Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/281

1535.] possible in outward parts, as well to defame and slander his Majesty, and his most virtuous doings and proceedings, as also to procure the impeachment and other destruction of his most royal person.' Cromwell speaks also of their having been engaged in definite schemes, the object of which was rebellion; and although we have here the ex parte statement of the Government, and although such a charge would have been held to be justified by a proof that they had spoken generally against the Act of Supremacy, it may be allowed to prove that so far they were really guilty; and it is equally certain that for these two men to have spoken against the Act was to have lent encouragement to the party of insurrection, the most powerful which that party could have received.

Thus, by another necessity, Fisher and More, at the beginning of May, were called upon for their submission. It was a hard case, for the Bishop was sinking into the grave with age and sickness, and More had the highest reputation of any living man. But they had chosen to make themselves conspicuous as confessors for Catholic truth; though prisoners in the Tower, they were in fact the most effectual champions of the Papal claims; and if their disobedience had been passed over, the statute could have been enforced against no one.

The same course was followed as with the Carthusian