned bishops and virtuous men that are yet alive, they be not the fewer part that are of my mind therein. But if I should speak of those that are already dead, of whom many be now holy saints in heaven, I am very sure it is the far greater part of them that, all the while they lived, thought in this case that way I think now; and therefore I am not bounder, my Lord, to conform my conscience to the Council of one realm against the general Council of Christendom. For of the aforesaid holy bishops I have, for every bishop of yours, above one hundred; and for one Council or Parliament of yours (God knoweth what manner of one) I have all the Councils made these thousand years. And for this one Kingdom, I have all other Christian realms."

He pointed out that the Act of Supremacy was not only
contrary to the laws of Christendom but that it was also
counter to those of England. He spoke of Magna Charta
and he reminded the Court that the Act violated "the sacred
oath which the King's Highness himself and every Christian
Prince always with great solemnity received at their Corona
lions."

The Duke of Norfolk spoke up, "We now plainly can see that ye are maliciously bent."

. "Nay, nay," replied More, "very and pure necessity for the discharge of my conscience, enforceth me to speak so
much. Wherein I call an appeal to God whose only sight
pierceth into the very depths of a man's heart, to be my
witness. How be it, it is not for this Supremacy so much
that ye seek my blood, as for that I would not condescend
to the marriage."

At this point there must have been much discomfort in the minds of the judges, for included in their number were both Anne Boleyn's father and brother. The Lord Chancellor
was disturbed enough to try and shift some of the responsibility of the condemnation. He fumed to the Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir John FitzJames, and asked him whether the indictment was sufficient, or not.

The expected answer and support was given and now the
terrible sentence was spoken. After being hanged and cut down, disemboweled and quartered, butchered pieces of his body were to be put on the four gates of the city, his head upon London Bridge.

Had he anything else to say?

"More have I not to say, my Lords," he told them, "but that like as the Blessed Apostle St. Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, was present and consented to the death of St. Stephen, and kept their clothes that stoned him to death, and yet be they now both twain holy saints in heaven and shall continue there friends together forever, so I verily trust, and shall therefore heartily pray, that, though your Lordships have been on earth my Judges to my condemnation, we may hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to our everlasting salvation. And thus I desire Almighty God preserve and defend the King's Majesty and to send him good Counsel."[l2]

It was all over. The solemn procession formed to take Thomas More back to the Tower. The executioner's axe, with edge turned toward him, was carried before him. Sir William Kingston, who had witnessed the end of Wolsey was in charge of the escort. Young John More managed to push himself past the guards, and kneeling at his father's feet, asked and received his blessing. Kingston, who had seen many severities, was so moved that he wept.

"Good Master Kingston," the prisoner gently told him, "trouble not yourself, but be of good cheer, for I will pray for you and my good lady, your wife, that we shall meet in heaven together, where we shall be merry forever and ever."

Not long after, Kingston confided to More's son-in-law that "I was ashamed of myself, that, at my departing from your father, I found my heart so feeble, and his so strong that he was fain to comfort me, which should rather have comforted him.''[13]

At the Tower wharf members of his family and friends waited. Margaret, his favourite daughter, "without consideration or care of herself, passing through the midst of the throng and guard of men, who with bills and halberds compassed him around, there openly, in the sight of them all, embraced him, took him about the neck and kissed him, not able to say any word but, 'Oh my Father! Oh my Father!'"

He gave her his fatherly blessing, telling her that whatsoever he should suffer, though he were innocent, it was not without the will of God, and that therefore she must be patient for her loss. After separation she, "all ravaged with entire love of her dear father, suddenly turned back again, ran to him as before, took him about the neck, and divers times together most lovingly kissed him,''[l4] a sight which made even the guards to weep and mourn.

Within his cell, More prepared for death with his usual philosophy. Was his end, in reality, to be more cruel than dying by sickness in bed? "Some we hear in their deathbed complain, that they feel sharp knives cut in two their heart strings. Some cry out and think they feel within the brain pan their head pricked even full of pins, and they that lie in a pleurisy think that every time they cough they feel a sharp sword swat them to the heart."

And supposing he did lose his head? To the greater glory of his soul's journey no man could come headless for "our head is Christ, and therefore to him must we be joined..."

Even in these last hours attempts were made to have him change his mind. But to no avail. He was told that because he had been Lord Chancellor, the more terrible part of his sentence was to be remitted. He was not to be hanged nor drawn nor quartered, merely beheaded. When given this information he wryly gave voice to the hope "that none of his friends might experience the like mercy from the King."

On the day before he was to die he took up his piece of coal and laboriously scratched his last letter to his daughter, telling her to convey his farewells and blessings to the various members of his family and a few friends. He gave instructions as to the disposal of a few belongings. "I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I would be sorry if it should be any longer than tomorrow. For it is St. Thomas even [The eve of the feast of the Translation (of the relics) of St. Thomas of Canterbury, which was kept on July 7 in England, and observed throughout Christendom, though on another day. The feast is still kept in some English dioceses.] and the Utas of St. Peter [Octave-day of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, June 29]; and therefore tomorrow long I to go to God; it were a day very meet and convenient for me. I never liked your manner toward me better than when you kissed me last; for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure to look to worldly courtesy. Farewell, my dear child, and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends, that we may merrily meet in heaven."[l5]

With the letter, his final writing, he sent the instrument of penance, the hair shirt that she had so often washed, the secret that she had shared with him.

The next day was Tuesday, the sixth of July, 1535. In the early morning one of More's closest friends, Sir Thomas Pope, came to his cell. He had been commissioned by the King and the Council to inform More that he should die before nine o'clock.

Even at this moment More retained his composure. "For your good tiding I most heartily thank you," he said courteously. "I have been always much bounder to the King's Highness for the benefits and honours that he had still from time to time most bountifully heaped upon me; and yet more bound am I to his Grace for putting me into this place, where I have had convenient time and space to have had remembrance of my end. And, so help me God, most of all, Master Pope, am I bound to his Highness that it pleaseth him so shortly to rid me out of the miseries of this wretched world. And therefore will I not fail earnestly to pray for his Grace, both here and also in another world."

"The King's pleasure is further," he was informed, "that at your execution you shall not use many words."

"Master Pope," was the reply, "you do well to give me warning of his Grace's pleasure, for otherwise I had purposed at that time somewhat to have spoken, that of no matter wherewith his Grace, nor any other, should have
had cause to be offended. Nevertheless, whatsoever I had
intended, I am ready obediently to conform myself to his
Grace's commandments. And I beseech you, Good Master
Pope, to be a meen unto his Highness that my daughter
Margaret may be at my burial."

"The King is content already that your wife, children, and others of your friends shall have liberty to be present thereat."

More gave voice to his gratitude that such a consideration should be shown him, whereupon his friend broke down and, as the Lieutenant of the Tower had done the day before, he wept.

More tried to comfort him. "Quiet yourself, Master Pope, and be not discouraged, for I trust we shall yet see each other full merrily where we shall be sure to live and love together in joyful bliss eternally."

When this gentle admonition failed to stay his friend's tears, More utilized the wit that was so seldom from him. Then, as now, it was the fashion of men of medicine to hold in great importance and value the colour and content of a man's water. More picked up his urinal and gravely gazing into it, and employing the professional manner of doctor to patient said, "I see no danger but that this man may live longer if it please the King."[16]

The moment came when the cell door was swung open and Sir William escorted him from the Tower. He was dressed in a rough robe and he carried a red cross in his hand. His steps were uncertain but his spirit was strong. A woman pushed through the soldiery and offered him some wine. Legend has it that it was his step-daughter, Margaret Clement. He refused the wine saying that Christ at his passing drank no wine, but gall and vinegar.

There are always those who revel in the fall of the great. A woman shouted to him, "You remember Master More, that when you were Chancellor you were my hard friend and did me great injury in giving wrong judgment against me?"

"Woman," was the answer, "I am now going to my death.
I remember well the whole matter; if now I were to give sentence again, I assure thee I would not alter it. Thou hast no injury, so content thee, and trouble me not."

Another of the crowd, a man whom More had once saved from suicide, spoke through the halberds, "Master More, do you know me? I pray you for our Lord's sake help me. I am as ill-troubled as ever I was."

"Go thy way in peace and pray for me and I will not fail to pray for thee."

