=FISHER'S CHRISTIAN DEATH.=
At nine o'clock the lieutenant appeared. The old man took up his New Testament, made the sign of the cross, and left the cell. He was tall, being six feet high, but his body was bent with age, and his weakness so great that he could hardly get down the stairs. He was placed in an arm-chair. When the porters stopped near the gate of the Tower to know if the sheriffs were ready, Fisher stood up, and leaning against the wall opened his Testament, and lifting his eyes to heaven, he said: 'O Lord! I open it for the last time. Grant that I may find some word of comfort to the end that I may glorify thee in my last hour.' The first words he saw were these: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.[130] Fisher closed the book and said: 'That will do. Here is learning enough to last me to my life's end.'[131]
The funeral procession was set in motion. Clouds hid the face of the sun; the day was gloomy; the streets through which they passed seemed dull and in harmony with men's hearts. A large body of armed men surrounded the pious old man, who kept repeating in a low tone the words of his Testament: Hæc est autem vita æterna, ut cognoscant te solum Deum et quem misisti Jesum Christum. They reached Smithfield. 'We will help you to ascend,' said his bearers at the foot of the scaffold. 'No, sirs,' he replied, and then added in a cheerful tone: 'Come, feet! do your duty, you have not far to go.'[132] Just as he mounted the scaffold, the sun burst out and shone upon his face: They looked unto him and were lightened, he cried, and their faces were not ashamed.[133] It was ten o'clock. The noble bearing and piety of the aged bishop inspired all around him with respect. The executioner knelt before him and begged his forgiveness. 'With all my heart,' he made answer. Having laid aside his robe and furred gown, he turned to the people, and said with gravity and joy: 'Christians, I give my life for my faith in the holy catholic Church of Christ. I do not fear death. Assist me, however, with your prayers, so that when the axe falls I may remain firm. God save the king and the kingdom!' The brightness of his face at this moment struck the spectators. He fell on his knees and said: 'Eternal God, my hope is in thy deliverance.' The executioner approached and bound his eyes. The bishop raised his hands, uttered a cry towards heaven, and laid his head on the block. The doomsman seized his heavy axe, and cut off the head at one blow. It was exposed by Henry's orders on London bridge; but soldiers carried the body to Barking church-yard, where they dug a lowly grave for it with their halberds. Doubts have been thrown upon the details of this death; we believe them to be authentic, and it is a pleasure by reporting them to place a crown on the tomb of a Roman-catholic bishop whose end was that of a pious man.
It was now the turn of Sir Thomas More. On the 1st of July, 1535, he was summoned before the court of King's Bench. The former Chancellor of England quitted his prison in a frieze cloak, which had grown foul in the dungeon, and proceeded on foot through the most frequented streets of London on his road to Westminster. His thin pale face; his white hair, the effect not of time but of sorrow and imprisonment; the staff on which he leant,[134] for he walked with difficulty, made a deep impression on the people. When he arrived at the bar of that tribunal over which he had so often presided, and looked around him, though weakened by suffering, with a countenance full of mildness, all the spectators were moved. The indictment was long and perplexed:[135] he was accused of high-treason. Sir Thomas, endeavoring to keep on his feet, said: 'My Lords, the charges brought against me are so numerous, that I fear, considering my great weakness, I shall be unable to remember them all.' He stopped: his body trembled and he was near falling. A chair was brought him, and after taking his seat, he continued: 'I have never uttered a single word in opposition to the statute which proclaims the king head of the Church.'—'If we cannot produce your words,' said the king's attorney, 'we can produce your silence.'—'No one can be condemned for his silence,' nobly answered More. 'Qui tacet consentire videtur, Silence gives consent, according to the lawyers.'[136]
=SIR THOMAS MORE SENTENCED.=
Nothing could save him: the jury returned a verdict of guilty. 'Now that all is over,' said the prisoner, 'I will speak. Yes, the oath of supremacy is illegal. The Great Charter laid down that the Church of England is free, so that its rights and liberties might be equally preserved.'[137]— 'The Church must be free,' said the lawyers: 'it is not therefore the slave of the pope.'—'Yes, free,' retorted More; 'it is not therefore the slave of the king.' The chancellor then pronounced sentence, condemning him to be hanged at Tyburn, and then quartered, while still alive. Henry spared his illustrious subject and old friend from this cruel punishment, and ordered that he should be merely beheaded. 'God save all my friends from his Majesty's favor,' said Sir Thomas, 'and spare my children from similar indulgences.... I hope, my lords,' said the ex-chancellor, turning meekly towards his judges, 'that though you have condemned me on earth, we may all meet hereafter in heaven.'
