Thomas King

“ When the Queen saw him she was in a rage, and said he should be beheaded; and he was again put into a mouse-trap until the time of his execution.
However, a cat, observing something alive in the trap, patted it about till the wires broke, and set Thomas at liberty.
The King received Tom again into favor, which he did not live to enjoy, for a large spider one day attacked him; and although he drew his sword and fought well, yet the spider's poisonous breath at last overcame him:
"He fell dead on the ground where he stood,
And the spider suck'd every drop of his blood." ”

“ True Thomas said, “That you should ride while they must stand? “Light down, light down from your horse o' pride, I trow ye talk too loud and hie, And I will make you a triple word, And syne, if ye dare, ye shall 'noble me.” He has lighted down from his horse o' pride, And set his back against the stone. “Now guard you well,” True Thomas said, “Ere I rax your heart from your breast-bone!” True Thomas played upon his harp, The fairy harp that couldna lee, And the first least word the proud King heard, It harpit the salt tear out o' his ee. ”

“ There is no official record of his transference from the common pleas to the king's bench, but it may have taken place in April 1520, when a new judge, Richard Broke, was appointed to the common pleas, to fill a vacancy, apparently caused by the removal of More to the king's bench. He is not known to have distinguished himself in judicial office. Thomas always treated him with the utmost filial tenderness, and is said when chancellor to have invariably visited his father's court to ask his blessing before taking his seat in his own court. ”

“ The young king chose for his chancellor Thomas, the archdeacon, to whose good offices he was much indebted. Thomas’s father, Gilbert Becket, a wealthy trader, had been port-reeve of London. Thomas was sent to school at Merton priory, and was taken away from the school there while still young because his parents suffered serious losses. Nevertheless he was able to study at Paris, and after his return to England was often the companion of a rich noble named Richer de l’Aigle, who took him out hunting and hawking. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the concluding whereof Sir Thomas More so worthily handled himself, procuring in our league far more benefits unto this realm, than at that time, by the king or his council was thought possible to be compassed, that for his good service in that voyage, the king, when he after made him Lord Chancellor, caused the Duke of Norfolk openly to declare to the people, as you shall hear hereafter more at large, how much all England was bounden unto him. ”

“ Upon receiving the news, Sir Thomas told them that this was the storm, and it would give rise to greater commotions in Scotland.
After the death of Queen Margaret, the King married Isabel, daughter to the Earl of Driux; and Sir Thomas told within a few months of an earthquake at Kinghorn, that would make Scotland tremble. An express accordingly came to Cryle to Sir Thomas, that the King had fallen from his horse at Kinghorn, and broke his neck. After the death of Alexander, he left no heirs except a grandchild, Margaret, daughter of the King of Norway, who also soon died ”

“ Froude suggests that Thomas's teaching, if not his hand, is also perceptible in the king's journal (Preface to Pilgrim, vol. viii.; Hist. v. 349) . He also dedicated to the king as ‘a poore newe yeres gift,’ probably in January 1550–1, an English translation from the Italian of Josaphat Barbaro's account of his voyages to the east, which had been first published in Venice in 1543. Thomas's manuscript, which is still preserved at the British Museum (Royal MSS. 17 C. x.) ”

“ INTRODUCTION Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King's Bench, was born in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his earlier education at St. Anthony's School, in Threadneedle Street, he was placed, as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for persons of wealth or influence and sons of good families to be so established together in a relation of patron and client. The youth wore his patron's livery, and added to his state. ”

“ But the merriest was this Shore's wife, in whom the king therefore took special pleasure. For many he had, but her he loved, whose favor, to say the truth (for sin it were to belie the devil) , she never abused to any man's hurt, but to many a man's comfort and relief. Where the king took displeasure, she would mitigate and appease his mind. Where men were out of favor, she would bring them in his grace. ”

“ And finally, in many weighty suits she stood many men in great stead, either for none or very small rewards, and those rather gay than rich, either for that she was content with the deed'self well done, or for that she delighted to be sued unto and to show what she was able to do with the king; or for that wanton women and wealthy be not alway covetous. ”

“ Whoever lifts his voice against abuses, whoever arraigns the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the king to show his commission, or questions the authority of the priest, will be denounced as the enemy of man and God. In all ages reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so pleasing to the Deity as a total denial of the authority of your own mind. Self-reliance has been thought a deadly sin; and the idea of living and dying without the aid and consolation of superstition has always horrified the Church. ”

“ And they think it is the prince's interest that there be as little of this left as may be, as if it were his advantage that his people should have neither riches nor liberty, since these things make them less easy and willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government. Whereas necessity and poverty blunts them, makes them patient, beats them down, and breaks that height of spirit that might otherwise dispose them to rebel. Now what if, after all these propositions were made, I should rise up and assert that such counsels were both unbecoming a king and mischievous to him ”

“ But meseemeth the chance so much the more worthy to be remembered, in how much she is now in the more beggarly condition, unfriended and worn out of acquaintance, after good substance, after as great favor with the prince, after as great suit and seeking to with all those that those days had business to speed, as many other men were in their times which be now famous only by the infamy of their ill deeds. Her doings were not much less, albeit they be much less remembered because they were not so evil. For men use if they had an evil turn to write it in marble ”

“ Whose judgment seemeth me somewhat like as though men should guess the beauty of one long before departed, by her scalp taken out of the charnel house; for now is she old, lean, withered, and dried up, nothing left but rivelled skin and hard bone. ”