His weakened condition and the rude carpentry of the scaffold made his mounting difficult. He turned to Kingston and with a smile requested him to "see me safe up, and as for my coming down let me shift for myself."[17]

A vast mob had assembled to watch him die. They eagerly waited for his last speech for it was the custom to permit a man to speak freely before his last moments on earth. But it was not to be this time. The Sheriff intervened quickly, reminding him of the King's wish that his words were to be brief.

His words were brief but they were to be immortal. He asked the crowd to pray for him and to bear witness that he was dying "in and for the faith of the Holy Catholic Church." Then came the ever-to-be-remembered and glorious affirmation that he "died the King's good servant but God's first.''[l8]

He knelt and recited the noble words of the ancient psalm, the Miserere, the Prayer of Repentance. Miserere mei Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. "Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy . . ."

Neither his humour nor his attention to the feelings of others deserted him during his last seconds. Noticing that the executioner seemed to be in distress he gave him the coin of gold saying, "Pluck up thy spirits man, and be not afraid to do thy office; my neck is very short; take heed, therefore, that thou strike not awry, for saving of thy honesty."[19]

They wished to cover his eyes with a piece of cloth but he insisted on performing the act himself. He put his head
on the block and made his last pleasantry, telling the executioner not to strike till he had shifted his beard for that it "had never offended his Highness."

The executioner measured his distance. He did his work with precision. One clean blow and Thomas More's head was severed from his body. The King's will had triumphed.

The news of the execution was taken to him. He was playing at cards with Anne Boleyn. They looked at each other.

"You are the cause of this man's death," he said. Then leaving her abruptly he shut himself up in a closed room and was alone.

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SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Moreana

THE FIRST TWO biographies of Sir Thomas More were written during his lifetime. On July 28, 1519, Erasmus wrote the famous letter to Ulrich von Hutten describing More and his household, which was printed the same year. The second, an Epitaph, was written by Thomas More himself following his resignahon from the Chancellorship.

Before the close of the sixteenth century there appeared four other important manuscript biographies. The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore, Knighte, by William Roper (edited by E. V. Hitchcock, Early English Text Society, 1935), was written some twenty years after the latest events recorded. Roper, the husband of Margaret, More's eldest daughter and favourite child, lived for sixteen years in the More household. It is a comparatively brief account comprising some seventy octavo pages which Roper passed among his friends in manuscript, and it was not until nearly a century after More's death that it was printed. R. W. Chambers refers to Roper's Life as "probably the most perfect little biography in the English language."

The first formal biography, The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More, by Nicholas Harpsfield, a young friend of William Roper, was compiled from eight manuscripts during the reign of Mary Tudor. The greater portion of the material is extant elsewhere. but there are certain distinct contributions made by Harpsfield. The first edition, printed from a collation of the eight Harpsfield manuscripts, edited by E. V. Hitchcock and R. W. Chambers, was published by the Early English Text Society in 1935 (London, Oxford University Press ) .

A Life of More written by his nephew, William Rastell, was printed in 1557. This was an elaborate work comprising the "life and times" of More, only fragments of which have been preserved. Although the work is inaccurate as to dates and names, our loss is great, for Rastell was in a position to give an eye-witness account of many of the events in his uncle's life. These fragments are available in the Appendix to Harpsfield's Life of More, as is the Paris News Letter, containing an account of More's death.

Another important source is Thomas Stapleton's Vita Thomae Mori in Tres Thomae written in Latin and published in 1588. Stapleton was born in the same year and month in which Thomas More was beheaded, and his biography is based on verbatim accounts and family documents preserved by Dorothy Colly, Margaret More's maid, and the wife of John Harris, More's secretary. It was published in Latin in Douai, Paris, Cologne, Frankfort, Leipzig, and Graz, but it was not until 1928 that the first English translation, The Life and Illustrious Martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, by Mgr. Philip Hallett, was published in London.

Of the three composite English biographies in existence prior to Stapleton's Life, one was lost save for a single page preserved in the Bodleian Library. The second, The Lyfe of Sir Thomas More, Sometymes Lord Chancellor of England, written by Ro:Ba: about 1599, contains little that is new, being a careful compilation of the Roper-Harpsfield-Stapleton traditions. The third, The Life of Sir Thomas More (London, 1726), by Cresacre More, Thomas More's great-grandson, contains many small details not found elsewhere, but the author's unfortunate disposition to improve authentic sources vitiates the work and it must be used with care.

Of the more modern biographies, T. E. Bridgett's Life and Writings of Blessed Thomas More, published in 1891, ranks first. E. M. G. Routh's Sir Thomas More and his Friends (Oxford University Press, 1934) covers a much wider range of More's interests and activities than is implied in the title. R. W. Chambers' Thomas More (London, 1935) gives special emphasis to More's role as an English statesman, without minimizing his personal charm and martyrdom.

A letter sent to Dame Kathryn Manne by Dane John Bouge, Thomas More's personal confessor, which has been widely quoted for his reference to More's second marriage and his saintly life, appears in the English Historical Review, VII (1892), pp. 712-715.

Added to the above Moreana is a great wealth of biographical data which appears in Thomas More's own writings. The earliest edition, The Workes of Sir Thomas More, wrytten in the Englysche tongue, was published in London in 1557. A modern reproduction, The English Works of Sir Thomas More, in two volumes, edited by W. E. Campbell, with introductions and notes by A. W. Reed, R. W. Chambers, and W. A. G. Doyle Davidson, was published in 1931.

E. F. Rogers' The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More (Princeton University Press, 1947) not only furnishes a calendar for More's correspondence but affords ready access to much that is not available elsewhere.

The Book of Sir Thomas More, edited by W. W. Greg (The Malone Society Reprints) was published in 1911. It was the work of a group of Elizabethan dramatists, one of whom is thought to have been Shakespeare.

Utopia, the second part of which was written first, was published abroad under the editorship of Erasmus, More's friend, towards the end of 1516. More then revised it and sent it to John Frobenish at Basle to print. This edition bears the date of 1518. Meantime Thomas Lupset, a friend of Erasmus, brought out a reprint of the first edition at Paris, which appeared before March 1518. A fourth edition was printed in Vienna in 1519. All four of these editions were in Latin. No English edition was printed in England during More's life. The earliest English edition, translated by Ralph Robinson, appeared in EngIand in 1551. The second edition was translated by Gilbert Burnet, and the third by Arthur Cayley. Utopia has also been translated into German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish

11. Social and Political Background of the Period

Allen, P. S. and H. M., Opus Epistolarum Des Erasmi Roterodami (Oxford, 1908).

Burnet, Gilbert, History of the Reformation of the Church of England . . . The Reign of Henry V111, edited by Nicholas Pocock (Oxford, 1865, 7 vols.), Vol. I.

Calendar of State Papers: England and Spain, edited by Bergenroth and P. de Gayangos (London, 1866-1890), Vols. II-V, 1509-1525.

Calendar of State Papers Venetian, edited by R. Brown (London, 1869-1811), Vols. III-IV.

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry V111, Vols. I-IV, edited by J. S. Brewer, Vols. VXXI, edited by J. Gairdner (1862-1910).

State Papers, published under authority of His Majesty's Commission, Vol I. King Henry VIII (London, J. Murray, 1830-1852).

Campbell, John, Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England (London, 1874), Vol. I.

Cavendish, George, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey (Chiswick, 1825), Vol. I.

Farrow, John, The Pageant of the Popes (Sheed & Ward, New York, 1950).

Fisher, H. A. L., The History of England from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of Henry VIII, 1485-1547 (London, 1919).

Foss, Edward, The Judges of England (9 vole., London, 1848-1864); Vol. V, 1485-1608 (London, 1857).

Friedman, Paul, Anne Boleyn; a chapter in English History, 1527-1536 (London, 1884).

Hackett, Francis, Henry the Eighth (London, 1929).

Hall, Edward, The Triumphant Reigne of Kyng Henry the V111, edited by Charles Whibley (London, 1904), Vol. II.

Harleian Miscellany, edited by Thomas Park (12 vole., London, 1808-1811), Vol. III (1809).

Holdsworth, Sir William Searle, A History of English Law (12 vole., Boston, 1923-1938), Vol. V (1927).

Howell, T. B. and T. J., A Complete Collection of State Trials (33 vole., London, 1816-1826); Vol. I, 1163-1600 (1816). Contains accounts of the trials of Catherine of Aragon, Thomas More and Thomas Wolsey.

