easily convertible into resentment, at More's remaining in permanence outside. Having now divorced Queen Catherine, and married Queen Anne, Henry had caused a bill to be passed through Parliament vesting the succession to the Crown in Anne's children, and imposing as a test of loyalty an oath on all Englishmen, by which they undertook to be faithful subjects of the issue of the new Queen. The oath abjuring the Pope. Commissioners were nominated to administer this oath, and they interpreted their duties liberally. They added to it words by which the oath-taker abjured any foreign potentate, i.e. the Pope. More was summoned before the new Commissioners, at whose head stood Cromwell the Minister, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer. After hearing Mass, and taking the Holy Communion, he presented himself to the Archbishop and his fellow Commissioners at the Archbishop's Palace of Lambeth. The ex-Chancellor was requested to subscribe to the new oath in its extended form. The demand roused his spirit; he was in no temper to sacrifice his principles. He declared himself ready to take the oath of fidelity to the Queen's children, but he declined to go further. He was bidden take an oath that impugned the Pope's authority. He refused peremptorily. He was told that he was setting up his private judgment against the nation's wisdom as expressed in Parliament. More replied that the council of the realm was setting itself against the general council of Christendom. The Commissioners were uncertain what step to take next. They ordered More for the present into the custody of one of themselves, the Abbot of West- More's minster Abbey. The Archbishop was inclined to detention. a compromise. What harm would come of permitting More to take the oath with the reservations which he had claimed? The King was consulted; he also expressed doubt as to the fit course to pursue. The new Queen, Anne Boleyn, had, however, made up her mind that More was a dangerous enemy. At her instance the King and his Minister declared that no exception could be made in favour of More. By their order he was committed to the Tower of London as a traitor, and there he remained a prisoner until his death, some fifteen months later. An old friend, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, had of late gone through the same experience as More, and he was already in the Tower to welcome the arrival of his companion in the faith. Lawyers generally doubted whether the oath of fidelity to the new Queen's issue, as defined in the Act of Parliament, included any repudiation of the Pope; and Parliament was invited to solve this doubt by passing a resolution stating that the double-barrelled oath, The oath of the Act of Succession. as it had been administered to More and Fisher, was the very oath intended by the Act of Succession. More's position was thereby rendered most critical. There was no longer any doubt that he was putting himself in opposition to the law of the land. Legal definition was given to his offence. A bill of indictment was drawn against him; it declared him to be a sower of sedition, and guilty of ingratitude to his royal benefactor. Adversity as it deepened had no terrors for More. His passage from palace to prison did not disturb his equanimity. He had already written in verse of the vicissitudes of fortune. He had represented the scornful goddess resignation. as distributing among men brittle gifts,' bestowing them only to amuse herself by suddenly plucking them More's away "This is her sport, thus proveth she her might; Wherefore if thou in surety lust to stand, Then may'st thou boldly defy her turning chance, She can thee neither hinder nor advance.' There was no affectation in the lines. More wrote from his heart. It was with a smile on his lips that he returned Fortune's ugliest scowl. XV In the In the Tower More's gaolers treated him with kindness. His health was bad, but his spirits were untamable, and when his friends and his wife and children visited him in his cell his gaiety proved infectious. In Tower. the first days of his imprisonment he wrote many letters, punctually performed his religious duties, and penned religious tracts. There was no hope of his giving way. His wife urged him to yield his scruples, ask pardon of the King, and gain his freedom. He replied that prison was as near Heaven as his own house, and he had no intention of quitting his cell. His children petitioned the King for pardon on the ground of his ill-health and their poverty, and they re-asserted that his offence was not of malice or obstinacy, but of such a long-continued and deep-rooted scruple as passeth his power to avoid and put away. His relatives were forced to submit to painful indignities. They had to pay for his board and lodging, and their resources were small. More's wife sold her clothes in order to pay the prison fees. Henry, under the new Queen's influence, was now at length incensed against More. The King and the supremacy of the Church. The likelihood of his mercy was small. Parliament was entirely under his sway. In the late autumn of 1534 yet a new Act was passed to complete the separation of England from Rome. There was conferred on the King the title of Supreme Head of the Church in place of the Pope, and that title, very slightly modified, all Henry VIII.'s successors have borne. The new Act made it high treason maliciously to deny any of the royal titles. Next spring Minister Cromwell went to the Tower and asked More his opinion of this new statute; was it in his view lawful or no? More sought refuge in the declaration that he was a faithful subject of the King. He declined further answer. Similiar scenes passed in the months that followed. But More was warned that the King would compel a precise answer. His corres More's fellow-prisoner Fisher was subjected to the like trials, and they compared their experiences in correspondence with each other. More also wrote in terms of pondence. pathetic affection to his favourite daughter, Margaret Roper, and described the recent discussions in his cell. He received replies. In the result his correspondence was declared to constitute a new offence; it amounted to conspiracy. The prisoner was unmoved by the baseless insinuation. His treatment became more rigorous. Deprived of writing materials and books, he could only write to his wife, daughter or friends on scraps of paper with pieces of coal. More cheerfully abandoned hope of freedom. He caused the shutters of the cell to be closed, and spent his time in contemplation in the dark. His end was, indeed, near. Death had been made the penalty for those who refused to accept the King's supremacy. On the 25th June His trial. 1535, Fisher suffered for his refusal on the scaffold. On the 1st July 1535, More was brought to Westminster Hall to stand his trial for having infringed the Act of Supremacy, disobedience to which was now high treason. The Crown relied on his answer to his examiners in the prison, and on his correspondence with Fisher. He was ill in health, and was allowed to sit. He denied the truth of most of the evidence. He had not advised his friend Fisher to disobey the new Act; he had not described that new Act as a two-edged sword, approval of which ruined the soul, while disapproval of it ruined the body. The outcome was not in doubt. A verdict of guilty was returned, and More, the faithful son of the old Church and the disciple of the new culture, was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn. As he left the Court he remarked that no temporal lord could lawfully be head of the Church; that he had studied the history of the papacy, and was convinced that it was based on Divine authority. The fare well to his daughter. With calm and unruffled temper, More faced the end. As he re-entered the Tower he met his favourite daughter who asked his blessing. The touching episode is thus narrated by William Roper, husband of More's eldest daughter, who wrote the earliest biography of More:- When Sir Thomas More came from Westminster to the Tower-Ward again, his daughter, my wife, desirous to see her father, whom she thought she should never see in this world after, and alsoe to have his final blessing, gave attendance about the Tower wharf where she knew he should pass before he could enter into the Tower. There tarrying his comming, as soon as she saw him, after his blessing upon her knees reverentlie received, she hasting towards him, without consideracion or care of her selfe, pressing in amongst the midst of the throng and company of the guard, that with |