Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/139

 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 unto your honourable lordships that I would in so weighty a cause so unadvisedly overshoot myself as to trust Master Rich, a man of me always reputed of so little truth, 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 unto the king's highness himself or to any of his honourable counsellors, as it is not unknown unto your honours at sundry and several times sent from his grace's own person to the Tower unto me for none other purpose. Can this in your judgment, my lords, seem likely to be true? And if I had so done indeed, my lords, as Master Rich hath sworn, seeing it was spoken but in familiar secret talk, nothing affirming, and only in putting of cases, without other displeasant circumstances, it cannot justly be taken to be spoken maliciously: and where there is no malice, there can be no offence. And over this I can never think, my lords, that so many worthy bishops, so many honourable personages, and many other worshipful, virtuous, wise and well learned men as at the making of