Lincoln's Inn, London, The Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln's Inn, The Black Books (London, 1897-1902), Vol. I.

Lyte, H. C. Maxwell, A History of the University of Oxford from the Earliest Times to the Year 1530 (London, 188G).

Marriot, John A. R., Oxford, Its Place in National History (1933).

Mattingly, Garrett, Catherine of Aragon (Boston, 1941).

Miscellaneous Writings of Henry the Eighth, edited by Francis Macnamara (1924).

Nichols, Francis Morgan, The Epistles of Erasmus, from his earliest letters to his fifty-third year, translated into English (London, 1901-1918), Vols. I-III.

Pastor, Ludwig, The History of the Popes (London, 19231953), Vols. VIII-IX (1923).

Pocock, Nicholas, Records of the Reformation, The Divorce, 1527-1533 (Oxford, 1870), Vol. I.

Pollard, A. F., Wolsey (London, 1929).

Sergeant, Philip W., The Life of Anne Boleyn (New York, 1924).

Sullivan, Frank, and Padberg, Majie, Moreana, 1478-1945. A preliminary check list of material by and about Sir Thomas More (Kansas City, Mo., 1946).

NOTES

It will be apparent to anyone familiar with the material on the life of Thomas More that this book rests primarily on original sources. In matters of punctuation and capitalization, I have followed modern usage, preferring not to irritate my readers, and myseff, by a pedantic usage which would add little or nothing to the validity of my story.

CHAPTER 1

1. Karl Kautsky, Thomas More and his Utopia (New York, 1927), p. 250.

CHAPTER 2

1. The Poems of William Dunbar, ed. by David Laing (Edinburgh, 1834), p. 277.

2. Nicholas Harpsfield, The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More, ed. by E. V. Hitchcock (London, 1932), p. 9.

3. Utopia, tr. by Ralph Robinson (London, 1869), pp. 36-37.

4. William Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas More, ed. by 11. V. Hitchcock (London, 1935), p. 5.

5. Sir Thomas More, Works (London, 1557), p. 71.

6. Thomas Stapleton, Life of Sir Thomas More (London, 1928), p.3.

7. Roper, p. 76.

8. The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, The Black Books (London, 1897-1902), I, p. 703.

9. Richard Pace, De Fructu (Basle, 1517), p. 82

10. Elizabeth F. Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More (Princeton University Press, 1947), pp. 8-9.

CHAPTER 3

1. F. M. Nichols, Epistles of Erasmus (London, 1901), Vol. III, pp. 392-394, passim.

2. Translation by Archdeacon Wrangham, quoted by R. W. Chambers, Thomas More (Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York,

3. Cresacre More, The Lif e of Sir Thomas More (London, 1726), pp. 29-30.

CHAPTER 4

1. Nichols, I., p. 389.

2. Allen, P. S. and H. M., Opus Epistolarum Des Erasmi Roterodami (Oxford, 1906), I, p. 6.

3. Nichols, III, pp. 387-399, passim.

CHAPTER 5

1. Roper, p. 7.

2. Roper, p. 8.

3. John Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors (Boston 1874), II, p. 11.

4. October 21, 1515, from Bruges (see Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, p. 36).

5. To John Holt, c. November, 1501, Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, pp. 4-5.

6. Mountjoy to Erasmus, May 27 (1509), Nichols, I, pp. 457

7. Miscellaneous Writings of Henry the Eighth, ed. by Francis Macnamara (1929), p. 175.

8. Nichols, I., pp. 457-458.

9. Ibid., IL p. 2.

10. Works (1557), p. 422.

11. Roper, p. 9.

12. T. E. Bridgett's Life and Writings of Blessed Thomas More (London, 1924), p. 130.

13. English Historical Review, VII (1892), p. 714.

14. Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, p. 78.

15. English Historical Review, VII (1892), pp. 714-715.

CHAPTER 6

1. Francis Hackett, Henry the Eighth (London and New York, Liveright, 1929), p. 109.

2. March 14, 1514, Nichols, II, pp. 121 122.

3. May 14, i515, Nichols, IL p. 206.

4. May 4, 1516, Nichols, II, p. 260.

5. July 9, 1515. Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, II, Part L No. 679.

6. Utopia, pp. 28-29.

7. Ibid., pp. 33-34.

8. Ibid., p. 35.

9. Ibid., pp. 67-69, passim.

10. Ibid., p. 71.

11. Works (1557) The Confutation, Book II, pp. 422-423.

12. April 1, 1516, from Basle; Allen, IL p. 221; No. 396.

CHAPTER 7

1. Nichols, II, pp. 258-259.

2. Nichols, II, pp. 260-261.

3. Venetian Calendar, IL No. 691, February 24, 1516.

4. Nichols, II, p. 266.

5. Ibid., II, p. 169.

6. Thomas Stapleton, Vita Thomae Mori, V, p. 206.

7. Bridgett, pp. 92-93.

8. Chambers, p. 122.

9. Edward Hall, The Lives of the Kings, Henry Vlll, Vol. I (London, 1904), p. 156.

10. Ibid., p. 157.

11. The Book of Sir Thomas More (The Malone Society Reprints, 1911), p. 76.

12. Harpsfield, p. 95.

13. Nichols, m, p. 2.

14. Ibid., p. 70.

15. Ibid., p. 103.

CHAPTER 8

1. Bridgett, pp. 130-131.

2. Stapleton, p. 72.

3. Nichols, III, p. 392.

4. Ibid., III, p. 361.

5. Stapleton, p. 77.

6. Harpsfield, pp. 23-2A

7. Roper, p. 11.

8. Ibid., p. 12.

9. See Venetian Calendar, II, No. 1072, 18 September, 1518.

CHAPTER 9

1. Roper, pp. 67-68.

2. Ibid., p. 68.

3. Papal Bull of Leo X, Miscellaneous Writings of Henry the Eighth, pp. 35-36.

4. July 24, 1521. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Vol. III, Part II, No. 1437.

5. Harpsfield, p. 87.

6. Ibid., p. 27.

7. Roper, p. 17.

8. Ibid., p. 19.

9. Ibid., pp. 15-16.

10. Ibid., p. 20.

11. Chambers, p. 211.

12. Roper p. 21.

13. Dec. i8, 1526. Allen, VI, No. 1770; p. 443.

CHAPTER 10

1 Roper, pp. 24-25.

2 Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, p. 387.

3 A Merry Jest, English Works (1557), C.1.

4 Supplication of Soules, English Works (1557), p. 329.

CHAPTER 1l

1. Harleian Miscellany (London, 1809), m, pp. 54-55.

2. Ibid., III, p. 57.

3. Ibid., III, p. 52.

4. Ibid., p. 53.

5. Ibid., p. 55.

6 Roper, pp. 32-33.

7 State Papers, Spanish, m, Part II, No. 224, 26 October, 1527.

8. Stapleton, p. 137.

9. Roper, pp. 36-37.

10. Works (1557), p. 1421.

11 Works (1557), p. 1419, 3 September, 1529.

12 Pastor, Ludwig, Lives of the Popes (40 Vols., London, 1923-1953), X, p. 3.

13. Ibid., X, p. 2.

14. Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry V111, IV, No. 4090. 15. Harleian Miscellany, III, p. 61.

CHAPTER 12

1. February 18, 1529, Campeggio to Salviati, see Ludwig Pastor, History of the Popes, X, p. 267.

2. George Cavendish, Life of Cardinal Wolsey (Chiswick 1825), I, pp. 149-153.

3. Cavendish, I, pp. 157-158 and passim.

4. Ibid., p. 160.

5. Ibid., pp. 162-163.

6. Ibid., p. 168.

7. Ibid., p. 176.

8. Ibid., p. 188.

9. Ibid., pp. 313-324, passim.

CHAPTER 13

1. October 25, 1529. Letters and Papers, IV, Part IV, No. 6026.

2. Hall, Henry VIII, II, pp. 164-165.

3. Roper, p. 51.

4. Ibid., pp. 41-42.

5. John Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors (Boston, 1874), I, p. 40.

6. See Ibid., pp. 41-42.

7. Roper, p. 44-45.

8. Ibid., p. 45.

9. Stapleton, p. 63.

CHAPTER 14

1. Roper, pp. 56-57.

2. Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, Vol. I, pp. 46-47, passim.

