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God! Paul may send him the hat, but I will take care that he shall have never a head to wear it on."

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In a despatch to the King, dated June 12, is the following. "Finally, the said Machon writeth that he, expostulating with the Bishop of Rome for that he had made the Bishop of Rochester a Cardinal, knowing him to be a person whom your Grace favoured not, and who had most worthily deserved your Grace's high indignation, the said Bishop of Rome answered, that he had not done it for any displeasure unto your Highness, but only for that he thought him, for his singular learning and good living, to be a person most meet to be present in the General Council, there to give his aid and assistance in such doubts as might arise."

From this moment, Fisher's fate was sealed; and the same base and cruel means was employed to get him into Henry's power, which was afterwards practised with the same success upon More himself. Rich, the solicitor-general, a man

"damned to everlasting fame.”

was sent to the unsuspecting Bishop with a message from the king. He informed him, that his majesty, for the better satisfaction of his own conscience, had sent him, in this secret manner, to know his opinion of the Supremacy; and, in order the more to encourage him to make a disclosure of

"With this scurvy jest, and with such brutal defiance, did Henry begin his new career of sanguinary tyranny."-Sir J. Mackintosh.

Bad as was the king's jest, it seems to have been thought a capital thing at the time, for the historians of this period have tried to improve it. "The Pope," says old Hall," did send the Cardinal's hat as far as Calais, but the head it should have fitted, was as high as London Bridge, ere ever the hat could come."

Hollinshead attempts a new turn:

"The hat came as far as Calais, but the head was off before the hat was on so that they met not."

Old Fuller phrases it thus:

"Fisher had made a monument for himself, and had a Cardinal's hat sent for him; but neither his head came into the hat, nor his body into the monument."

his mind, Rich added, that the king assured him, on his honour, that, whatever he should say to him, he should abide no danger or peril for it, nor should any advantage be taken of the opinions thus confidentially communicated. Trusting to this promise, and unsuspecting of any snare, Fisher inconsiderately declared-"That as to the business of the Supremacy, he must needs repeat to His Majesty, what he had often told him before, and would so tell him were he to die that very hour, that it was utterly unlawful, and that the king should beware of taking such title upon him, as he valued his own soul, and the good of his posterity." For these words, Fisher was brought to trial, found guilty on the evidence of Rich, and condemned to be beheaded. He suffered with the serenity and heroism that might be expected from his character. Being in. formed at five o'clock in the morning of the day of his execution, that it was his last, he received the intelligence with an unchanged countenance, and laying himself on his pallet, slept soundly for two hours. He then rose and dressed himself with unusual care, which being remarked by his attendant, who hinted that he would soon have to doff this better suit

"What of that, John," said he, "dost thou not know that this is my marriage-day, and that it behooves me, on so joyful an occasion, to go appareled in my best?" The veneration which Henry once bore to this admirable man, the personal friend of his father, of whose counsellors he was the last survivor, and the prelate to whose care his pious mother, on her death-bed, had recommended the inexperience of his youth, seems now to have been changed into brute and unrelenting hatred. Not content with the execution of the venerable prelate, he ordered the dead body to be stripped, and after being exposed for some hours to the gaze of the populace, to be thrown into the grave without coffin or shroud."

⚫ Erasmus thus sums up the character of Fisher-"I know of none

March 30. This being the closing day of the parliamentary session of 1534, the chancellor Aud, ley, when the commons were at the bar of the house of lords, but when they could neither deliberate, nor assent, read the king's letters patent, containing the form of an oath relative to the succession and other matters, and appointing the archbishop of Canterbury, the chancellor, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, to be commissioners for administering it. No time was lost in putting to the test the firmness of the ex-chancellor. On the 13th of April, More was summoned to appear before the commissioners at Lambeth, to take an oath to a law, which one of the ablest lawyers of our age pro nounces to be a monstrous and tyrannical edict, miscalled a law."* The fatal summons found him engaged in his studies in his quiet retreat at Chel sea: but the blow did not reach him unprepared. Having, as Cresacre informs us, a presentment of what was that day to take place, he had risen at an earlier hour than usual, and repaired to Chelsea church, where he was confessed, and, at an early mass, devoutly received the blessed sacrament; as he was always accustomed to do, when any matter of importance was to be undertaken.

