William Roper

“ Good Madam, I doubt not, but that you remember that in the beginning of my communication with you, I shewed you, that I neither was, nor would be, curious of any knowledge of other men's matters, and least of all of any matter of princes, or of the realm, in case it so were, that God had, as to many good folks beforetime he hath, any time revealed unto you such things, I said unto your ladyship, that I was not only not desirous to hear of, but also would not hear of. Now, Madam, I consider well that many folk desire to speak with you, which are not all peradventure of my mind in this point ”

“ Nevertheless, whatsoever I intended, I am ready obediently to conform myself to his grace's commandment; and I beseech you, good Master Pope, to be a mean to his highness, that my daughter Margaret may be at my burial." "The king is content already," quoth Master Pope, "that your wife, children, and other friends, shall have liberty to be present thereat. "Oh, how much beholden then," said Sir Thomas More, "am I unto his grace, that unto my poor burial vouchsafeth to have so gracious consideration!" Wherewithal Master Pope, taking his leave of him, could not refrain from weeping. ”

“ I must put your highness in remembrance of one thing, and that is this. The pope, as your grace knoweth, is a prince as you are, and in league with all other Christian princes: it may hereafter so fall out that your grace and he may vary upon some points of the league, whereupon may grow breach of amity and war between you both: I think it best therefore that that place be amended, and his authority more slenderly touched. "Nay, quoth his grace, that shall it not: we are so much bounden unto the see of Rome that we cannot do too much honour unto it." ”

“ Now upon this resignment of his office, came Sir Thomas Cromwell, then in the king's high favour, to Chelsea to him with a message from the king. Wherein when they had thoroughly communed together, Master Cromwell, quoth he, you are now entered into the service of a most noble, wise, and liberal prince; if you will follow my poor advice, you shall, in your counsel-giving to his grace, ever tell him what he ought to do, but never what he is able to do. So shall you show yourself a true faithful servant, and a right wise and worthy counsellor. ”

“ His friend Erasmus said of him, that he hated the seditious tenets with which the world was then miserably disturbed: that this he no way dissembled, nor desired should be a secret. Yet this was a sufficient argument of a certain excellent clemency, that whilst he was Chancellor no one was put to death for his disapproved opinions. In a letter of his to Erasmus Sir Thomas very freely owns, that he so far hated that sort of men called hereticks, that unless they repented he would be as troublesome to them as he could: and that this he had declared in his epitaph out of ambition. ”

“ 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? ”

“ But whether ever I heard the same tale of Rich or of Risby, or of neither of them both, but of some other man since she was in hold, in good faith I cannot tell; but I wot well when or wheresoever I heard it, me thought it a tale too marvellous to be true, and very likely that she had told some man her dream, which told it out for a revelation. ”

“ Therefore, most gracious sovereign, considering that in all your high Court of Parliament is nothing treated but matter of weight and importance concerning your realm and your own royal estate, it could not fail to let and put to silence, from the giving of their advice and counsel, many of your discreet Commons, to the great hinderance of the common affairs, except that every one of your Commons were utterly discharged of all doubt and fear how any thing that it should happen them to speak should happen of your highness to be taken. ”

“ But so purpose I to bear my self in every man's company, while I live, that neither good man nor bad, neither monk, friar, nor nun, nor other man or woman in this world, shall make me digress from my truth and faith, either towards God, or towards my natural prince, by the grace of Almighty God ”

“ Whereupon he sent for Sir Thomas Eliott, our English ambassador, and said to him: "My Lord ambassador, we understand that the king your master hath put his faithful servant, and grave wise counsellor, Sir Thomas More, to death." Whereupon Sir Thomas Eliott answered, "that he understood nothing thereof." "Well," said the emperor, "it is too true: and this will we say, that had we been master of such a servant, of whose doings ourselves have had these many years no small experience, we would rather have lost the best city of our dominions, than have lost such a worthy counsellor." ”