3. Fisher, H. A. L., The History of England from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of Henry VIII, 1485-1547 (London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1919), p. 308.

4. Hackett, Henry V111, p. 299.

5. Hall, Henry V111, II, p. 210.

6. May 13, 1532, Letters and Papers, V, No. 1013.

CHAPTER 15

1. Roper, p. 55.

2. Roper, pp. 53-54.

3. Bridgett, p. 245.

4. Stapleton, p. 83.

5. Routh, EL. M. C., Sir Thomas More and His Friends, 1477-1535 (London, 1934), p. 187.

6. Roper, p. 48.

7. Works, 1557, p. 1421.

8. Ibid., pp. 1421-1422.

9. Roper, pp. 55-56.

10. See Letters and Papers, Henry V111, VL No. 1453.

11. Ibid., No. 1528.

12. Roper, p. 59.

13. Ibid., pp. 62-63.

14. Works, 1557, p. 1422.

15. Rogers, E. F., The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More (Princeton, 1947), p. 466. Roper, p. 66. Ibid., pp. 67-71, passim. Ibid., pp. 70-72, passim. Cresacre More, p. 232.

CHAPTER 16

1. Works (1557), p. 1442.

2. Roper, p. 73.

3. Works ( 1557), p. 1428.

4. Roper, p. 74.

S. Ibid., p. 77.

6. Ibid., p. 76.

7. Ibid., p. 78.

8. Works (1557), pp. 1431-1432.

9. Roper, pp. 82-83.

10. Letters and Papers, Henry V111, vm, No 800.

11. Works, 1557, pp. 1357-1358.

12. Ibid., p. 1443.

13. Ibid., p. 1430.

14. Roper, pp. 80-81.

15. Chambers, p. 330.

16. Works ( 1557), p. 1430.

17. The Rastell Fragments, Harpsfield, pp. 242-245.

CHAPTER 17

1. Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, Vol. II, p. 64.

2. Roper, pp. 85-86.

3. Campbell, Vol. II, p. 65.

4. Howell, T. B., A Complete Collection of State Trials . . . (London, 1816), Vol. I, Column 388.

5. Ibid.

6. Harpsfield, pp. 186-188, passim.

7. Howell, Vol. L Column 389.

8. Harpsfield, p. 186.

9. Roper, p. 87.

10. Harpsfield, pp. 189-190.

11. Harpsfield (quoting Paris News Letter), p. 193.

12. Harpsfield, pp. 194-198, passim.

13. Roper, p. 97.

14. Harpsfield, p. 199.

15. Works (1557), pp. 1457-1458.

16. Campbell, Lord Chancellors of England, Vol. IL p. 74.

17. Cresacre More, pp. 272-274 passim.

18. Paris News Letter, Harpsfieid, Appendix IL p. 266.

19. Harpsfield, p. 20A

CHAPTER 16

HE SOUGHT TO PREPARE his family for the future. While sitting at dinner with them he would have a bogus official appear and, after a great noise at the door, go through the motions of arresting him. By the enactment and repetition of this little comedy he tried to get them used to the day that was sure to come. But although he professed a lightheartedness at the time, he, as he afterwards confided to his daughter, was often vexed with distress and anxiety He told her of the many weary night hours that he had spent thinking "while my wife slept and thought I had slept too, what peril were possible to fall to me . . . And in devising, daughter, thereupon, I had a full, heavy heart."[1]

He had not long to wait. The day was rapidly approaching when Henry could fulfill his boast that he would be both King and Pope in England. In Rome on the twenty-third of March, 1534, it was announced that the marriage of Henry and Catherine was valid. A week later the English parliament passed an Act of Succession which made Anne Boleyn's issue the first in succession to the Crown and thus, by legislation, deliberately made a bastard of Catherine's daughter, the Princess Mary.

The dread charge of high treason would be the lot of anyone who would deny the new law, and a Commission was established to extract an oath of obedience from the Lords, both Spiritual and Temporal, and from anybody else who might be selected. The members of this Commission were the same men who had previously examined More, except for the Abbot of Westminster who took the place of the Duke of Norfolk. In administering the oath, they went beyond the bounds of legality; the statute which required all subjects to swear in the succession of Anne's children, now, thanks to a rider formulated by Cromwell and Audley, provided that those taking the oath should also acknowledge Henry as being the Head of the Church in England. And in doing so, they renounced all obedience to the Bishop of Rome, as having no more power than any other bishop.

The Lords and the Clergy were summoned to subscribe to the oath and, as the first layman of consequence, so was Sir Thomas More. It was on the Sunday following Easter, the twelfth of April, that he received the news. With Roper he had been to Mass at St. Paul's, and then the two had gone to visit his step-daughter and her husband, John Clement. It was on their premises that he was officially summoned to appear before the Royal Commission.

He went back to his own home and spent the evening hours with his family. It was ever his custom on what he thought to be important days to receive Holy Communion. The next morning he followed this procedure. Then came the sad and difficult moment of saying goodbye to his wife and children. He was journeying by water but he would not permit them to see him embark. He shut the garden gate himself. After boarding the boat he remained silent for a long time. The rasp and beat of oars provided a melancholy accompaniment to his thoughts. Presently his mood seemed to change for the better. Having met the issue squarely in his own mind, and made the fateful decision, he turned to the loyal Roper saying: "Son Roper, I thank our Lord the field is won." His son-in-law did not understand but, as he afterwards wrote: "Loth to seem ignorant I answered, 'Sir, I am thereof very glad.'"[2]

At Lambeth they said farewells and More was ushered in to face the Commissioners, Lord Audley, Archbishop Cranmer, the Abbot of Westnunster, and Thomas Cromwell. Gravely he was told that it was his duty to prove his loyalty by taking the oath. He made no quick gesture of defiance, nor did he indulge in grand heroics. He was a lawyer, and in such proceedings he was on his own ground. He asked that he be allowed to study the Act of Succession. Permission could not very well be refused, and he was given the document. He read it carefully and said he was ready to swear to the Succession, for it had been made a law of the land by Parliament. But as for the rest, the acceptance of the King's Supremacy over the Church, he could not subscribe.

"I shewed unto them," he said, "that my purpose was not to put any fault either into the Act or any man that made it, or in any oath or any man that swore it, nor to condemn the conscience of any other man. But as for myself, in good faith my conscience so moved me in the matter, that though I would not deny to swear to the Succession, yet unto that oath that there was offered me, I could not swear without the jeoparding of my soul to perpetual damnation."[3]

They told him the names of the Bishops and Peers and Members of the Commons who had already taken the oath, but he replied that it made no difference to his thinking. The Commissioners were baffled, but before accepting his decision as being the final word, they ordered him to go into the garden and reflect for a few hours while they put the oath to others.

It was a clement day of an English spring and m the greenness of the garden, and under the serenity of the wide sky, there must have been torment in his mind as he pondered over the two courses that were offered to him. If he persisted in obeying his conscience, suffering would not only be his lot, but would be wreaked on his beloved family. Death would be certain but not necessarily quick. To enforce submission the rack could easily precede the scaffold. Before the final shadows came it was quite conceivable that there would be the long ordeal of torture. As he paced to and fro, he could observe the traffic of clergy who had come to subscribe to the oath. No problem appeared to disturb their minds. Most of them seemed cheerful and lighthearted enough, save for one exception, Nicholas Wilson. Like the ex-Lord Chancellor, this priest had been a friend of the King, in fact, he had been Henry's confessor, but he had refused to swear to the oath, and he was now being led to the Tower.

When More was brought again before the Commission, he stated that his position was unchanged and his answer was the same. They sought, by threat and every trick of argument and cajolery, to sway him, but it was to no avail. He would swear to the Act of Succession, but he would not accept the King's authority in spiritual matters. The opinions of the Commissioners seemed to differ at this stage. Cranmer, for one, thought that a compromise might suffice.

After much discussion, he was remanded to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster. There he remained for four days, and it seemed for a while that there might be hope for him but "Queen Anne, by her importunate clamors, did exasperate the King."

On the seventeenth of April, a Friday, Sir Thomas More was ordered to the Tower. Richard Cromwell, a man who had married Thomas Cromwell's niece, and who in doing so had conveniently taken the name of her uncle, was charged with delivering the person of the ax-Chancellor. He noticed that More, out of respect for his former rank, was still wearing the gold chain of office around his neck. The younger Cromwell, like his uncle-in-law, was very much the realist when it came to things made of the precious metal, and realizing that the chain would be confiscated m the Tower, he advised More to send it to his home before they arrived at their destination.

