Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/233

] upon London Bridge, with his face turned towards the Kentish hills, amid which he had spent so many pleasant years. The body of the old bishop was stripped, and left naked on the spot till evening, when it was carried away by the guards, and buried in Allhallows churchyard at Barking. Such was the manner in which this supreme head of the Church treated his former tutor, and one of the most accomplished and pious men of Christendom.

More, the scholar, the wit, the genius, raised reluctantly to the chancellorship, had there so far been deteriorated from the noble mood in which he had written his "Utopia" as to have become, contrary to all its doctrines and spirit, a persecutor. He had even degraded his wit by exercising it, with a sad levity, on his victims, yet not so hopelessly but that the wit of others could awaken his old nature in him. A man of the name of Silver being brought before him for heresy, Sir Thomas said, "Silver, you must be tried by fire." "Yes, my lord," replied the prisoner, "but you know that quicksilver cannot abide the fire." The chancellor, who would have burned the heretic, at once set at liberty the undaunted punster. On the 14th of June he was visited in the Tower by Doctors Aldridge, Layton, Curwen, and Mr. Bedle, and there strictly interrogated in the presence of Pelstede, Whalley, and Rice, as to whether he had held any correspondence since he came into the Tower with Bishop Fisher, or others, and what had become of the letters he had received. He replied that George, the lieutenant's servant, had put them into the fire, contrary to his wish, saying there was no better keeper than the fire. He was then asked whether he would not acknowledge the lawfulness of the king's marriage, and his headship of the Church. He declined to give an answer.

But he had over and over said enough to satisfy any one but the king in his present mood. He had written a most touching letter, saying, "I am the king's true, faithful subject, and daily bedesman. I pray for his highness, and all his, and all the realm. I do nothing harm; I say no harm; I think no harm; and wish everybody good; and if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live. I am dying already, and since I came here have been divers times in the case that I thought to die within one hour. And, I thank our Lord, was never sorry for it, but rather sorry when I saw the pang past; and, therefore, my poor body is at the king's pleasure. Would to God my death might do him good!"

The stern monarch, however, so far from being sensible to the generous sentiments of such a man, equally celebrated for his talents and his virtues, only sought to make his confinement the more miserable. He sent Rich, the Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord Rich, to take away all More's books, papers, and writing materials. But, probably, by means of George, the good-hearted servant to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who dared more in his favour than any man of more account in the world's eye, he obtained a scrap of paper, and wrote upon it his last affecting letter to his daughter, who had in vain earnestly and repeatedly implored him to submit to the king, and take the oath. But More would not now pollute his conscience to save the wretched residue of his life. Though he had formerly so far forgotten himself as to force other men's consciences, he now stood firmly for his own.

At length, on the 1st of July, he was brought out of the Tower, and was conducted on foot through the streets of London to Westminster. He was wrapped only in a coarse woollen garment, his hair was become grey, his face was pale and emaciated, for he had been nearly a year a close prisoner. This was thought well calculated to teach a lesson of obedience to the people; when they saw how the king handled even ex-chancellors and cardinals. When he arrived, bowed with suffering, and supporting himself on a staff, in that hall where he had formerly presided with so much dignity, all who saw him were struck with astonishment. In order to confound him, and prevent the dreaded effect of his eloquence, his enemies had caused the indictment against him to be drawn out to an immense length, the charges grossly exaggerated, and enveloped in a world of words.

When this voluminous document had been read through, the Duke of Norfolk, the Chief Justice Fitzjames, and six other commissioners who presided at the trial, informed him that it was still in his power to submit his judgment to the king's, and to receive a full pardon. More declined to accept pardon on such conditions. He declared that though it was impossible for him to remember one-third of the indictment, he could conscientiously say that he had never violated the statute, nor done anything in opposition to the rule of his Sovereign. He acknowledged that he had never approved of the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, but then he had never expressed that disapprobation to any one but to the king himself, and that only when he had commanded him, on his allegiance, to inform him of his real sentiments. The indictment charged him with having traitorously endeavoured to deprive the king of his title of head of the Church. Where, he asked, were the proofs of that? On being committed to the Tower, he had said, when examined, that from the date of his attainder, he was politically dead, and incapable of giving an opinion on the merits of any law; that his only occupation would be to meditate on the passion of Christ, and to prepare for his own death. But in that answer, he had spoken no single word against the statute, he could only be charged with silence, and silence had never yet been declared treason. A second count of the indictment charged him with exhorting Bishop Fisher in letters, while confined in the Tower, to resist the king's supremacy. He denied the charge, and demanded the production of the letters. Again it was stated that Fisher had held the same language as himself, and that was treated as proof of a conspiracy. Whatever Fisher might have said, he contended, was wholly unknown to him; but this he did know, that he had never communicated his own opinion on the subject to any one—no, not to his dearest friends.

But the vile tools of the king were prepared to crush him by means of evidence foul and false. The infamous Rich deposed that in private conversation with More, in the Tower, he had said that "the Parliament cannot make the king the head of the Church, because Parliament is a civil tribunal, without any spiritual authority." On this, More, with a bold dignity, which evidently no longer feared anything that man could do to him, spoke out, and not only utterly denied the statement, but