and deliver him for trial to the ecclesiastical authorities, who were the proper judges in religious matters. If he was present at the trial, and sought to induce the accused to retract, it was most likely through motives of humanity; at all events, he had no hand whatever in the sentence, for his judicial authority ceased with his delivery of the culprit to the spiritual tribunal. We must bear in mind that laws then existed against heretics, and, however much More might be opposed to them, he was bound, by virtue of his office, to execute them, exactly as other severe or unjust enactments of the criminal code, of which he just as strongly disapproved. He is as much bound by law to issue the writ "de hæretico comburendo" against Lollardists and Lutherans, as to pronounce sentence of death upon those guilty of theft. The act is proper legally, though morally unjust. Fields, who is also claimed by Mr. Fronde as a sufferer for justice' sake, was not tried for heresy, as is apparent from his memorial to Audley, for he was sentenced by the Star Chamber to imprisonment in the Fleet. Bilney, another of the unhappy victims, whose fate excites the sympathies of the paradoxical historian, was first tried before Wolsey, not in the capacity of Chancellor of England, but of Bishop of York; afterwards he recanted, at the instance of the Bishop of London, and having relapsed he was sent to the stake by the Bishop of Norwich. More maintains that Bilney died a Catholic, and Foxe furiously vituperates him, not (as Mr. Fronde probably supposed) for having sentenced one more martyr to die in the cause of truth, but for seeking to erase a name from the Protestant martyrology. Baynham, the last sacrifice to More's bitter. hatred of orthodoxy, was not condemned, as Foxe himself admits, by Sir Thomas, but by Braford, the vicar-general of London diocese; and he was not chained to a tree in More's garden and whipped, for More distinctly disclaims having used violence in any cases but those already mentioned. When Fronde furthermore charges More with a disregard of the statutes of the Fourth and Fifth Henries, limiting to a certain time the period of imprisonment, he evidently forgets the proclamation of 1529, granting power to the bishops to hold heretics in custody at their discretion. † The king's • Preface to Refutation of Tindale. † Given in Foxe, iv., 677. proclamations, according to the concessions of the Parliament, had the validity of law, and, consequently, to act in contravention to the authority thus conferred upon the bishops, would be illegal, and at the same time hazardous to the heretics, for they would then exchange the prison for the stake. If, then, we recollect that More's administration occurred during a season of violent persecution; that intolerance was the creed of the age; that he himself finally had been drawn, though with the greatest reluctance, to adopt it as a theory; that he was filled with horror at the excesses of the Anabaptists in Germany and the Lutherans in Italy; we must acknowledge that, abstaining as he did from any personal share in the detestable practices of the times, he gave stronger proofs of charity, humanity, and enlightenment than any other man of his day. Now come the days of More's trials and glory. Anne Boleyn, who had been previously privately married to Henry, is crowned on the first of June, 1533; but More, who is not one of those glow-worms that shine in the summer of their friends' good fortune, and crawl away in the adverse storm, shows his attachment to the unfortunate Catharine by absenting himself from the imposing pageant. This silent rebuke to "The minions of splendor, shrinking from distress," is made known to the king by officious courtiers, and Henry, probably prompted by his new queen, only seeks a pretence to visit More with his displeasure. The affair of the Nun of Kent furnishes an opportunity, and the names of More, Fisher and others are placed together on a bill of attainder, for having given credence to the ravings of the religious enthusiast. More clears himself of the charge, in a letter to Cromwell, but is examined by a deputation, and counselled to change his opinions concerning the divorce. He persists in maintaining his former convictions, and when he is threatened with the king's displeasure, if he is obstinate, he calmly replies: "These terrors be arguments for children, not for me." And he went home rejoicing, and said to Roper: "I will tell thee why I am so merry, son Roper; it is because I have given the devil a foul fall, and that with these lords I have gone so far as without great shame I can never go back again."+ With nothing foolhardy or reckless in his disposi * Roper, 70. † Ibid. tion, that inclined him to court danger for its excitement, More passes through the trial, when it comes, with quiet steadiness, heartily rejoicing that he had, at the hazard of his life, resisted a strong temptation and escaped the seductions of a corrupt court. The Duke of Norfolk is afterward dispatched to exert every means, persuasion, entreaty, and threats, to induce the ex-Chancellor to acknowledge his concurrence in the decisions on the divorce pronounced by the universities and bishops. "By the mass! Master More, it is perilous striving with princes; the anger of a prince brings death." "Is that all?" rejoined More. "Then the difference between you and me is but this-that I shall die to-day and you to-morrow."* On account of his opposition to the king, Lord Manners charges him with ingratitude for the royal favors, saying bitterly: "Even so the old proverb is, 'Honores mutant Mores."""The proverb is most apt, my lord, if rightly translated," retorted Sir Thomas, " Honors change manners."