"No, Sir," was the firm answer, "that I will not; for if I were taken in the field by my enemies, I would they should somewhat fare the better by me."[4]

They arrived at the Traitors' Gate, but the gloom of the dreaded entrance to the Tower did not prevent More from joking with the porter. In the same lighthearted vein, he told an official who apologized for the wretchedness of the cell he was to occupy: "Assure yourself, Master Lieutenant, I do not mislike my cheer; but whensoever I so do, then thrust me out of your doors."[5]

He who still wore a hair shirt and who once had thought of becoming a Carthusian monk was not going to complain of life in a cell. Nor was he to concern himself with worldly cares. In the beginning of his imprisonment he was allowed the amenities of pen and paper, and he wrote to his daughter: "Since I am come here without mine own desert, I trust that God, by his goodness, will discharge me of my care, and, with his gracious help, supply my lack among you . . ."[8]

In an effort to explain why he had chosen imprisonment rather than swear to the oath, he not only stressed the illegality of the latter, but gave voice to his opinion of those who professed to advise the King. "I may tell thee, Meg they that have committed me hither, for refusing of this Oath not agreeable with the Statute, are not by their own law able to justify my imprisonment. And surely, daughter, it is a great pity that any Christian Prince should by a flexible Council ready to follow his affections, and by a weak Clergy lacking grace constantly to stand to their learning, with flattery be so shamefully abused."[7]

It was difficult for his family to understand why he was so deliberately courting death. Even the one who was closest to his thinking, Margaret, tried to make him change his mind. He was forced to write her a letter in which once again he explained his position and then added, somewhat sadly, as her husband afterwards reported, that none of the terrible things that might happen to him touched him so near, or were so grievous to him "as to see you, my well beloved child, in such vehement piteous manner, labour to persuade unto me the thing wherein I have of pure necessity, for respect unto mine own soul, so often given you so precise answer before. Wherein as touching the points of your letter, I can make none answer. For I doubt not but you well remember, that the matters which move my conscience . . . I have sundry times showed you that I will disclose them to no man."[8]

If it was difficult for Margaret to understand, it was even more so for his wife, that good woman of direct speech and common sense. Having obtained permission to visit him, she came quickly to her opinion: "What, the good year, Master More, I marvel at you, that have been always hitherto taken for so wise a man, will now so play the fool to lie here in this close, filthy prison, and be content thus to be shut up thus among mice and rats, when you might be abroad at your liberty, and with the favour and good will both of the King and his Council, if you would but do as all the Bishops and best learned of this realm have done; and, seeing you have at Chelsea a right fair house, your library, your books, your gallery, your garden, your orchard, and all other necessaries so handsome about you, where you might, in the company of me, your wife, your children and household, be merry, I muse what a gods name you mean here still thus fondly to tarry."

More gave his answer with a smile: "I pray thee, good Mistress Alice, tell me one thing."

"What is it?"

"Is not this house as near Heaven as my own?"

"Tillie valle, Tillie valle!" was her impatient reply.[9]

But despite her exasperation, and the failure of her reasoning, she continued to be the good, hard-working wife that she was, never desisting in her attempts to have him released and never ceasing in her attempts to try to make his incarceration more comfortable. At one time, when all his properties had been confiscated, she, in pathetic appeal to Cromwell, wrote that she had been compelled of very necessity to sell her apparel to provide fifteen shillings for "the board wages" of her poor husband and his servant, and begged him for the love of God to show his "more favourable help for the comforting of my poor husband and me in this our great heaviness, extreme age, and necessity."[l0]

As the months passed the screws were tightened and his imprisonment was made more harsh. No longer was he allowed to take his afternoon walk outside his cell. The solace of a chaplain's visit was denied. Even pen and paper were taken from him, and for the remainder of his confinement he resorted to the scrawl of charcoal on whatever material he could find. Lack of writing materials forced him to cease work on his Treatise of the Passion. In this uncompleted work he dealt with the courage of martyrs and the inspiration they received from the saddest and most inspiring of dramas. "What though thou be fearful, sorry, and weary," he has the Christ say, "and standest in great dread of most painful torments . . . be of good comfort . . . for I myself have vanquished the whole world, and yet felt I far more fear, sorrow, weariness, and much more inward angmsh too, when I considered my most bitter, painful Passion to press so fast upon me. He that is strong hearted may find a thousand glorious valiant martyrs whose example he may right joyfully follow. But thou now, O timorous and weak, silly sheep, think it sufficient for thee, only to walk after me, which am thy Shepherd and Governor, and so mistrust thyself and put thy trust in me . . . Take hold on the hem of my garment, therefore: From thence shalt thou receive such strength and relief to proceed . . .[1l]

The process of intimidation weakened a fellow prisoner, the priest Wilson, who had been committed to the Tower on the same day as More. In desperation he wrote to More asking if there were not some manner in which they could accept a compromise. More's reply was to the effect that he could only be the master of his own destiny and that each man should form his own opinion and follow his own conscience. The unhappy Wilson wrote back that he had decided to take the oath. Without the slightest hint of criticism, More told him: "I beseech Our Lord give you there of good luck . . . leaving every other man to their own conscience, myself, with God's Grace will follow my own . . . whether I shall have finally the grace to do according to mine own conscience or not, hangeth in God's goodness, not in mine, to whom I beseech you heartily remember me in your devout prayers, and I shall and daily do, remember you in mine, such as they be.[12]

In spite of the stern conditions of his confinement, More managed to keep in commumication with his daughter, Margaret. After the winter of 1534 we find him painstakingly scratching a letter with a piece of coal: "Mine own good daughter, our Lord be thanked, I am in good health of body and in good quiet of mind: and of worldly things I no more desire than I have. I beseech him make you all merry in the hope of Heaven. And such things as I somewhat longed to talk with you all concerning the world to come, our Lord put them into your minds as I trust he cloth, and better too by his Holy Spirit: who bless you and preserve you all. Written with a coal, by your tender loving father, who in his poor prayers forgetteth none of you all . . . And thus fare ye heartily well for lack of paper. Thomas More, Knight.''[l3]

Throughout his imprisonment Margaret was allowed to see him occasionally. This concession was arranged by Cromwell, who thought, perhaps, that the presence and sorrow of the favourite member of his family would bring about a change in More's thinking. She was permitted to be with him on the terrible day that Abbot Reynolds of the Monastery of Sion, and three of More's Carthusian friends, Houghton, Webster, and Lawrence, together with John Hale, Vicar of Isleworth, were executed. The doomed men were led by the window of More's cell. Father and daughter watched the procession.

"Lo, dost thou not see, Meg," he said, "that these blessed Fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage? Wherefore thereby mayest thou see, mine own good daughter, what a great difference there is between such as have in effect spent all their days in a strait, hard, penitential, and painful life religiously, and such as have in this world, like worldly wretches, as thy poor father hath done, consumed all their time in pleasure and ease licentiously. For God, considering their long and continued life in most sore and grievous penance, will no longer suffer them to remain here in this vale of Misery and iniquity, but speedily hence taketh them to the fruition of his everlasting Deity; whereas thy silly father, Meg, that like a most wicked caitiff hath passed forth the whole course of his most miserable life most sinfully, God, thinking him not worthy so soon to come to that eternal felicity, leaveth him yet still in the world, further to be plunged and turmoiled with misery.''[14]

The monks were dragged to Tyburn, where a terrible death, in full and ferocious ceremony, was given them. Before a gaping mob which included the Duke of Norfolk, each man was hanged, then cut down before losing consciousness, his stomach ripped by the butcher's knife and his entrails exposed to his still seeing eyes. Houghton was the first to suffer the torture, and while being disemboweled he was heard to whisper: "Oh most merciful Jesus have mercy upon me in this hour." When he was dead, his head was hacked from his body, and the body itself, chopped into four pieces. His companions were forced to watch the frightful butchery, but they showed no fear, each in his turn marched to the gibbet, and each in his turn addressed the crowd as calmly as though he was delivering an ordinary sermon on an ordinary Sunday before an ordinary crowd.