The reader who knows not " of what spirit those times were," will be astonished to learn, that the same pursuivants who came to apprehend the knight, were also furnished with a warrant for searching his premises, it being thought that he was not really so poor as he pretended to be. Unmoved by the indignity thus offered him, in violating his

to compare to him for integrity of life, for extent of learning, and for greatness of soul."

Storer has some beautiful verses to his memory, which terminate thus:

One patriarch-like, and grave in all designs ;
Who finish'd well his long, long pilgrimage:
A man made old to teach the worth of age!

* Sir James Mackintosh, Hist. Eng. vol. ii. p. 152.

domestic sanctuary, More lost nothing of his habitual gaiety. While the officers were upon the search, he told his daughter Margaret that those who thus doubted the truth of his poverty and were determined to ascertain the fact, would have nothing for their pains; "unless," added he, glancing his eye roguishly towards his wife" unless they should happen to find Alice's gay girdle, and her gold beads."

More now prepared to attend the summons, and begged his son-in-law Roper to accompany him.

It had been his custom to start at an early hour for Westminster, to attend to his official duties; and regularly as the morning came, did his attentive wife and affectionate children accompany the fond father to the water-side, where he took his barge. On the way, he was sure to have some little piece of well-timed advice for one, and his ready jest for another; and on leaving them for the day, he kissed them all, and waved his hand in farewell as the boat parted and he lost sight of them among the trees. On this occasion, they accompanied him as usual, but no merry jest enlivened the walk. The future was present before him, and the father's heart was full. He felt this moment of unusual weakness, and mistrusted himself. It was not for him at such a time to add to the anguish of his family. Therefore, when they came to the garden-gate that led to the bank of the Thames, he stopped, kissed them all with more than usual fondness, and begged them to return to the house and pray for him. Then, carefully clos ing the wicket after him, he went into the boat with Roper and four of his servants. He turned not his eyes once back towards the garden, to wave hls wonted farewell; and was spared the additional pang of beholding his favourite Margaret, who had lin gered behind the rest, unable to tear herself from the spot. His countenance, says his son-in-law, bespoke heavy heart, and for some time he sat wrapped in silent thought. It was evident that the internal con

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flict was strong: but, at last, "his mind being lightened and relieved by those high principles to which, with him, every low consideration yielded," he pressed Roper's arm, and said to him in a significant whisper "Son Roper, I thank our Lord the field is won!" What he meant thereby, continues Roper, I knew not at the time; but being loth to appear ignorant, I answered, "Sir, I am very glad thereof." But, as I conjectured, it was the love he had to God, which wrought in him so effectually, as to conquer all his animal affections.

On appearing before the commissioners, and after having read the statute and the form of the oath, he declared his readiness to swear that he would maintain and defend the order of succession to the crown as established by parliament. He disclaimed all censure of those who had imposed, or those who had taken the oath, but declared it to be impossible that he should swear to the whole contents of it without offending against his own conscience; adding, that if they doubted whether his refusal proceeded from pure scruple of conscience or from his own phantasies, he was willing to satisfy their doubts by oath. The commissioners urged that he was the first who refused it; they showed him the subscriptions of all the lords and commoners who had sworn; they held out the king's sure displeasure at the single recusant. When he was called on a second time, they charged him with obstinacy for not mentioning any special part of the oath which wounded his conscience.*

He answered, that if he were to open his reasons for refusal farther, he should exasperate the king still more. He offered, however, to assign his reasons, if the lords would procure his highness's gracious assurance, that the avowal of the grounds of his

Speaking of the oath he compared it to a two-edged sword: if he took it, his soul would suffer a wound; if he refused it, his body. More's spirit, to use a figure of Lord Bacon's, was the "very kneetimber of honesty, knit in the natural fibre, and by no arts to be suppled or relaxed,"

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