+ The statutes are then passed, conferring spiritual supremacy upon the king, establishing the succession, and legalizing Henry's second marriage; and it is made high treason to slander said marriage, or to seek to prejudice the rightful succession, if the offence is committed by writing, printing, or deed, and misprision, if by words only. More is commanded to proceed to Lambeth, to take the oath before the four commissioners. He knows the consequence of a refusal to subscribe to the test. He has pondered the matter deeply and weighed the cost. "If I have to choose between my conscience and the scaffold, shall I take the oath against my conscience and live, or shall I refuse it and die?" "As the city of London could not make a law against an act of Parliament, which bound the whole nation, neither could this realm make a particular law, incompatible with the general law of Christ's Universal Catholic Church." And so he chooses. It was clearly beyond the jurisdiction of Parliament to make the king head of the Church, and More's conscience will not allow him to acknowledge authority which Henry himself had, in former days, disclaimed. Parliament may lawfully settle the succession, and More is Roper, 73. + Cresacre; also Sir Richard Balstrope's Essays, 1715. Trial, given in Roper. willing to swear to it as established, but he cannot consistently take the oath. He is then sent to the Tower,* and, until the moment of his death, his fortitude and vivacity do not forsake him. At the gate of the Tower lodge the porter demands the customary perquisite of his office, the prisoner's upper garment. "Marry, good Master porter, here it is, and sorry am I that it is no better," said Sir Thomas, as he proffered the officer his cap. He meets Bishop Fisher in the Tower-yard, and accosts him: "Well met, my lord; I hope we shall meet in heaven." And Fisher, as he enters the archway, answers: "This should be the way, Sir Thomas. 'Tis a very strait gate we are in." As the gay knight enters his apartment in that famed Bastile, he observes gravely to the keeper: "Good Master Lieutenant, methinks I shall have no reason to mislike my fare; but, whenever I do, do not, I pray you, spare me, but thrust me out of your doors at once."§ New trials await him still, for his daughter and wife seek, by tears and entreaty, to shake his firmness. Worldly Alice upbraids him with the folly of biding in a filthy prison, when he might be, if he willed, in his right fair home at Chelsea. "Yea, in God's name, I muse what you mean by still fondly tarrying here?" "Why, good Alice, tell me one thing, answered her gentle husband, "is not this house as near heaven as mine own?"|| But Alice insists on the madness of resisting the test, when, by taking it, he might be free, and "lead a happy life in his home, perhaps, for twenty years to come." "Well, now, good Alice," replied he, "if you had said some thousand, nay some hundred years, it had been somewhat; and yet he were a very bad calculator that would risk the losing of an eternity for some hundred or thousand years."¶ He remains firm as a rock; no solicitations can affect his resolution; no influence that can be brought to bear upon him causes him to swerve in the least from the strict path of rectitude. When duty points the way, he cannot choose but follow its directions. Though others, remarkable for wisdom and piety, freely take the oath, their example does not move More, for he intends not "to pin his soul to any man's back, * April 17th, 1534. † Cresacre, 134. § Rastell. ¶ Ibid. not even the best at that day living, for he knows not whither he might hap to carry it." He stands, amid the universal backsliding, almost the only bright example of adherence to principle and obedience to conscience. It is useless to dilate on his prison life, though it is the most interesting portion of his eventful career. His irrepressible cheerfulness, his calm resignation, his trustfulness in God, his diffidence in his own strength, his mental activity, expending itself in the composition of his touching letters and devotional works-the noblest legacy of his genius to mankind; his ingenious devices to maintain the communication with his relatives and friends, and his continual practices of piety, evincing the depth of his religious feelings, are all matters of history. With Lovelace, who was afterwards confined within the same dark walls, he could feel that "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage." Neither need we linger over the records of his trial in that very court, where he himself had, in former days, presided with such honor. Never was there a nobler prisoner arraigned before any bar in a nobler cause, and never did one deport himself more nobly. His respectfulness, simplicity, calmness, dignity, and adherence to legal forms, won the unwilling admiration of his judges, though his unanswerable defence did not procure him justice. Audley pronounces against him sentence of law for treason-hanging, drawing, and quartering-but immediately informs him that the king, in consideration of his former high station, commuted his punishment to decapitation. "I thank his grace for his kindness," said the unnerved prisoner, "but I pray God to preserve all my friends from favors such as these." Now, indeed, was the field at last won. The dread ordeal was passed, and he, who had so much mistrusted his own fortitude, bore himself with more calmness, strength, and cheerfulness than those who were tasked with depriving him of life. Fronde, with a fidelity and grace wholly his own, describes the last wonderful scene in his life: "The four days which remained to him, he spent in prayer and in severe bodily discipline. On the night of the 5th of July, although he did • Margaret Roper to Alice Allingham.-Rastell. |