Soon more monks were to die. No form of torture was spared to secure compliance with the implacable will of Henry. The Carthusians were particularly stubborn. Not long after the martyrdom of the first group, a second was examined before Cromwell. Upon their refusal to acknowledge the King s supremacy, they were imprisoned in the Tower of London; where they remained seventeen days, standing bolt upright, tied fast with iron collars to the posts of the prison, with great fetters bolted on their legs. They could neither lie nor sit, nor otherwise ease themselves, but stood upright, and in all that space they were not loosed for any natural necessity.

But it was Thomas More and John Fisher who were the principal targets of Henry's ire and Cromwell's wiles. A few days before the second group of Carthusians were thrown into the Tower, the new Pope, Paul the Third, raised Fisher to the Cardinalate, thinking that by this gesture he might lessen, at least in some measure, Henry's cruelty. But he did not know his man. In savage jest, Henry declared that while he would not permit a Cardinal's hat to be brought to England, he would arrange for Fisher's head to be sent to Rome instead. "I will so provide," he said, "that if he wear it he shall bear it on his shoulders, nor any head shall he have to put it on."[15] An almost continual examination and questioning was now the lot of the two men, and both acted warily. They had refused to take the oath that the King was the Supreme Head of the Church in England, and for that they had been attainted and were now in the Tower. But, so far, they had not openly made a denial that the King was the Supreme Head, and this technicality was an important factor in the legalistic processes with which Henry surrounded his every barbarity. Every attempt was made to make them fall into the trap. Parliament had obediently made a law which declared it high treason "to maliciously wish, will or desire by words or writing or by craft imagine, invent, practice or attempt any bodily harm to be done or committed to the King's most Royal person, the Queen's or their Heirs Apparent, or deprive them or any of them of their dignity, title, or name of their royal estates, or slanderously and maliciously publish and pronounce by expressed writing or words, that the King, Our Sovereign Lord, should be heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, etc." Cromwell questioned More about the new law and demanded his opinion, but he refused to discuss it. Audley then pointed out that More's attitude was inciting others to follow his example. More disclaimed the charge. "As touching the whole oath, I never withdrew any man from it, nor never advised any to refuse it, nor never put nor wil1 put any scruple in any man's head, but leave every man to his own conscience, and me thinketh in good faith that so were it good reason that every man should leave me to mine."[l6]

Richard Rich, the Solicitor General, and one of the most odious and unscrupulous members of the unsavoury group that were now so active in Henry's service, took an active part in the examination. Professing sympathy, he came to Fisher, infirm because of his age, terribly weak because of his confinement. The Solicitor General spoke softly and in confidence. The King's conscience, he stated, was disturbed, and Henry privately wanted to know for once and for all his former tutor's true opinion. On the pledge of secrecy the aged bishop sealed his own death warrant by stating that he believed directly in his conscience, and knew by his learning precisely, that the King was not nor could be by the law of God Supreme Head of the Church of England.

On the seventeenth of June, Fisher was brought to trial in Westminster Hall. He was accused of high treason in that he had denied the King to be the Supreme Head of the Church. He made no attempt to deny what he had told Rich, but he pleaded that the fatal words had been extracted from him under a vow of secrecy from the King. In his defence he denied treason and stressed that his opinion had been given privately to ease the King's conscience. He appealed to "all equity, all justice, all worldly honesty, and all civil humanity." But his words were as nothing. He was pronounced guilty, and the usual and terrible sentence, that he should be condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, was given.

As it was a sentence that because of his ill health and old age it was deemed impossible to execute, it was decided that a simple beheading would suffice. Five days later, the Lieutenant of the Tower came in the early morning to his cell and informed him that it was the King's pleasure that he should die some time before the forenoon.

"Well," said the bishop, "if this be your errand hither, it is no news unto me; I have looked daily for it, I pray you what is it o'clock?"

"It is," repined the lieutenant, "about five."

"What time," asked Fisher, "must be mine hour to go out hence?"

"About ten of the clock," said the Lieutenant

"Well then," said Fisher, "I pray you let me sleep an hour or twain. For I may say to you I slept not much this night, not for fear of death, I tell you, but by reason of my great sickness and weakness."

When the hour arrived he dressed carefully and went with composure to the scaffold where, in the words of one who was there, he was "a long lean, slender body, nothing in a manner but skin and bare bones, so that the most part that there saw him, marvelled to see any man, bearing life, to be so far consumed; for he seemed a lean carcass, the flesh wasted away, and a very image of death, and as one might say, Death in a man's shape, and using a man's voice."

As the executioner made ready, the old man was offered a pardon if he would accede to the King's supremacy. He shook his head and instead invited the prayers of those who were waiting to see him die. He spoke bravely: "Hitherto . . ." he said, "I have not feared death, wherefore I desire you help me from fear and assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of my death stroke, and in the very moment of death I then faint not in any point of the Catholic faith for any fear."[17] The frail neck was bared. The axe went high and another step in a man's sanctity was made.

It was the King's order that the headless body be stripped naked and thrown into a shallow grave. The head was placed on London Bridge.
The Story of Thomas More, John Farrow

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CHAPTER 15

EVEN AT THIS critical time, More employed his wit in giving the news to his family. They were at Mass. In his capacity as the King's first minister, More had conformed with practice and sat with his gentlemen in a special pew. At the conclusion of the devotions, one of these gentlemen would come to Lady More and inform her "Madame, my Lord is gone." On this day, unaccompanied by any attendants, it was Sir Thomas himself who came to his wife's pew, and, making a low bow, told her with unmistakable meaning, "Madame, my Lord is gone.''[1] She was not pleased.

He left office a poor man, with but a remnant of his former wealth and no pension. There still lived about him the little commonwealth of his children and grandchildren that was his joy. These he now called together, and discussing with them the change of his fortunes explained that in all probability their mode and style of living would be altered. He sought to give them comfort and quite cheerfully told them: "I have been brought up at Oxford, at an Inn of Chancery, at Loncoln's Inn, and also in the King's Court, from the lowest degree to the highest; and yet have I, in yearly revenues at this present, left me little above an hundred pounds by the year; so that now must we hereafter if we like to live together, be contented to become contributaries together. But, by my counsel, it shall not be best for us to fall to the lowest fare first, we will not, therefore, descend to Oxford fare, nor to the fare of New Inn, but we will begin with the Lincoln's Inn diet, where many right worshipful and of good years, do live full well; which, if we find not ourselves the first year able to maintain, then will we the next year go one step down to New Inn fare, wherewith many an honest man is well contented. If that exceed our ability too, then will we next year after descend to Oxford fare, where many grave, learned, and ancient fathers be continually conversant; which, if our power stretch not to maintain neither, then may we yet, with bags and wallets go a begging together, and hoping that for pity some good folks will give us their charity, at every man's door to sing a Salve Regina, and so still keep company and be merry together."[2]

He could no longer afford the staff of officers and servants who had attended him as Lord Chancellor, but they were not abruptly discharged. One of his first concerns was to find employment for all. Various noblemen and bishops were prevailed upon to take into their service the higher ranking members of his entourage. His state barge, along with its crew of eight, went to his successor, Lord Audley. That necessary appendage to the train of any great man of that day, his Jester, he recommended and gave to the Lord Mayor of London. The light-hearted clown had quipped, "Chancellor More is Chancellor no more." But he also had wept, and it was by force that he was conveyed to his new master.

More could not have had any illusions concerning the dark way that was ahead, but the resignation of the Chancellorship brought to him a temporary peace and happiness. In a letter to Erasmus he wrote that being free from public business he might have some time "to devote to God and myself, that, by the grace of a great and good God, and by the favour of an indulgent prince, I have at last obtained."[3]

Years before, when Warham had resigned the Chancellorship, More had congratulated him on retiring "from the affairs of the world and the bustle of courts . . . you will pass your time gently and peacefully in literature and philosophy.[4]

His health was not good, and apparently having no desire--or perhaps thinking it unseemly for an ex-Lord Chancellor--to resume practice of the law, he fumed to his pen with an increasing industry. At last he could devote all his hours to that which was so close to his heart, a campaign to combat the spread of Lutheranism. As Lord Chancellor, he could have employed force, but he always preferred to use the weapons of logic and argument. Now there was the opportunity. To Erasmus he wrote: "Here are you in a condition which would break the spirit of a vigourous youth, still bringing out book after book, for the instruction and admiration of the world. What matter the attacks upon you? No great writer ever escaped malignity . . . You allow frankly that if you could have forseen these pestilent heresies you would have been less outspoken on certain points. Doubtless the Fathers, had they expected such times as ours, would have been more cautious in their utterances. They had their own disorders to attend to, and did not think of the future . . . The Bishops and the King tried to check these new documents, but they spread wonderfully. The teachers of them retreat into the Low Countries, as into a safe harbour, and send over their works written in English. Our people read them, partly in thoughtlessness, partly from a malicious disposition. They enjoy them, not because they think them true, but because they wish them to be true . . .[6]

The speed with which he moved his pen was amazing. Unhampered by public duties, he completed his Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, a letter against Frith, the Apology, a work in defence of the clergy, The Debellation of Salem and Bizance, and his Answer to the book which a nameless heretic hath named The Supper of the Lord.