Sir William Kingston approached; armed guards surrounded the condemned man, and the sad procession moved forward. One of the Tower wardens marched in front, bearing an axe with the edge turned towards More;[138] it was a token to the people of the prisoner's fate. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the court, his son, who was waiting for him, fell at his feet distracted and in tears: 'Your blessing, father,' he exclaimed, 'your blessing!' More raised him up, kissed him tenderly, and blessed him. His daughter Margaret was not there: she had fainted immediately on hearing of her father's condemnation.[139] He was taken back to prison in a boat, perhaps to withdraw this innocent and illustrious man, treated like a criminal, from the eyes of the citizens of London. When they got near the Tower, the governor, who had until then kept his emotion under, turned to More and bade him farewell, the tears running down his cheeks.[140] 'My dear Kingston,' said the noble prisoner, 'do not weep; we shall meet again in heaven.'—'Yes!' said the lieutenant of the Tower, adding: 'you are consoling me, when I ought to console you.' An immense crowd covered the wharf at which the boat was to land. Among this crowd, so eager for the mournful spectacle, was a young woman, trembling with emotion and silently waiting for the procession: it was Margaret. At length she heard the steps of the approaching guards, and saw her father appear. She could not move, her strength failed her; she fell on her knees just where she had stood. Her father, who recognized her at a distance, giving way to the keenest emotions, lifted up his hands and blessed her. This was not enough for Margaret. The blessing had caused a strong emotion in her, and had restored life to her soul. Regardless of her sex, her age, and the surrounding crowd, that feeble woman, to whom at this supreme moment filial piety gave the strength of many men, says a contemporary,[141] flew towards her father, and bursting through the officers and halberdiers by whom he was surrounded,[142] fell on his neck and embraced him, exclaiming: 'Father, father!' She could say no more; grief stopped her voice: she could only weep, and her tears fell on her father's bosom.[143] The soldiers halted in emotion; Sir Thomas, the prey at once of the tenderest love and inexpressible grief, felt as if a sword had pierced his heart.[144] Recovering himself, however, he blessed his child, and said to her in a voice whose emotion he strove to conceal: 'Daughter, I am innocent; but remember that however hard the blow with which I am struck, it comes from God. Submit thy will to the good pleasure of the Lord.'
=MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER.=
The captain of the escort, wishing to put an end to a scene that might agitate the people, bade two soldiers take Margaret away; but she clung to her father with arms that were like bars of iron, and it was with difficulty that she could be removed.[145] She had been hardly set on the ground a few steps off, when she sprang up again, and thrusting those who had separated her from him she so loved, she broke through the crowd once more, fell upon his neck, and kissed him several times with a convulsive effort. In her, filial love had all the vehemence of passion. More, whom the sentence of death had not been able to move, lost all energy, and the tears poured down his cheeks. The crowd watched this touching scene with deep excitement, and 'they were very few in all the troop who could refrain from weeping; no, not the guards themselves.'[146] Even the soldiers wept, and refused to tear the daughter again from her father's arms. Two or three, however, of the less agitated stepped forward and carried Margaret away. The women of her household, who had accompanied her, immediately surrounded her and bore her away from a sight of such inexpressible sadness. The prisoner entered the Tower.
Sir Thomas spent six more days and nights in prison. We hear certainly of his pious words, but the petty practices of an ascetic seemed to engross him too much. His macerations were increased: he walked up and down his cell, wearing only a winding-sheet as if he were already a corpse waiting to be buried.[147] He often scourged himself for a long time together, and with extraordinary violence. Yet at the same time he indulged in Christian meditations. 'I am afflicted,' he wrote to one of his friends, 'shut up in a dungeon; but God in His mercy will soon deliver me from this world of tribulation. Walls will no longer separate us, and we shall have holy conversations together, which no jailer will interrupt.'[148] On the 5th of July, desiring to bid his daughter a last farewell, More took a piece of charcoal (he had nothing else), and wrote to her: 'To-morrow is St. Thomas's day, and my saint's day; accordingly, I desire extremely that it may be the day of my departure. My child, I never loved you so dearly as when last you kissed me. I like when daughterly love has no leisure to look unto worldly courtesy.[149] ... Farewell, my dearly beloved daughter; pray for me. I pray for you all, to the end that we may meet in heaven.'