More and Lilly think of becoming monks or priests.
Compelled to seek safety in seclusion, More shut himself up in his lodgings near the Charterhouse with William Lilly, another old Oxford student, a contemporary of Colet’s, if not of More’s, at Oxford, who having spent some years travelling in the East, had recently returned home fresh from Italy. More seems to have shared with him the intention of becoming a monk or a priest.[258]
It was possibly not the first time his thoughts had turned in this direction; but he had hitherto gone cautiously to work, taking no vow, determined to feel his way, and not to rush blindly into what he might afterwards repent of.
More thinks of entering the Charterhouse.
Escapes a royal trap laid for him.
He had now taken to wearing an ‘inner sharp shirt of hair,’ and to sleeping on the bare boards of his chamber, with a log under his head for a pillow, and was otherwise schooling, by his powerful will, his quick and buoyant nature into accordance with the strict rules of the Carthusian brotherhood.[259]
It was a critical moment in his life. Soon after his father had been imprisoned and fined, having some business with Fox, Bishop of Winchester, that great courtier called him aside, pretending to be his friend, and promised that if he would be ruled by him, he would not fail to restore him into the King’s favour. But Fox was only setting a trap for him, from which he was saved by a friendly hint from Whitford,[260] the bishop’s chaplain. This man told More that his master would not stick to agree to his own father’s death to serve the King’s turn, and advised him to keep quite aloof from the King. This hint was not reassuring, but it may have saved More’s life.
What would have happened to him had he been left alone with misadvising friends to give hasty vent to the disappointment which thus had crushed his hopes at the very outset of his career—whether the cloister would have received him as it did his friend Whitford afterwards, to be another ‘wretch of Sion,’ none can tell.
When Colet comes to London, More chooses him as his spiritual guide.
More’s letter to Colet.
More alludes to Colet’s preaching at St. Paul’s.
Happily for him it was at this critical moment that Colet came up to London to assume his new duties at St. Paul’s. More was a diligent listener to his sermons, and chose him as his father confessor. Stapleton has preserved a letter from More to Colet,[261] which throws much light upon the relation between them. It was written in October, 1504, whilst Colet, after preaching during the summer, was apparently spending his long vacation in the country. It shows that, under Colet’s advice, More was not altogether living the life of a recluse.
Colet had for some time been absent from his pulpit at St. Paul’s. As More was one day walking up and down Westminster Hall, waiting while other people’s suits were being tried, he chanced to meet Colet’s servant. Learning from him that his master had not yet returned to town, More wrote to Colet this letter, to tell him how much he missed his wonted delightful intercourse with him. He told him how he had ever prized his most wise counsel; how by his most delightful fellowship he had been refreshed; how by his weighty sermons he had been roused, and by his example helped on his way. He reminded him how fully he relied upon his guidance—how he had been wont to hang upon his very beck and nod. Under his protection he had felt himself gaining strength, now without it he was flagging and undone. He acknowledged that, by following Colet’s leading, he had escaped almost from the very jaws of hell; but now, amid all the temptations of city life and the noisy wrangling of the law courts, he felt himself losing ground without his help. No doubt the country might be much more pleasant to Colet than the city, but the city, with all its vice, and follies, and temptations, had far more need of his skill than simple country folk! ‘There sometimes come, indeed,’ he added, ‘into the pulpit at St. Paul’s, men who promise to heal the diseases of the people. But, though they seem to have preached plausibly enough, their lives so jar with their words that they stir up men’s wounds, rather than heal them.’ But, he said, his fellow-citizens had confidence in Colet, and all longed for his return. He urged him, therefore, to return speedily, for their sake and for his, reminding Colet again that he had submitted himself in all things to his guidance. ‘Meanwhile,’ he concluded, ‘I shall spend my time with Grocyn, Linacre, and Lilly; the first, as you know, is the director of my life in your absence; the second, the master of my studies; the third, my most dear companion. Farewell, and, as you do, ever love me.’