These works, nearly a half million words, constituted a bulwark of orthodoxy, and the clergy, recognizing More as their champion, thought to reward him. They collected a great sum of money, which he refused, giving as his reason that if he were in their pay, he would no longer be a disinterested and unbiased defender. Some of his friends pointed out that he was now a poor man and that it would be well for him to accept so that his wife and children would profit. But he was obdurate. When they offered him the purse he said: "I had liefer see it all cast into the Thames, than I, or any of mine, should have thereof the worth of one penny. For though your offer, my Lords, be indeed very friendly and honourable, yet set I so much by my pleasure and so little by my profit, that I would not, in good faith, for so much, and much more too, have lost the rest of so many nights sleep that was spent upon the same. And yet wish would I, for all that, upon condition that all heresies were suppressed, that all my books were burned and my labour utterly lost."[6]

Death was in his mind and he made ready for it. He selected a marble slab and had a tomb prepared at the Church in Chelsea. He wrote his epitaph, stressing those things of which he was proud, and saying that, save for thieves, murderers and heretics, he had given no trouble to any man. He asked for the kind thoughts of those who would read the epitaph. "And that this tomb, made for him in his life time be not in vain, nor that he fear death coming upon him, but that he may willingly for the desire of Christ, die, and find death not utterly death to him, but the gate of a wealthier life, help him, (I beseech you good reader,) now with your prayers while he liveth, and when he is dead also."[7]

He had never forgotten his first wife, and to the tomb he had her remains brought. She who had given birth to his children was always "Dear Jane," nor did he ever cease to appreciate the virtues of the good lady who had brought these children up. "Oh how well could we three have lived," he wrote, "joined together in matrimony if fortune and religion would have suffered it. But I beseech our lord that this tomb and heaven may join us together. So death shall give us, that thing that life could not."[8]

Resigned to the future and confident that his course was right, he sought to convey his strength to his family. "In the time somewhat before his trouble," recorded his son-in-law, "he would talk with his wife and children of the joys of heaven and the pains of hell, of the lives of holy martyrs, of their grievous martyrdoms, of their marvelous patience, and of their passions and deaths that they suffered rather than they would offend God; and what an happy and blessed thing it was, for the love of God to suffer loss of goods, imprisonment, loss of lands and life also. He would further say unto them that, upon his faith, if he might perceive his wife and children would encourage him to die in a good cause, it should so comfort him that, for very joy thereof, it would make him merrily run to death. He showed unto them afore what trouble might after fall unto him; wherewith and the like virtuous talk he had so long before his trouble encouraged them, that when he after fell into the trouble indeed, his trouble to them was a great deal the less. . ."[9]

In August of 1532 old William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, died. Whom was Henry to nominate as his successor? With Anne Boleyn now openly living with him, and with the devious Cromwell in constant attendance, a choice was not long in forthcoming. It was Cranmer, he who had collected and arranged the opinions of the universities. But Cranmer was now in Germany observing Lutheran practices. And in the pursuit of his studies he had rejected his vows of celibacy and contracted a marriage with a niece of his host, a German clergyman. Nevertheless he was sent for, and leaving his bride, he returned to England. The formalities of sending his name to Rome were observed. The Papal Bull duly arrived, and Cranmer was made Archbishop and successor of Saint Augustine, openly following the ancient forms of consecration, privately wallowing in duplicity. Before the ceremony, he swore before witnesses, that no matter what he might say in public, his duty and his allegiance were pledged only to the King.

The plan was now advanced to its next stage. Parliament passed an act, giving Cranmer authority to settle the divorce. The clergy in Convocation agreed. The new Archbishop opened his Court at Dunstable. He first censured Catherme for her obstinacy in not appearing before him, and then, after a fortnight of mummery, he announced that the marriage of Henry and Catherine was no marriage at all.

While these events were happening, and supremely confident that they would happen, Henry had made Anne Marquess of Pembroke and, soon after, also had made her pregnant. On the twenty-fifth of January, 1535, he married her in secret. Not until the following Easter did he openly declare her Queen.

Preparations were made for Anne's Coronation. From her place of what was virtually imprisonment, Catherine sent an anguished appeal to the Spanish Ambassador: "I am separated from my Lord, and he has married another woman without obtaining a divorce: and this last act has been done while the suit is still pending, and in defiance of him who has the power of God upon earth. I cover these lines with my tears as I write. I confide in you as my friend. Help me to bear the cross of my tribulation. Write to the Emperor, bid him insist that judgment be pronounced. The next Parliament, I am told will decide if I and my daughter are to suffer martyrdom. I hope God will accept it as an act of merit by us, as we shall suffer for the sake of the truth."[l0]

The Ambassador wrote to his master urging that the Emperor should send an army to invade England: "You cannot imagine the grief of all the people at this abominable government. They are so transported with indignation at what passes that they complain that your Majesty takes no steps in it; and I am told by many respectable people that they would be glad to see a fleet come hither in your name to raise the people . . . It is not to be thought that the King will be brought to the point by mild treatment, for his sin carries him away, and he is bewitched by this cursed woman in such a manner that he dares neither say nor do except as she commands him.''[1l]

But Charles had no stomach for war with England at this time. He was fighting the Turk both in Hungary and in the Mediterranean. He had his troubles with the Protestant Princes of Germany. There was unrest in Italy, and he was only too sure that if he made war with England, France would not be on his side.

The Coronation of Anne Boleyn was arranged with a lavish splendour that would have been worthy of Wolsey. There were great processions and tournaments and parades both in the streets and on the river. Flowers and banners and hanging embroideries, the clank of knights in shining armour, their gaily caparisoned steeds, guildsmen in full livery, apprentices on holiday, all combined to give the City a festive look. Bells were tolled, cannon were fired in long salute. Practically the entire peerage of the kingdom came to play their parts in the ceremony. But pomp and spectacle did not make the event popular. Noblemen and court officials might bend the knee to the new Queen, but as she, a shimmering vision of jewels and satin and velvet, passed through the streets, there were many heads left covered and there were cries of "Whore!"

Now that the divorce was an accomplished fact, it was thought that perhaps Thomas More, as a sensible man, would give up his passive resistance and attend the Coronation ceremony.

Two Bishops acted as the King's agents, but More declined the invitation, pleading poverty. Promptly they offered to pay for a velvet costume suitable to the ceremony. Again the ex-Lord Chancellor refused. In doing so, he recited a little tale. Once upon a time, it seemed, there was an Emperor who had condemned a maiden to die for some infringement of the law. But the death penalty could not be enforced because she was a virgin and he had previously decreed that no virgin should ever be put to death. His problem was solved by one of his council who said: "Why make you so much ado, my Lords, about so small a matter? Let her first be deflowered, and then after may she be devoured."

"Now, my Lords," said Thomas More to the King's messengers, "it lieth not in my power that they may devour me but God being my good lord, I will provide that they shall never deflower me."[l2]

He knew his Tacitus and was comparing the regime of the Emperor Tiberius with that of Henry. The Bishops were dismissed with a smile, but it is certain that the news they carried back to court was not received in a like manner. Anne Boleyn, at this supreme moment of her triumph, about to be formally made Queen of the realm, and with the heir of the realm, she believed, stirring in her belly, was affronted and angry. It was inevitable that Sir Thomas More would soon feel the weight of the King's displeasure.

The campaign to discredit and ruin him began with charges that he had accepted bribes when he was Lord Chancellor. More, brought before the Privy Council, to the surprise of everybody, readily admitted to having received a gilt cup as a New Year's present from the wife of an interested party. His admission brought great joy to Anne Boleyn's father, the Earl of Wiltshire. "Lo! did I not tell you, my Lords," he cried, "that you would find this matter true?"

