In the matters of Religion King Utopus decreed that
“it should be lawful for everie man to favoure and folow what religion he would, and that he mighte do the best he could to bring other to his opinion, so that he did it peaceablie, gentelie, quietlie and sobelie, without hastie and contentious rebuking.”
Yet this same self-contained Sir Thomas More did in his after controversies with Tyndale use such talk of him—about his “whyning and biting and licking and tumbling in the myre,” and “rubbing himself in puddles of dirt,”—as were like anything but the courtesies of Utopia. Indeed it is to be feared that theologic discussion does not greatly provoke gentleness of speech, in any time; it is a very grindstone to put men’s wits to sharpened edges. But More was a most honest man withal;—fearless in advocacy of his own opinions; eloquent, self-sacrificing—a tender father and husband—master of a rich English speech (his Utopia was written in Latin, but translated many times into English, and most languages of Continental Europe), learned in the classics—a man to be remembered as one of the greatest of Henry VIII.’s time; a Romanist, at a date when honestest men doubted if it were worthiest to be a King’s man or a Pope’s man;—not yielding to his royal master in points of religious scruple, and with a lofty obstinacy in what he counted well doing, going to the scaffold, with as serene a step as he had ever put to his walks in the pleasant gardens of Chelsea.
Cranmer, Latimer, Knox, and Others.
A much nobler figure is this, to my mind, than that of Cranmer,[73] who appears in such picturesque lights in the drama of Henry VIII.—who gave adhesion to royal wishes for divorce upon divorce; who always colored his religious allegiances with the colors of the King; who was a scholar indeed—learned, eloquent; who wrought well, as it proved, for the reformed faith; but who wilted under the fierce heats of trial; would have sought the good will of the blood-thirsty Mary; but who gave even to his subserviencies a half-tone that brought distrust, and so—finally—the fate of that quasi-martyrdom which has redeemed his memory.
He stands very grandly in his robes upon the memorial cross at Oxford: and he has an even more august presence in the final scene of Shakespeare’s play, where amidst all churchly and courtly pomp, he christened the infant—who was to become the Royal Elizabeth, and says to the assembled dignitaries:
“This royal infant
Tho’ in her cradle, yet now promises