ideas were entirely new to the king.

When Crum

well had concluded his discourse, and stood with his eyes timidly fixed on the floor, Henry regarded him for a moment in silence, and then asked him if he could prove that these things were feasible. Crumwell raised his eyes modestly from the ground, and assured his Majesty that he could prove it all to his satisfaction. The king was satisfied, thanked the man whose logic was so convincing, and ordered him forthwith to be sworn of his privycouncil.

1531. On the 7th of February, a bill was brought into the lords, in which was the following clause: "Acknowledging the king to be the protector_and only supreme head of the church and clergy of England." It was only after long struggles that the good Warham and others could obtain the modification"under God;" and finally that the clause should run as follows: "of which church and clergy, we acknowledge his majesty to be the chief protector, the only and supreme lord, and, as far as the law of Christ will allow, the supreme head." Crumwell rose successively to the offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and of first secretary to the king. It only remained to crown his ambition by a title hitherto unheard of. He was appointed, according to the express terms of the patent," royal vicegerent, vicargeneral, and principal commissary, with all the spiritual authority belonging to the king as head of the church, for the due administration of justice, in all cases touching the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the godly reformation and redress of all errors, heresies, and abuses in the said church." "Here, then," exclaims the zealous Roper, "we have the king, and the man commissioned by him, made sole judges in matters of faith, and all ecclesiastical discipline put into their hands. The commission given by our Saviour to his apostles, and their successors, is set aside by human law, and the authority they received

from heaven transferred upon the state. The care of souls is made to devolve upon the civil power, and the being of Christianity to depend upon the will of the magistrate!" He afterwards adds; "to show how much Henry triumphed in his new style and title, a medal was struck, on one side of which was his effigy, and on the reverse three inscriptions, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, commemorative of the event."

March, 30. In order, asfar as possible, to prevent the impression on the public mind likely to be produced by Clement's inhibitory brief, More, in his official capacity as Chancellor, attended by twelve of the peers, went down to the lower house; the answers of the universities were read, and a formidable pile of papers, said to contain the opinions of theologians and canonists, was exhibited. After the prorogation on the following day, several lords were deputed to wait on the queen, and to request that, for the quiet of the king's conscience, she would refer the matter to the decision of four temporal and four spiritual peers. "God grant him a quiet conscience," was the reply, "but this shall be your answer: I am his wife, lawfully married to him by order of the holy church; and so will I abide till the court of Rome, which was privy to the beginning, shall have made thereof an end." A second deputation was sent with an order for her to leave the palace at Windsor, "Go where I may," was her answer, "I shall still be his lawful wife." From that day Catharine and Henry never more saw each other. She repaired to the royal seat of the Moor,

*This gave occasion to a severe remark, which is embodied in the following epigram :

"A fearful sacrilege we see,

Which fills good men with pain;
For lo! beneath inscriptions three,
Christ, in his Church's person, he
Has crucified again!"

thence to East-Hampstead, and at last fixed her residence at Ampthill, in Bedfordshire.*

It was about this period that More lost his father. After a long life of useful duties and unblemished integrity, Sir John More was gathered to his fathers at nearly the age of ninety. He had lived to see his son attain the highest honours in the kingdom to which a subject is eligible, and he was called away in time to be spared the pain of witnessing the cruelty and injustice by which he was to be pursued to the scaffold. Acquainted as the reader is with the heart of Sir Thomas, it is hardly necessary to tell him that, on this trying occasion, he gave the strongest proofs of filial affection; and that the old man breathed his last in his arms, cheered by his prayers and consoled by every tender office that love and religion can bestow.

Little, if any, increase of fortune accrued to More by his father's death. Sir John's last wife was still living, and she enjoyed the benefit of the greater portion of her husband's property. More, in his Apology," has the following observations on this subject: "As for all the lands and fees that I have in all England, beside such lands and fees as I have of the gift of the king's most noble grace, is not at this day, nor shall be while my mother-in-law lives (whose life and good health I pray God may keep and continue) worth yearly to my living, the sum of full fifty pounds." From such data as these we may estimate the value of More's charities, of his liberal spirit, and his contempt of wealth.

In the meantime, the situation of Sir Thomas grew daily more embarrassing. The high offices to which he had been raised by the king, the marked degree of personal favour hitherto shown to him, and the natural tendency of his gentle and

"In days of old here Ampthill's towers were seen,
The mournful refuge of an injured queen."-Scott.

amiable disposition, combined to disincline him to resist, as far as the utmost limits of his conscience would allow, the wishes of his friendly master. On the other hand, his deep sense of religion, and his reverence for the authority of the church, made him view with suspicion and alarm the conduct of Henry, and those designs which were visibly tending towards a rupture with the Roman See, the great centre of Catholic unity. Together with these loftier principles, he was at the same time influenced by the humane feelings of his just and generous nature, which engaged his heart to espouse the cause of a blameless and wronged princess, driven from the throne and from the bed of a tyrannical husband. Nor can it be forgotten that More had been admitted to the family privacy, the fire-side intimacies of the king and queen, and consequently had every opportunity of seeing and appreciating the many virtues and estimable qualities of this best of women.*

"In steering his course through the intrigues and passions of the court," we quote Sir J. Mackintosh, "it is very observable that More most warily retired from every opposition but that which conscience absolutely required: he shunned unnecessary disobedience as much as unconscientious compliance. If he had been influenced solely by prudential considerations, he could not have more cautiously shunned every needless opposition; but in that case he would not have gone so far. He displayed, at the time of which we now speak, that very peculiar excellence of his character, which, as it showed his

Of her
That, like a jewel, has hung twenty years
About his neck, yet never lost her lustre;
Of her that loves him with that excellence
Which angels love good men with; e'en of her
That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,
Will bless the king.-

SHAKSPEARE, Henry VIII.

submission to be the fruit of sense of duty, gave dignity to that which in others is apt to seem and to be slavish."

The anxieties of More increased with the approach towards the execution of the king's projects of divorce and second marriage. Some anecdotes of this period are preserved by the affectionate and descriptive pen of Margaret Roper's husband, which, as he evidently reports in the chancellor's language, it would be unpardonable to relate in any other words than those of the venerable man himself.

We have already seen that the banks of the Thames, in front of Sir Thomas's residence, was his favourite promenade after the business of the day. His son-in-law Roper was frequently the companion of his walk. On one of these occasions after his return from his duties at court, he thus addressed his son-in-law, in a tone of more than usual earnestness: "Now, would to our Lord, son Roper, upon condition that three things were well established in Christendom, I were put into a sack, and were presently cast into the Thames."-"What great things be those, sir," quoth I, "that should move you so to wish ?"" In faith, son, they be these," said he. "The first is, that, whereas the most part of Christian princes be at mortal war, they were all at universal peace. The second, that, whereas the church of Christ is at present sore afflicted with many errors and heresies, it were well settled in perfect uniformity of religion. The third, that, as the matter of the king's marriage is now come in question, it were, to the glory of God and quietness of all parties, brought to a good conclusion.

On another occasion, as he was proceeding in his barge to Westminster, to attend to his official duties, the following scene took place between him, and his faithful servant, John Harris. When the weather was fair, Sir Thomas used to read the whole way, for, when against the tide, it was a good hour's row;