More calmly begged the Lords to hear his part of the tale. After having drunk to her of wine with which his butler had filled the cup, and when she too had pledged, he restored it to her to give to her husband as a New Year's gift.

The next accusation again concerned a gilt cup. This time it was proved that More had accepted a cup from one by the name of Gresham, but it was also proved that he had given the donor a cup of far greater value in exchange. The next charge alleged that he had favoured a Mrs. Croker in his Court and that she had rewarded him with a pair of gloves in which were packed gold pieces. Quite readily More admitted that he had taken the gloves, but it was quickly shown that he had given the gold back to the woman with the words: "Mistress, since it were against good manners to forsake a gentlewoman's New Year's gift, I am content to take your gloves, but as for your money, I utterly refuse."[l3]

More had taken his position and was resolved to maintain it, but he was also determined that he would not be foolhardy. Possessed of one of the best legal minds of England, he set about to employ his talents as though engaged in some ordinary business of litigation. The King's Council published a book of nine articles upholding the marriage. It was said that More had written an attack on this book and had plans to have it printed. Promptly he wrote to Cromwell: "I will, by the grace of Almighty God, as long as it shall please him to lend me life in this world . . . truly say my mind and discharge my conscience, as becometh a poor honest true man, wheresoever I shall be by his grace commanded. Yet, surely, if it should happen any book to come abroad in the name of his grace or his honourable council, if that book to me seemed such as myself would not have given mine own advice to the making, yet I know my bounder duty, to bear more honour to my prince, and more reverence to his honourable council, than that it could become me for many causes, to make an answer unto such a book, or to council and advise any man else to do it.''[l4]

Well aware of More's ability and eloquence, and also deeply conscious of his popularity, Cromwell, who was planning the attack, had no wish to put the former Lord Chancellor before an ordinary Court of Law. But there came, so he thought, an opportunity to trap More. The activities of a certain Benedictine nun were, at this time, attracting considerable attention. Her name was Elizabeth Barton, and she claimed she had seen visions and had been given revelations. The stories were credible enough to win for her a pious reputation, and to be called the Holy Maid of Kent. Many distinguished divines, including the Archbishop Warham and Fisher, were impressed by her and had gone to listen to her testimony. With his keen interest in all things pertaining to religion, More also visited and talked with her, thus giving Cranmer his chance. For the Holy Maid, in her supernatural venturings, claiming that she was speaking with the authority of the voice of heaven, had censured the King and declared that Catherine was his legal wife. She prophesied that Henry would lose his throne if he persisted in his alliance with Anne Boleyn.

Her statements could not go unnoticed. She had many followers including two priests, the Fathers Risby and Rich. Along with these two and some others, she was arrested, charged with high treason and finally executed. The names of Fisher and More were brought into the proceedings, and they were accused of being sympathetic to the woman and of neglecting their duty in not reporting her treasonable statement. Fisher had been indiscreet enough to listen to the nun's criticism of Henry's conduct, but with More it was different. He asked that he be given a public hearing, but his request was denied. Instead he was brought before a committee which consisted of his successor in office, Lord Audley, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, the Duke of Norfolk, and Cromwell himself.

In preparation for the tactics and strategies that he knew would be employed to ensnare him, More already had written a full account for both Cromwell and the King of his dealings with the nun. He admitted to having visited her. But when Father Risby had sought to tell him of her thoughts on the divorce, More had refused to listen, and when her other priestly supporter endeavoured to engage in a similar conversation, he had received like treatment. In fact, More stated, he had warned the lady in a letter. "It sufficeth me, Good Madam," he had written, "to put you in remembrance of such things as I nothing doubt your wisdom and the Spirit of God shall keep you from talking with any persons, specially with lay persons, of any such manner things as pertain to Prince's affairs, or the state of the realm, but only to commune and talk with any person, high and low, of such manner things as may to the soul be profitable for you to show and for them to know."[15]

His statement had been received by the King and by Cromwell. Nevertheless he was brought before the special committee. At first, they treated him with elaborate kindness. Instead of dwelling on his alleged offense, they reminded him of the favours that the King had shown him in the past, and hinted that further rewards would proceed from the same source, if he were but amenable. Why, they asked, should he persist in obstinacy and go against that which had received the approval and sanction of both

Houses of Parliament and the principal universities of Christendom? If he would but join in this approval, there was neither worldly honour nor profit that His Majesty would deny him. More admitted the kindnesses that had been shown him by the King, but replied that: "I verily hoped that I should never have heard of this matter more, considering that I have from time to time, always from the beginning, so plainly and truly declared my mind unto his grace, which his highness to me ever seemed, like a most gracious prince, very well to accept, never minding, as he said to molest me more therewith . . .''[16]

The Council now changed its tactics. The mock solicitude was replaced by severity. If he did not fall in with their thinking, the King would believe "that never was there servant to his sovereign so villainous nor subject to his prince so traitorous as he." He was told that the King now regretted having written the Assertion of the Seven Sacraments and that as he looked back he believed it was More who had induced him to take up the literary cudgels on behalf of Papal authority.

This revelation of the King's thinking, and the promise of his anger, did not intimidate More. "My lords," he answered them, "these terrors be arguments for children and not for me. But to answer that wherewith you chiefly burden me, I believe the king's highness, of his honor, will never lay that to my charge . . ." He recalled the conversation in which he had advised the King to touch more slenderly on the Pope's authority, and Henry's acknowledgement that he was so bound to the See of Rome that he could not do it too much honour. "So that I trust," concluded More, "when his grace shall be once truly informed of this, and call to his gracious remembrance my doing in that behalf, his highness will never speak of it more, but clear me thoroughly therein himself."

After the delivery of this response, he was dismissed with a coldness that boded ill. He knew the King would soon learn of his stand, and he knew too that there could be no uncertainty as to his fate. But he had served his duty and his conscience, and the knowledge of this gave him such inner content that his son-in-iaw, who was anxiously waiting for him. misunderstood his calmness.

"I trust, Sir, that all is well," he greeted More, "because that you be so merry."

"It is so, indeed, son Roper," answered More.

"Are you then put out of the parliament bill?"

"By my troth, son Roper," said More with a smile, "I never remembered it."

"Never remembered it, Sir," said the startled young man. "A case that toucheth yourself so near, and us all for your sake. I am sorry to hear it; for I verily trusted, when I saw you so merry, that all had been well."

"Wilt thou know, son Roper, why I was so merry?"

"That would I gladly, Sir," was the answer.

"In good faith I rejoiced, Son, that I had given the devil a foul fall that with those Lords I had gone so far as without great shame I could never go back again."

And Roper records that upon hearing these words he waxed "very sad for though himself liked it well yet liked it me but a little."

More conducted his case so correctly that for the moment Henry's purpose was delayed. The Council, in fear of public opinion, told the King, "for in this case of the nun he was accounted . . . so innocent and clear, that for his dealing therein men reckoned him far worthier of praise than reproof."[l7]

When he heard this report, Henry exhibited a tremendous anger, and swore that he would appear before the Lords in person and by his presence insure that More's name would be included in the Bill of Attainder. His advisers dissuaded him from this violent action and convinced him that a better and more fit occasion would soon be found to punish More.

It was his daughter, Margaret, who told More that his name was not included in the Bill of Attainder which had been passed against the Holy Maid and her associates. She was happy in her information, but her father was wiser, telling her: "In faith, Meg, qued dilfertur non aufertur." What is postponed is not abandoned.

The Duke of Norfolk was of this opinion also, and because of past associations, or perhaps conscious and apprehensive that any injustice or hurt rendered to a man so widely respected would result in a wave of protest and horror, solemnly warned him that the indignation of a Prince is death.

"By the Mass, Master More," he said, "it is perilous striving with Princes. And therefore, I would wish you somewhat to incline to the King's pleasure; for by God body, Master More, Indignatio principis mors est."

"Is that all, my Lord," was the calm response, "then in good faith is there no more difference between your grace and me, but that I shall die today and you tomorrow.''[l8]

He made another prophecy, this time to his daughter. She was telling him of the gaieties of the new Queen: "There is nothing else in the Court but dancing and sporting."

"Alas Meg, alas it pitieth me," he told her, "to remember unto what misery, poor soul, she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn our heads off like footballs; but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance."[19]

The Story of Thomas More, John Farrow

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