The Children's Book of London

by G. E. Mitton

When he landed at the Traitor's Gate, of which you shall hear more presently, the porter asked him for his outside clothes, according to a very bad custom of the time, which allowed the porters to rob the prisoners thus. More gave him his cap, but the man was not content with that, and he had to give his outside coat as well.

It was just the beginning of the summer when the two men went to the Tower, and they were put in separate cells. At first they were not treated badly, and were allowed pens and paper to write letters; but afterwards these were taken from them, and More had to write his letters with a coal. However, he had one great consolation—his daughter was sometimes allowed to come to see him. Perhaps the King thought that she would persuade him to give in and sign the paper so that he might go back home.

When the summer had passed and the weather grew colder, More and Fisher both suffered from the cold, but especially poor old Bishop Fisher, whose clothes were in rags. And it was not until a whole year after they had been sent to the Tower that they were brought up to be tried. More was taken on foot through the streets to Westminster, a very long way—more than three miles. He was dressed in common clothes and surrounded by a guard. Then he was tried at Westminster, and accused of treason in not acknowledging the King's authority, but the real reason was that he would not say the King was right in marrying Anne Boleyn.

He was condemned to death. There was a custom in those days that when a man was condemned to death the executioner walked out of the judgment-hall before the prisoner with the sharp edge of the axe turned backwards towards him.

More had been tried in Westminster Hall, of which you have heard already, and inside there it was very dark; but when he came out into the bright sunshine he was quite dazzled for the moment and could not see. But there was someone else who saw—someone who had been waiting in the crowd in terrible anxiety, and when he saw that axe turned with the sharp edge toward More he knew it meant death; and he gave a great shriek, and thrust himself through the guards and flung himself at More's feet. This was his son-in-law, William Roper, Margaret's husband.

More was allowed to go back to the Tower by boat, and a sorrowful voyage it must have been, not for himself, but for thinking of all those dear ones he must leave.

When he arrived at the Tower he saw standing on the quay two figures—his son John, then a man of twenty-five, and a tall, slight woman in deepest black, his dear Meg. Even the soldiers made way for her as she flung her arms round her father's neck and cried out of her breaking heart, 'My father! oh, my father!'—a cry which so touched some of those rough guards that they turned aside to hide the tears in their own eyes. More tried to comfort her, and presently gently drew himself away. He felt it was almost too much for him; but as she turned away she could not bear to let him go, and once more threw her arms round him with that pitiful cry, and only gave way when at last she sank fainting on the ground.

More then went on and left her so, and when she came to herself she knew it was all over, and that she had no more hope. Six days later, at nine o'clock in the morning, More was led out to suffer beheading, as Bishop Fisher had already suffered. When he had first gone to the Tower he had been a man of middle age with a brown beard and brown hair; now after a year of confinement and anxiety his hair was quite gray. When he was told to make ready for his execution, he put on a silk robe, which when the gaoler saw he asked him to change for a common woollen one. More asked why, and was told that the clothes he was killed in became the property of the executioner, and the clothes he left behind in the Tower were taken by his gaolers, and that this gaoler thought the silk robe too good for the executioner. So More quietly changed to a commoner dress, for it mattered little to him. When he reached the scaffold, he found he was too feeble to climb up the steps without help, and he asked one of the men to give him an arm, adding: 'I pray you see me safe up; as for my coming down, I may shift for myself.' The executioner asked his forgiveness, which was granted; and then More knelt before the block, and carefully put his beard aside, saying: 'That at least has committed no treason.' Then with one stroke his head was cut off. His body was buried near the chapel in the Tower; but, according to the custom of that time, his head was stuck up on London Bridge.