“ In 1716, Thomas Hearne, the celebrated antiquary, gave to the world another impression, and boasts of having had the choice of several manuscript copies; he does not however seem to have been fortunate in the one he selected, but he has followed it most scrupulously in every particular, errors and redundancies not excepted. His various readings at the end of the volume offer many emendations, of which he, perhaps with too punctilious accuracy, omitted to avail himself in the construction of his text. ”

“ It may therefore like your most abundant grace, our most benign and godly king, to give to all your Commons here assembled your most gracious license and pardon, freely without doubt of your dreadful displeasure, every man to discharge his conscience, and boldly in every thing incident among us, to declare his advice ”

“ The truth is there were so many persons of corrupt minds and ill principles who abused the Reformation to serve their own vile purposes, that it is not to be at all wondred at that Sir Thomas as well as others entertained very strong prejudices against it. In Germany all was in an uproar; the boors and common people seem'd to act as if all was their own, and that they were now at liberty to plunder whom they pleased. Erasmus, who was on the spot, thus represents their behaviour. ”

“ And if this oath of yours, Master Rich, be true, then I pray that I never see God in the face, which I would not say, were it otherwise, to win the whole world." Then recited he to the court the discourse of all their communication in the Tower according to the truth, and said: "In good faith, Master Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than for mine own peril, and you shall understand that neither I nor no man else to my knowledge, ever took you to be a man of such credit as in any matter of importance I or any other would at any time vouchsafe to communicate with you. ”

“ It sufficeth me, good Madam, to put you in remembrance of such things, as I nothing doubt your wisdom, and the Spirit of God shall keep you from talking with any person, specially with high persons, of any such manner things as pertain to princes affairs, or the state of the realm, but only to commune and talk with any persons high and low, of such manner things as may to the soul be profitable for you to shew, and for them to know. ”

“ Who, at her first coming, like a simple ignorant woman, and somewhat worldly too, with this manner of salutation bluntly saluted him: "What the good yere, Master More," quoth she, "I marvel that you that have been always hitherto taken for so wise a man, will now so play the fool to lie here in this close filthy prison, and be content thus to be shut up among mice and rats, when you might be abroad at your liberty, and with the favour and good will both of the king and his council, if you would but do as all the bishops and best learned of this realm have done. ”

“ His Confutation of Tindal's Answer to his Dialogues, is a proof of this: since there he tells a parcel of stories of Sir Thomas Hitton, Richard Bayfelde, George Constantine, Thomas Bylney, and——Tewksberry, most of them burnt, as serve to very little other purpose than representing those men as the weakest fools as well as the most vicious and hardned knaves.
All parties, it has been observed, have got a scurvy trick of lying for the truth. But it is not at all to be wonderd that they make no scruple of telling a lie, who think that even by killing their fellow creatures they do God service. ”

“ This Lord Chancellor, albeit he was to God and the world well known to be of notable virtue, though not so of every man considered, yet, for the avoiding of singularity, would he appear no otherwise than other men in his apparel and other behaviour. ”

“ Of Margaret Roper, his admirable wife, the same writer says, that " she was nearest her father as well in wit, learning, and virtue, as also in merry and pleasant talk, and in feature of body. She was to her servants meek and gentle; to her brothers and sisters most loving and amiable; to her friends steadfast and comfortable; and would give very sound counsel, which is a rare thing in a woman. ”

“ In the mean season I was much bound and beholding to John Morton Archbishop and Cardinal of Canterbury, and at that time also Lord Chancellor of England; a man not more honourable for his authority than for his prudence and virtue. ”

“ And he again was of his part so sober to her, so sweet, so modest, and so loving a husband, that if he had not been her husband, it might have seemed to have been her own germane brother, as Erasmus was wont to say of a happy couple. But above all, she was to her father a most natural loving child. ”

“ It is now no mastery for you children to go to heaven, for every body giveth you good counsel, every body giveth you good example. You see virtue rewarded and vice punished, so that you are carried up to heaven even by the chins. But if you live in the time that no man will give you good counsel, no man will give you good example, when you shall see virtue punished and vice rewarded, if you will then stand fast and firmly stick to God upon pain of life, though you be but half good, God will allow you for whole good. ”