William Roper

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 that law were in the parliament assembled, ever meant to have any man punished by death in whom there could be found no malice, taking malitia for malevolentia: for if malitia be generally taken for sin, no man is there then that can excuse himself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To this Sir Thomas More mildly made answer, saying, "No man living is there, my lords, that would with better will do the thing that should be acceptable to the king's highness than I, which must needs confess his manifold benefits and bountiful goodness, most benignly bestowed upon me. ”

“ For I nothing doubt but that, though not in this realm, yet in Christendom about, of these well learned bishops and virtuous men that are yet alive, they be not the fewer part that be of my mind therein. But if 1 should speak of those that already be dead, of whom many be now holy saints in heaven, I am very sure it is the far, far greater part of them that all the while they lived, thought in this case that way that I now think; and therefore am I not bound, my lord, to conform my conscience to the council of one realm, against the general council of Christendom. ”

“ And had he not been one that in all his great offices and doings for the king and the realm, so many years together, had from all [56] corruption of wrong-doing or bribes-taking kept himself so clear, that no man was able therewith once to blame or blemish him, or make any just quarrel against him; it would without doubt in this troublous time of the king's indignation towards him have been deeply laid to his charge, and of the king's highness most favourably accepted. ”

“ Whereby as I could gather, he judged that otherwise it would be a disturbance to a great part of Christendom. Thus did it, by his doings throughout the whole course of his life, appear, that all his travail and pains, without respect of earthly commodities, either to himself or any of his, were only upon the service of God, the prince and the realm, wholly bestowed and employed ”

“ SIR THOMAS MORE.
FORASMUCH as Sir Thomas More, Knight, sometime Lord Chancellor of England, a man of singular virtue and of a clear unspotted conscience (as witnesseth [1] Erasmus) , more pure and white than the whitest snow, and of such an angelical wit, as England, he saith, never had the like before, nor ever shall again: universally, as well in the laws of the Realm (a study in effect able to occupy the whole life of a man) as in all other sciences, right well studied, teas in his days accounted a man worthy perpetual famous memory. ”

“ Which Sir Thomas More perceiving, said unto my wife, "I may tell thee, Megg, they that have committed me hither for the refusing of this oath, not agreeable with the statute, are not by their own law able to justify mine imprisonment: and surely, daughter, it is great pity that any Christian prince should by a flexible council ready to follow his affections, and by a weak clergy lacking grace constantly to stand to their iearning, with flattery be so shamefully abused." ”

“ Now while Sir Thomas More was chancellor of the duchy, the see of Rome chanced to be void, which was cause of much trouble. For Cardinal Wolsey, a man very ambitious, and desirous (as good hope and likelihood he had) to aspire to that dignity, perceiving himself of his expectation disappointed, by means of the Emperor Charles so highly commending one Cardinal Adrian, sometime his schoolmaster, to the cardinals of Rome in the time of their election for his virtue and worthiness that thereupon he was chosen pope ”

“ In whose wit and towardness the Cardinal much delighting, would often say of him unto the nobles that divers times dined with him, This child here waiting at the table, whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous man. ”

“ Forasmuch as there be of your Commons here, by your high commandment assembled for your Parliament, a great number, which are, after the accustomed manner, appointed in the Commons' House to treat and advise of the common affairs among themselves apart: and albeit, most dear liege lord, that according to your prudent advice, by your honourable writs every where declared, there hath been as due diligence used in sending up to your highness' Court of Parliament the most discreet persons out of every quarter, that men could esteem meet thereto. ”

“ For if a lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.
Shortly thereupon was there a commission directed to Cranmer, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to determine the matter of the matrimony between the king and Queen Katharine, at St. Alban's, where, according to the king's mind, it was thoroughly determined. Who, pretending, because he had no justice at the pope's hands, from thenceforth sequestered himself from the see of Rome, and so [51] married the Lady Anne Bullen. ”

“ Whereupon Master Palmer upon his deposition said, that "he was so busy about trussing up Sir Thomas More's books into a sack that he took no heed to their talk." Sir Richard Southwell likewise said upon his deposition, that "because he was appointed only to look to the conveyance of those books he gave no ear to them." After this were there many other reasons, not now in my remembrance, by Sir Thomas More in his own defence alleged to the discredit of Master Rich's foresaid evidence, and proof of the clearness of his own conscience ”

“ But by my counsel it shall not be best for us to fall to the lowest fare first; we will not, therefore, descend to Oxford fare, nor to the fare of New Inn, but we will begin with Lincoln's Inn diet, where many right-worshipful and of good years do live full well. Which, if we find not ourselves the first year able to maintain, then will we the next year go one step down to New Inn fare, wherewith many an honest man is well contented. ”

“ Then Sir Thomas More, as his accustomed manner was always ere he entered into any matter of importance, (as when he was first chosen of the king's privy council, when he was sent ambassador, appointed Speaker of the parliament, made Lord Chancellor, or when he took any like weighty matter upon him) to go to church and be confessed, to hear mass, and be houseled; so did he likewise in the morning early the selfsame day that he was summoned to appear before the lords at Lambeth. ”

“ And for proof to the jury that Sir Thomas More was guilty of this treason, Master Rich was called forth to give evidence unto them upon his oath, as he did: against whom thus sworn, Sir Thomas More began in this wise to say: "If I were a man, my lords, that did not regard an oath I needed not, as it is well known, in this place, and at this time, nor in this case to stand here as an accused person. ”

“ Sith, I perceive, most redoubted sovereign, that it standeth not with your pleasure to reform this election, and cause it to be changed, but have, by the mouth of the most reverend Father in God the Legate your Highness Chancellor, thereunto given your most royal assent, and have of your benignity determined, far above that I may bear, to enable me, and for this office to repute me meet ”

“ Whereunto, when they refused to condescend, then said he unto them, Forasmuch as yourselves, my lords, drive me to that necessity for awarding out injunctions to relieve the peoples' injury, you cannot hereafter any more justly blame me. After that he said secretly to me: I perceive, son, why they like not so to do. For they see that they may, by the verdict of the jury, cast off all quarrels from themselves upon them; which they account their chief defence: and therefore am I compelled to abide the adventure of all such reports. ”

“ We may not look, at our pleasures, to go to heaven in featherbeds, it is not the way; for our Lord himself went thither with great pain, and by many tribulations, which was the path wherein he walked thither, and the servant may not look to be in better case than his Master. ”