“ I doubt not some shall think this woman too slight a thing to be written of and set among the remembrances of great matters, which they shall specially think that haply shall esteem her only be that they now see her. ”

“ And many good folk also that hated her living and glad were to see sin corrected, yet pitied they more her penance than rejoiced therein, when they considered that the protector procured it more of a corrupt intent than any virtuous affection. ”

“ A nose twice broken and moulded variously by countless blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted to twice its size, completed his adornment, while the beard, fresh-shaven as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the face a blue-black stain.
Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or lonely place. And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done anything criminal. Outside of brawls, common to his walk in life, he had harmed no one. ”

“ But few men have contributed more to fill the measure of the glory and prosperity of their country, than the subject of this brief sketch. He was a native of Chester county, Pennsylvania, and born on the 19th day of March, 1734. He was the son of William M’Kean, who immigrated from Ireland when quite young. He placed Thomas, at an early age, under the tuition of the Rev. Francis Allison, then principal of one of the most celebrated Seminaries of the Province, and a gentleman of profound science and erudition. The talents of Thomas soon budded and blossomed like the early rose of spring. ”

“ It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a ringside audience paid to see.
And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now expended it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him. It was his one chance—now or not at all. His strength was waning fast, and his hope was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have beaten his opponent down for the count. ”

“ CHAPTER V. UNSTINTED SERVICE—INSPIRATION—GOES TO THE NORTHWESTERN STATES AS A MISSIONARY—HEALTH FAILS AND HE RETURNS—SHOCKING DEATH OF SON DAVID—LIMB AMPUTATED—PATRIARCHAL BLESSING—INCIDENT IN LOGAN TEMPLE—TRIP TO ENGLAND TO OBTAIN GENEALOGY.
DURING the succeeding few years Thomas spent more time even than usual in the performance of his public duties in the ward, and the marvel is that he was able to make a living and do so much gratuitous work. ”

“ Zounds! for a quiz, a hoax, a joke, a jest, a song, a dance, a catch, a tale, a race, or a row. Tom King would not turn his back on any man in England. A’n’t I the choice spirit of the day, the jolly dog, the roaring boy, the knowing lad, the rare [Pg 211] blood, the prime buck, the rum soul, the funny fellow? Emperor of the Cockonians! Chairman of the Jacks! General of the Lumber Troop! Master of the Mugs! Chief of the Eccentrics! Member of Daffy’s! President of the Flounder Club! Chairman of the Owls! Chancellor of the Two o’Clock Club! Vice-Chairman of the Hard-up Club! ”

“ Thomas isn’t a brute, and his business, which is to look after the virtuous people, demands that he shall have his ammunition to his hand. He doesn’t wear silk stockings, and he really ought to be supplied with a new Adjective to help him to express his opinions ”

“ Congress appointed him one of the first eight brigadier generals, and he commanded a division at the siege of Boston. In March, 1776, he was appointed a major general, and on the 1st of May following joined the army before Quebec. He died of small-pox, at Chambly, on the second of June. General Thomas was greatly beloved by his soldiers, and his judgment, prudence, and firmness commended him to Washington as one promising to do much for the cause of the colonists. ”

“ He was interested in the tobacco trade; in 1715 he conveyed 130 Jacobite prisoners to the American plantations. In 1723, having lost in speculation the fortune which he had inherited from his father, he went himself to Virginia as collector of customs on the Rappahannock river. He died in Jamaica in 1729. A Liverpool street is named Sir Thomas Buildings after him. ”

“ He was translated to Salisbury in November 1761, died there on 19 July 1766, and was buried in the cathedral, where a tablet erroneously gives his age as eighty-five instead of seventy-five. His library was sold in 1767. He left one daughter, married to John Taylor, chancellor of Salisbury. Of his four wives, the first was a niece of Bishop Sherlock. The famous wedding-ring ' posy,' 'If I survive I'll make them five,' is attributed to him.
Thomas seems to have been a worthy man, though weak in the disposal of patronage. ”

“ He grows really enthusiastic over nothing, though occasionally his anger may be aroused. When it is, his rage is terrible. During the campaign in Kentucky, in pursuit of Bragg in 1862, Thomas was second in command of the army under Buell. The new recruits committed many depredations upon the loyal Kentuckians. While the army was passing a small stream near Bardstown, called "Floyd's Fork of Salt River," Thomas was approached by a farmer whom he knew to be a good Union man, and who made complaint that one of the general's staff officers had carried off the only horse left on his farm. ”

“ Educated at home, and afterwards at Cambridge, where he gained an excellent reputation for conduct and study. His father dying when Thomas was twenty-one, he found himself at that early age the Master of Wentworth, of large estates and property, the husband ‘of a fair wife,’ (the daughter of Francis Earl of Cumberland,) and the guardian of a flock of young relatives, yet he found time not only for the diligent pursuit of study, but for the relaxations of ‘hunting, hawking, and fishing;’ in fact, for all the varied business and pleasures of a country life. ”

“ By breaking ground in a dozen obscure subjects—such as Bactrian, Indo-Scythic, and Sassanian coins, Indian metrology, Persian gems and inscriptions—Thomas rendered important services to science, which were recognised by his election as a fellow of the Royal Society on 8 June 1871, as correspondent of the Institute of France in January 1873, and as honorary member of the Russian Academy, and by his decoration as companion of the Indian Empire. ”